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Iframe question...

Perenista

iPF Noob
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Sorry if this is the wrong place to pose this question, anyway I appreciate your input on this...

I uploaded a video to Google Drive;
Created a blog in Blogspot;

Then I inserted a code like this in one of my blog posts:

Code:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/846584654387634856344545/preview" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

1) When using my PC, I can go to fullscreen and select the video quality/subtitles (another button);

2) When using Safari for iPAD, I can see the video quality/subtitles button, but can't go to fullscreen;

3) >>>>> When using Mercury Browser for iPAD with user-agent "Safari (iPhone Mobile)", I can't see/use the video quality/subtitles button, but now I am able to go fullscreen;

4) >>>>> Google Drive's app from Applestore can't use the video quality/subtitles button, but is also able to go fullscreen;

5) >>>>>>> Puffin browser (app from Applestore) is able to use the video quality/subtitles button and go fullscreen. However I stopped using for good, for 2 reasons:

- Video takes a lot of time to load. In Safari, it takes a couple of seconds. Using Puffin, over 10. Don't know why, but it looks like it's either my iPAD that is slow (4th gen, last iOS), or this is to be expected;

- Even when the video is playing, it looks like playback is stuttering. I mean, not running smoothly, as the same browser does in the Youtube website. BTW, Puffin supports Flash, but until recently, this functionality was paid and lasted only a short time;

**********

My question is: why 2) is happening? Can it be fixed by using another CODE in my personal blog/website or I need to wait for future iOS updates? This is a major letdown.
 
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Since many sites can go full screen video in Safari on the iPad, I can only guess that it has something to do with Blogspot's video service. Not a help, I know; but you might find a better answer in their support forums. Perhaps a better chunk of code to use to insert videos.

As for Puffin, it can be (and often is) slow because it routes websites through a browser on a remote server, then re-serves the content to your iPad. Besides the extra steps, if their servers are loaded down things get even slower.

They do this because Puffin's primary feature is the ability to show Flash sites and content. There is no support for Flash on the iPad, so using a remote browser with Flash support is just about the only way to get around the limitation.

For what they do, they are the best; but there are no 'excellent' Flash work arounds for iPads.
 
Since many sites can go full screen video in Safari on the iPad, I can only guess that it has something to do with Blogspot's video service. Not a help, I know; but you might find a better answer in their support forums. Perhaps a better chunk of code to use to insert videos.

As for Puffin, it can be (and often is) slow because it routes websites through a browser on a remote server, then re-serves the content to your iPad. Besides the extra steps, if their servers are loaded down things get even slower.

They do this because Puffin's primary feature is the ability to show Flash sites and content. There is no support for Flash on the iPad, so using a remote browser with Flash support is just about the only way to get around the limitation.

For what they do, they are the best; but there are no 'excellent' Flash work arounds for iPads.
This is not happening due to Blogspot, I am glad you asked. I tried the same code in another server, this time a index.htm page, and failed again to go to fullscreen. I hosted in 000webhost.

I know there is no support for Flash on iPAD, however this is a little more complicated than that. You can watch the video on Safari, so it's not using only FLASH, and you can adjust resolution and subtitles. However you can't go fullscreen.

Here's the warning saying FULLSCREEN IS NOT SUPPORTED BY YOUR BROWSER (in portuguese: "seu navegador não tem suporte para tela-cheia"):
http://postimg.org/image/4dnqss5l3/

I took the above snapshot from Safari. If it were Flash only, Safari would have hidden the entire player from that page.

I hope there's a workaround for this, maybe another CODE instead of this IFRAME one I posted. If not, this is really a sad development of things...
 
I wasn't trying to imply that the problem was due to Flash; only explain why Puffin was so slow. While it was not your primary question, you did say you didn't know why it was so slow in Puffin. Puffin is slow because of the way it works, and it works that way because it supports Flash.

I did understand that the problem was that the video was not playing in full screen. Since Safari does play full screen video from some sites, then the problem is that however you are embedding full screen (there is more than one way) is not supported in Safari. The first, logical, place to look was the site itself. Since that's not the problem then it must be something else.

Looking closer, I see you are hosting the video from Google Drive. So my next guess is that whatever video streaming service Google Drive uses has compatibility problems with Safari. Remember this is a guess. I'm just following a chain of possibilities, hoping we'll eventually discover the culprit; and hopefully find a way around the issue along the way.

I have Google Drive, so I'll do a little experimenting and see if I can stream video directly, and whether I can use full screen in the app, and/or in Safari from there. It will take a bit. First I need to find and upload a test video.
 
I wasn't trying to imply that the problem was due to Flash; only explain why Puffin was so slow. While it was not your primary question, you did say you didn't know why it was so slow in Puffin. Puffin is slow because of the way it works, and it works that way because it supports Flash.
I suspected that was the case. Why they would resort to such a thing is beyond me, since this prevents you from loading the video in less than... 30s to a minute. Rendering this browser useless for that purpose. Besides the slowdown when playing any video, and I wasn't able to hide one small feature from this browser even while going fullscreen.

Here's a short video I uploaded elsewhere, in case you or anyone wants to upload something to Google Drive and test it:
MEGA

Also available is a short SRT file, the text it contains doesn't make any sense, but you can add to this video and check if the subtitle button works with it.
 
Ok. I tested it, and yes it seem to be a problem between Google Drive and Safari. Playing directly from the Google Drive app I can get full screen. Heck, it was full screen before I tapped the expand button. All the expand button did was change where the controls showed up. Weird.

In Safari, going to the Google drive site, the video could not be expanded. I got the same error you did when attempting it. I then followed the Learn More link, which was mostly uninformative about Safari. It did say one interesting thing. It talked about 'enabling' full screen on your browser. There is no such permission or setting in mobile Safari, or most browsers. The only browser they mention by name is Firefox. Well, and Chrome (which also doesn't expand the video).

It is highly unlikely that either Apple or Google is intentionally blocking the feature. Safari does full screen with many other sites. Google obviously wants you to be able to do full screen. So it's a bug. On who's end is hard to say. Google is always 'adjusting' it's services with new and innovative (and not always standard) features; and of course all OS's have bugs. Apple is no exception.

You can send feedback to Apple here: Apple - iPad - Feedback Don't expect an individual response, but it may help in the long run.

You could send feedback to Google as well, since there's no telling who's fault it is. It could easily be a bit of both.
 
OP, have you tried hosting your video on YouTube rather than Google Drive?
That ceased to be an option when some were blocked by that obnoxious content ID thing.

How Content ID works - YouTube Help

In Google Drive as far as I know you may even post XXX stuff and don't fear it will be blocked... As long as you keep all contents to yourself and don't publicly advertise the videos or any other private links from stuff you have.
 
OK, for the record I tried using the embed code from Youtube on my blog and watching on iPAD. I used another IFRAME code, exactly that Youtube sends us.

This is what happened:

http://s4.postimg.org/qtskq4okd/image.png

As you can see, fullscreen works, and we are able to change between subtitles, only when going fullscreen. However, we can't see the resolution button and that subtitle button when not fullscreen.

I noticed this is how it looks like is going to work with the iPhone user-agent in the Mercury browser for iPAD, with the difference that the subtitle is not being displayed.

So, sadly this confirms that the Safari browser does support fullscreen. It's just that GOOGLE is somehow preventing this browser from working as it should, when it comes to Google Drive IFRAME. Apple is not to blame on this matter, from what I understand.

I hope Google fixes this issue.
 
Thanks for the update.

You could try DropBox. I believe they also support streaming video these days; though the 2 GB free limit makes that kind of limiting. There is also Flickr who now supports video. I've never tried embedding a video from either of these.
 
I found a link I was looking for:

Can I use... Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc
Known issues

What does it mean that it does not support fullscreen API?

P.S. I tried adding subtitles to Internet Archive. It worked. But you aren't going to believe this... Fullscreen works in Safari for iPAD, and subtitles are displayed, but the moment you go fullscreen, they vanish!



(Click to enlarge)

What a piece of trash the iPAD is...
 
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OK, here's a response I gave in another online board about this. I had to explain bit by bit to an user that didn't bother to read the whole thing.

********I'm sorry, too much rambling. Can we try one thing at a time? What are you having trouble with?

I upload videos to my server all the time. Tap the preview poster (400x400) to get a preview (400x320) of the video running with controls displayed below the video. The controls allow you to pause/play, go fullscreen, control volume, and scrubbing.

********

Ok, let me try one thing at a time. I'll ask the questions and you will answer them, ok?

1) Do you own an iPad?

2) Do you know the iPad has multiple browsers, such as safari and chrome?

3) Do you know we can watch videos in any of them?

4) Do you own a blog or personal website?

5) Do you know how to embed a video in them?

6) Do you realize that if you copy and paste this code in your blog/website

Code:
<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B21fQyiIJBBnWms0S2UyaUFNeWM/preview" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

And then, using safari/chrome/whatever browser from an iPad, you will see the embedded video, but won't be able to go fullscreen?

7) Did you know that if you do the same and copy/paste the embedded code from an YouTube video, provided by the video's page, and then try to go fullscreen in the iPad, it will not only go fullscreen but display the subtitles, if available?

8) Did you know that even if you manage to go fullscreen by changing the user-agent from an iPad browser to "iPhone" you will be unable to see subtitles and change the video's resolution? And doesn't that means that Google drive goes fullscreen in an iPhone but not in an iPad?

9) Did you know that Google responded me multiple times and instead of acknowledging they have imposed this restriction, they can only give me the same responses, claiming it's all fine and I should complain to Apple, but they never used an iPad to investigate the issue?

10) Do you understand that none of the aforementioned issues happen in a PC (personal computer)?

11) Do you agree that any person who says everything is fine is either mocking or messing with me, making me wasting time stating they didn't even spend seconds trying to verify this issue? Or perhaps they might live in another planet and never heard of a tablet with a browser before?

12) Have you noticed that if you copy the embedding code from internet archive's player and try to reproduce the video in an iPad, it will go fullscreen?

13) Have you also noticed that while the internet archive player can go fullscreen and display subtitles just like YouTube, when going fullscreen in an iPad the subtitles vanish? So that you can only see them when not using the fullscreen mode? Isn't that another epic fail?

14) When I noticed 13) I was beginning to think that safari/iPad needs to be improved by Apple. Then I went back to 7) and realized that YouTube was already displaying subtitles in fullscreen mode. Isn't that odd? Doesn't it screams that Apple is not to be blamed at all?

15) Have you noticed that Google drive app available in Apple Store can go fullscreen when you visit your email accounts and click on your files, but does not display any subtitles added by you, to your videos, and can't change the video's resolution?

P.S. Google sent me these emails, I read them for the first time minutes ago:

Thank you very much for your patience.
I really appreciate your interest in Google Drive. Unfortunately, that feature is not something Drive supports at this time. The team is working hard to enhance the product, so you can stay up-to-date on the latest news and features via our blog: googledrive.blogspot.com/.
Having this functionality is excellent suggestion! Google is constantly adding features, and it'd be awesome to have one of your ideas come to life! I really do like that idea and want to get it to the engineers. They love to get feedback directly from customers and take it very seriously. In order to get your suggestion to the engineers, please submit feedback following these steps:
  1. Click the gear icon from the top right.
  2. Select "Help"
  3. Choose "Send Feedback"
Then, follow these online instructions for how to use Google Feedback: Google Feedback

If you have any more questions about Google Drive, please reply to this email. I'm happy to help!

Thanks!

Adrian
The Google Support Team
Hello,

First off, I just want to say awesome job on investigating this issue and finding the cause. I would like to suggest submitting feedback directly to the google drive developers so they can fix your issue. To do this:
  • Click on Settings (the Cog Wheel) in the google forums.
  • Click on Help and Feedback
  • Click on Send Feedback
Once submitted, your feedback will be placed in a database that the google developers will look over. You know the issue inside and out and you've done a great job on compiling the information surrounding this issue.
Best of luck to you!
-Tyler M

P.S. 2 the feedback was sent to Google. It should be noted that if you are using an iPAD, you can't send a feedback by following this link: Google Feedback

You won't be able to type any text to the box. I used a PC and sent it. I hope someone reads and fixes this issue.

P.S. 3: Also added my comments here:
Issues - apps-api-issues - This project is a place to report issues with the Google Apps APIs. *Note*: This project is exempt from the read-only timeline listed above. Please continue to file issues here. - Google Project Hosting

Please, if someone is reading this, send the same comments to Google, too, so that we may have this improvements one day.
 
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They updated the Google Drive app for iPAD and now it is able to play audio files.

I hope they can at least allow this app to read subtitles, if they aren't willing to fix this for iPAD. I had high hopes of using the iPAD for my private Netflix (if you know what I mean), but now I find these plans have gone south. Kinda looks like the iPAD was released yesterday, for all these constraints to still be in place.
 

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