H.264 Videos

This topic explains the H.264 format that you can use for uploading and playback of videos, various ways you can upload videos in H.264 format, and information about the required version of Flash to use this format.

Brightcove supports and recommends the H.264 format for uploading and playback of videos. H.264 is a video compression technology in the MPEG-4 standard, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10. The Brightcove Adaptive Encoding Engine creates H.264 videos that are delivered with higher-quality video and less bandwidth than many alternative encodings. H.264 encoding also provides the best options for mobile video delivery. As a partial tradeoff, decoding H.264 requires more CPU resources on the client side than VP6 (.flv) videos.

When you upload an H.264 video using the Media module, you have the following options:

• Use your source H.264 as the video for playback, without additional transcoding. (Note however, that your source H.264 might be transcoded, if it is not already encoded with appropriate metadata.)
• Have Video Cloud transcode the source H.264 into a single VP6 (.flv) video for playback.
• Have Video Cloud transcode the source H.264 into multiple VP6 (.flv) videos for multi-bitrate streaming playback.
• Have Video Cloud transcode the source H.264 into multiple H.264 videos for multi-bitrate streaming playback, and optionally retain the source H.264 video as an additional multi-bitrate streaming rendition. This option lets you retain an H.264 master that can be at an even higher level of quality than the highest-quality rendition from Video Cloud. In addition, when you select this option, your H.264 source video is available immediately, as soon as the upload completes, and you don't have to wait for the video to be transcoded before it is available in the Media module and in your players.

You can also upload videos in any supported format other than VP6 (.flv) and The Brightcove Adaptive Encoding Engine can transcode the videos into H.264 renditions, as described in the topic, Uploading Videos with the Media module. For more information, see:

• Supported Video Codecs and Containers (for H.264 video)
• Choosing H.264 Encoding for Your Videos
• Uploading Videos with the Media module
• Using Multi-Bitrate Streaming

You can also upload video files Using FTP Batch Provisioning or the create_video method described in the Media API Reference. With either FTP batch provisioning or the Media API, you have the option of having your video files transcoded by Video Cloud into multiple H.264 or VP6 renditions, or you can provide your own H.264 or VP6 renditions for multi-bitrate streaming. You also have the option of retaining your H.264 video file as an additional rendition.

You cannot use H.264 video content with version 2.0 players created in the Brightcove Console. You need a player created in ActionScript 3.0, like all of the players created in Video Cloud 3 or later.

Required Flash version

H.264 video content requires viewers to have Flash version 9.0.115.0 or later; VP6 videos require Flash version 9.0.28.0 or later. Video Cloud players detect the version of Flash that viewers are using. By default, if viewers are using a Flash version earlier than 9.0.28.0, the player prompts them to upgrade their version of Flash. If you are using H.264 video in a player, you should include the minorRevision configuration parameter in your publishing code, so that the player prompts viewers to upgrade to Flash version 9.0.115.0:

For JavaScript publishing code:

<param name="minorRevision" value="115" />

For ActionScript publishing code:

config["minorRevision"] ="115"