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iWeb movie doesn't work after publishing

E

els80

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 17, 2007
17
0
Hi there,

I'm using the movie template in iWeb to add a simple 5MB mpeg4 video to my website. (I've also tried adding mpg as well) It drags in fine, and plays. But after publishing it's either not there, or shows the QuickTime icon with a question mark over it.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks so much!

Emily
 
Well, it's a video that is just on my mac...not online. Is there a video site I could upload it to?
 
els80 said:
Well, it's a video that is just on my mac...not online. Is there a video site I could upload it to?
Click to expand...

well you had said that you had tried to publish it, and when viewed online it just had the question mark. i was wondering if you could give that url.

either way, i don't think it has to do with the video. the problem is either some sort of odd iWeb issue, or a quicktime plugin issue (that would be my guess). I would try reinstalling quicktime, or choosing to republsh the whole site (depends where you are publishing to. if its to mobileme, this might work. if you are publishing to a folder, then you could probably forget that idea)
 
I'm having the same issue, and I've only just bought the computer I'm using.

I publish the website to a folder, then upload it to my webserver via FTP (because it doesn't work via direct FTP), and none of the videos play. It shows the thumbnail and the QuickTime logo with no question mark super-imposed on it, but then the damn thing won't play.

I've tried accessing it from alternate computers. On a PC with Firefox it shows the QuickTime logo, this time WITH a question mark.

At first I thought it was a format issue, so I re-encoded my videos to mp4, but that didn't work either. Same results. Is iWeb '09 borked?

Casey.
 
This was a burning question I had, that no mac person has answered yet because it seems most people out there don't test view their iweb sites with PCs, and in all the forums I've seen ask this question, people just say "Update your Quicktime plugins"

Also, they address the photo gallery issue, which is a different issue and it has been resolved with a hack. Well, I installed the hack into iweb 09 and it didn't fix the quicktime problem.

Well, I'm here to tell you I haven't found the answer yet, but would love to know the answer.

I have come to the conclusion that iweb is flawed.

Anything made in iweb 08 or 09 that uses quicktime- .mp4 movies, or audio .mp3 files, or even .midi files ALL SHOW UP AS BROKEN QUICKTIME QUESTION MARK LINKS IN FIREFOX ON PC. (Firefox 3.0.7 with QT plugin 7.6)

However, they work on PC using IE.

They also work on Mac in Firefox.

But since the majority of people use firefox on PC, it renders iweb useless for now, which is a shame because it could be really useful if it supported audio/videos.

In iweb 07, quicktime actually worked in firefox, but I can't remember if it worked in IE.
 
So in conclusion, anyone using iweb and exporting to a folder and uploading your site via ftp, I hope you don't have any quicktime media, becuase if you do,

ANYONE WITH A PC USING FIREFOX CAN'T SEE YOUR FILES.

They are appearing as broken quicktime logos.

I am saying this because I am frustrated that Apple hasn't fixed this yet, and I am afraid for all the people who don't even know potential clients/friends/family can't see their media. I think a lot of people don't even realize their sites aren't working for many viewing it.
 
Resizing the video in IWEB caused my problem

I had a similar problem with faulty video playback and i found that it i caused by resizing the video from its original format (I tweaked it in IWEB to make it fit better on the page). Once i switched it back to its original size everything played perfectly online.
 
Easy Breezy

I should get free macbook pros for life for figuring this out for Apple (anyone know Steve Jobs?). Okay, here's all you have to do to fix your problem, because I just spent about 5 hours on the same thing for a business presentation that could have ruined me...

Are you ready for it?

Here it is...

--Insert the Quicktime video into a textbox

That's it.

After you do that it will play like perfect on any web browser on any computer (as long as their quicktime is updated).

You're welcome in advance.
 
buenosueno, you had me really excited there for a minute.

I went and tried what you suggested. In fact, I made a test page with the same video (not resized), one in a textbox, and one not in a textbox.

I made another page with a midi file, one in a textbox, and one not.

None of them work under firefox on PC. The problem in iweb hasn't been fixed!

buenosueno, which browser did you use to test? And how did you "insert" the video into a textbox? I had to select the video, command+c to copy, then select text inside the textbox and command+v, to paste the video inside the textbox. Once published to a folder and viewed in firefox, it didn't work. It just shows the broken quicktime icon.

Explorer works, but I need firefox to work!
 
Firefox or Quicktime Plugin the problem

I used easy breasy's solution and it worked quite nicely --- except in Firefox in Windows. Internet Explorer, Safari for Windows and even Google Chrome playback the embedded quicktime video fine, but Firefox you just get the quicktime logo with a question mark. Back to the drawing board. Meanwhile I hope the iWeb development team is seeing this --- I think the program has some major gliches when it comes to posting video in a web page. You shouldn't have to insert a video as if it were text to make it work. But thanks easy breasy for finding this, at least, partial solution.
 
used Vimeo....

So I completely gave up on trying to make my Quicktime movies work in iWeb under all browsers, and instead embedded a Vimeo link. Works like a charm...

(upload your video to Vimeo, change the player to how you want it, copy the embed code, paste it into an HMTL widget. voila.)

Just an idea for those who are completely frustrated, as I was....

JMFlint
 
iWeb doesn't work for videos - workaround

the problem is when you allow iweb to resize the video you inserted - when you insert the video, open the inspector and check whether the video has been re-sized - go to the 'ruler' icon and press the 'original size' button to make your video the same size as the original file. Now when you publish the file it will work in all browsers - if you wanted to re-size it, you need to use a different prog such as MPEG streamclip (free great program) to do it. Annoying, but it works for me.
 
found solution for Safari

I encountered the same problem - made a site with a video using iWeb and it wouldn't view in Safari (but would in Firefox).

The solution is this - allow pop-up windows in Safari. Weird right? But seems to work.

It seems that to Safari the iWeb-made page contains a pop-up that is the video....
 
even stranger - now that I viewed the page once I can now view it with pop-ups turned off....

No matter whether I turn pop-ups on or off though, can't get it to work on my iPhone with Safari (can't get it to work in opera browser either)
 
solution found!

Ok people, IT geeks, so called experts & dweebs at Apple!
I'm a dentist.. which makes me one badass SOB who will stop at nothing to find the solution to a problem coz it darned well needs to be fixed today.. I can't stand the pain!

So like all you guys I started building my website on the all shiney iWeb thingy.
It all looked so simple, but then came the pain.. the hours and hours of pain.
First trying to find a way to upload to my webspace because I don't have a .me thingy and don't want to pay for Apple's version of webspace. I want my business URL, not some random mac.me URL.

So I learn in a day all about FTPing and find myself an easy to use FTP client (CrossFTP, free via cNet)

And then came the torture when I couldn't get my videos onto the site.
So I find a couple of free pieces of software to convert files into versions that Apple's QuickTime can play.
So now my movies are little mp4 files to keep the size small.

Everything is looking smooth in iWeb, I save to a folder, I view the folder, cool, it's all looking sweet.

I upload with crossFTP to my webspace and lo and behold like all you guys I get the Q? Logo of Death!

So I spend some time surfing til I come across this thread and another which tell me not to change my movie's dimensions, use the 'inspector' 'ruler' tab to 'keep size original' but that doesn't work.

BUT THEN I SPOTTED iWEB's BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you are on this tab in 'inspector' and you first insert your .mp4 movie in the filename dialogue box the file is listed correctly as blahblah-video.mp4
If you navigate away and come back you'll notice that the sneaky ******* Apple iWeb software has changed the file extension to .mov so now it reads blahblah-video.mov

So I had this thought... not understand diddly squat about how html or internet thingies work, maybe my webpage is hunting for a .mov file to play but all I've uploaded is a .mp4 video!

So now I had to hunt for where iWeb and the internet hunts for the file it wants to display and I found them all sneakily huddled together in a folder called "MEDIA". And there all my .mp4 were, nicely hibernating together for shared warmth but my guess .. never being disturbed by the internet thingy trying to access them because it was looking for .mov files.

So I wondered to myself. If I change the file extensions to .mov would they play in Quicktime.

I opened Quicktime, I copied my files to my desktop and changed their extensions to .mov and clicked with my fingers crossed... Quicktime played them without any fuss..

So I rubbed my palm with glee and an evil grin and thought.. what if I just change the file extensions in my "MEDIA" folder and reupload them.. would the internet thingy hunting for .mov files be fooled.

MUUUUWAAAHAHHAHA!! It worked!

My iWeb designed website now plays my info videos, true they take a minute or so to upload because they're kinda chunky (14-20MB) but they play.

Check it out

http://www.thechrysalis.co.uk

So, let's hear it for Dentists.. We kick Computer Geek butt!!


Oh yeah and further more the iweb program is such a little biaaatch, every time you make a mistake and go back to change your website design and re-save it, every .mov file will have an addendum tacked onto the end of it's file name.

So for example if you were clever enough to rename your file blahblah-video.mov but later go back and make some other edit to your site all your videos dissappear again... WHY?

Becasue scumbag iWeb just went and changed what it hunts for to blahblah-video-1.mov

make another edit and it changes the search to blahblah-video-2.mov

The solution, get your website how you want it, and if you do make a change, after you save it take a look at the inspector filename for every video, read the extension then go to your "media" folder in your uploaded website and change the file names to match.

Your Welcome,
Dentist signing off
 
FLV to iweb

I've heard that many PC users don't have quicktime and I wanted to post a professional video on iweb but not have people unable to open it regardless of Mac or PC.

I've heard FLV is good format for everyone? Can I post an FLV file to iweb?

If not what is the best option for uploading video to iweb so all users can easily see?
 
How to Play Videos on your iWeb Website

I wanted to put a video on my website created in iWeb, but like everyone else on this forum (and doubtless thousands more frustrated people) all I saw when I visited my published (to FTP) website was the big blue QuickTime “Q” with a question mark on it.

I tried all the logical options, and some not so logical, and nothing worked.

On macbookairtime’s suggestion I reinstalled QuickTime but that didn’t help.

Following the advice of poliz and banzaibuddy I reset the video to its original size but that didn’t help either.

Then I inserted my QuickTime video into a textbox as buenosueno recommended, but that too didn’t work.

I tried uploading my 2.5MB video file to Vimeo as per JMFlint’s advice, but by the time it reached 250 MB of upload size on vimeo.com I bailed out of that.

I noted EnricoSalad’s suggestion of allowing pop-ups in Safari, but I didn’t want to have to ask every visitor to my site to allow pop-ups in order to view my video.

Then I tried Doc Raj the dentist’s solution of changing my video’s extension to “.mov” but sadly that didn’t work either.

BUT THEN… I WORKED OUT HOW PLAY A VIDEO IN MY iWEB WEBSITE !!!

Here’s the secret: You need to convert your video in iTunes into an iPod/iPhone version. It’s that simple!

Here’s a step-by-step guide of what I did:

I copied my original video file (MPEG-4 video file) onto my desktop and then closed all open files.

I opened iTunes (my version is 9.03(15)) and went to the “LIBRARY/Movies” directory, resized the iTunes window so I could see my video file on my desktop, and dragged my video file into the iTunes LIBRARY/Movies directory.

I then selected my video in the LIBRARY/Movies directory (one left-click) and from the pull-down menus at the top of the screen I clicked on “Advanced” and then clicked on “Create iPod or iPhone Version”. (Conversion takes a while but you do see a progress bar so you know how far you’ve got.)

On completion of the conversion, I now had two files with the same name in the LIBRARY/Movie directory. I noticed that the converted file had increased in size to 8.3 MB.

To make sure I was using the converted file and not the original, I renamed the converted file by adding “iPod” to the front of the filename. This I did as follows: Right-click on the converted file in the LIBRARY/Movies directory; click on “Get Info”; click on “Info”; change the filename and click “OK”.

Right, so now I had an iPod version of my video in iTunes.

Next, I opened iWeb and went to the site page of my website where I wanted my video to play. (Obviously, I had already created all the rest of the website.)

From the pull-down menus I clicked on “View” and then on “Show Media”. In the Media box that opened to the right of my screen I clicked on “Movies” and selected the “iTunes” directory, which duly showed my new video file with “iPod” at the beginning of the filename.

I dragged my video file onto my website page, and resized it. (I made it bigger by dragging one of the small white squares on the corner of the video image.)

Then I clicked on “File” and “Save” from the pull-down menus, and then clicked on the green arrow at bottom left to publish my website.

A dialogue box appeared saying “Publishing will now continue in the background”, and I clicked on “OK”.

After a little while a new dialogue box appeared saying “Your site has been published.” I clicked on “Visit Site Now” and went to the video page on my newly published website (which only took a few seconds to load) and lo and behold, instead of the dreaded blue-Q-question mark, there was my video!

I was able to play it by clicking the “Play” triangle at bottom left of my video as well as simply by double-clicking on the video.

I checked my site in Safari and Firefox on my mac, and in Internet Explorer on my PC, and in every instance my video played perfectly.

By the way, this process worked just as successfully when I loaded a QuickTime movie file onto my website.

I hope this helps!
 
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