58 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
# Raw Videos / Audio #
|
|
|
|
Want to host your own video/audio files for use on CyTube? For servers with the
|
|
ffprobe module enabled, CyTube supports this! However, in order to provide a
|
|
consistent experience, there are limitations.
|
|
|
|
## Hosting the File ##
|
|
|
|
CyTube requires a direct link to the file in order to query it for metadata such
|
|
as duration and encoding. The website where you host the file needs to be able
|
|
to serve the video directly (rather than embedding it in a flash
|
|
player/iframe/etc.). It also needs to serve the correct MIME type for the video
|
|
in the `Content-Type` HTTP header, e.g. `video/mp4`.
|
|
|
|
I don't recommend hosting videos on Dropbox-type services, as they aren't built
|
|
to distribute video to many users at a time and often have strict bandwidth
|
|
limits. File hosting sites such as Putlocker also cause problems due to being
|
|
unable to serve the file directly, or due to binding the link to the IP address
|
|
of the user who retrieved it. For best results when using raw video, host the
|
|
video yourself on a VPS or dedicated server with plenty of bandwidth.
|
|
|
|
Note that CyTube only queries the file for metadata, it does not proxy it for
|
|
users! Every user watching the video will be downloading it individually.
|
|
|
|
## Encoding the Video ##
|
|
|
|
Current internet browsers are very limited in what codecs they can play
|
|
natively. Accordingly, CyTube only supports a few codecs:
|
|
|
|
**Video**
|
|
|
|
* MP4 (H.264)
|
|
* WebM (VP8)
|
|
* WebM (VP9)
|
|
* Ogg/Theora
|
|
|
|
**Audio**
|
|
|
|
* MP3
|
|
* Ogg/Vorbis
|
|
|
|
If your video is in some other format (such as MKV or AVI), then it will need to
|
|
be re-encoded. There are plenty of free programs available to re-encode video
|
|
files, such as [ffmpeg](http://ffmpeg.org/) and
|
|
[handbrake](http://handbrake.fr/).
|
|
|
|
For best results, encode as an MP4 using H.264. This is natively supported by
|
|
many browsers, and can also be played using a fallback flash player for older
|
|
browsers that don't support it natively. Always encode with the
|
|
[faststart](https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264#faststartforwebvideo)
|
|
flag.
|
|
|
|
### Subtitles ###
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately, soft-subtitles are not supported right now. This is something
|
|
that may be supported in the future, but currently if you need subtitles, they
|
|
will have to be hardsubbed onto the video itself.
|