Know issue from post 2015. The Overlay Player keeps loading on mobile devices.
The previous post refers to using the client review app but this is not sufficient for production use as it is build for clients to review.
As all other functionality works perfect, can we have a look at fixing or having an alternative Overlay Player when loading the mobile webpage?
Cheers,
Bert
Hi Bert,
Welcome to the forums!
Can you let us know what OS and Browser you are using on Mobile?
I’ve just tested Chrome on my Android and the overlay player works as expected.
Please note that the overlay player on Safari has a bug which is out of our control and we caveat that we don’t support the overlay player for safari, check out the doc below.
Also to note, I believe that other web browsers on IOS are built upon Safari, due to Apple restrictions, even Chrome, so you may experience the same issue with a non safari browser on an IOS environment, more details in this Arstechnica post.
Hi David,
As you said this was working for you on Android I`ve been wondering what else could at the base for this problem that this is not working for me.
First of all I think I`ve been wrongly naming the problem. From what I understand now is that the “Overlay Player” is the small preview on the thumbnail that plays on the shot page and not the actual version player when you would click on that thumbnail.
The problem I have been having it that the actual version doesn`t play. It keeps loading on this screen… (Only on IOS mobile devices.)
When looking further into this my idea is now that mobile IOS devices have problems with the WebM codec SG is doing an automatic conversion to.
Am I correct when stating that this video I`m trying to play here is WebM codec since we do not do local transcoding?
We are running a second SG instance were we are doing our pipeline development on. Is it an option to just switch to MP4 format on that account for testing? Or would it be an idea to switch to local transcoding so we can test if the codec is the reason for our problems?
Thanks for the followup,
Bert
Hey Bert,
Sorry for the long delay, I’ve been off on holidays. As for the transcoding, the global transcoder creates 2 files, a .mp4 and a .webm. Depending on the browser it will use the one that it prefers. By default, both are created.
Are you seeing the same issue on a non IOS device?
Hi David,
No problem! Hope you had good holidays.
We did indeed check this on a Microsoft surface tablet and discovered that here it was working fine.
I did find online that IOS (mobile) devices still do have problems with .webm files. Therefore I was hoping that simply changing to .mp4 files would solve this problem.
Hope this information helps you, if you would like us to test something please do send along. We have a development shotgun instance where we can do our pipeline tests.
Kind regards,
Bert
Hey Bert,
One thing you could try is to remove either the mp4 or webm from a version and see if it plays? Let me know your site URL and I’ll make the fields that the 2 files are stored in visible in your webbUI
Hi David,
Since there was no big pressure from our side on this topic it has been a while now. We have tested a lot of things and were looking forward to the new transcoding update from SG in the hope this would fix the problem. Unfortunately I have to inform it has not.
A small summary of the current status.
The issue: When playing media on an IOS device the loader keeps spinning with a “Preparing Media…” message.
Debugging: We have tested if the issue had to do with the media format by using local transcoding our files to multiple formats. We also tested with the new transcoding method from shotgun but both attempts were unsuccessful.
However when clicking the uploaded file or .mp4 data field link we are able to play the video in the new opened browser tab (Direct movie data without SG overlay player).
Conclusion: The issue remains and seems to be located withing the overhead of the media being played. (SG overlay player)
Extra: Previous suggested solution to use the “Shotgun Review app” does not suffice as we are losing to much functionality/overview of the project with this app.
I am wondering if we are the only company using Ipads for taking notes in client meetings, cinema screening sessions or quick (non quality) reviewing on the road.
For now, the hassle continues for taking notes in external applications and copying this to Shotgun later.
Greetings,
Bert
PS: I would like to add this post to the IOS category and give it an #ios
We are having exact same problem, right now.
In our production, most of the clues use ipad to check the Shotgun on set.
Our solution for now is to watch them on “View source file” in the setting.
Hi @Dicekay,
We are currently using the same working method as a last resort.
Sadly I do not feel any response towards this very old bug.
Yeah, this iOS support is crazy bad.
The app doesn’t seem to send emails to my entire team or let you respond to notes, but it does actually play clips.
The website doesn’t work on Chrome at all
The website on Firefox or Safari almost works, except the size of the interface pushes the notes column off screen in regular review mode on an iPad and it will spin at “preparing media” forever without actually loading and displaying a clip.
It’s basically unusable for on the iPad, which makes it really hard for those of us using one constantly on set. It’s crazy to think I’ll have to bring a laptop just for Shotgrid reviews and my iPad for nearly everything else.
I’m shocked that there is not one fully functional iOS way to use this software and that the “supported browsers” list is many, many versions old.
Hi all,
I have amazing news on this topic. With the new iOS 15 (beta) update for Ipad the player issue seems to be resolved! For those who don’t have access to the beta, the release is coming soon.
You can now play your movies in browser.
The full screen option and drawing on frame still doesn’t work but with the root issue being fixed I hope dev at Shotgrid can now have a fresh look at these smaller issues.
Grt,
Bert
