Android problems

Android is picky about the particular format of H.264 it can play back. Technically it only supports Baseline profile and I’d recommend making it Level 3.1. Your video is Main, Level 4.0. I see you’re using Handbrake, which is a good start. If you change the profile to baseline and the level to 3.1 it will probably work on Android devices.

Thanks! I’ll reencode tonight and try again.

Hi Kyle,
I re-encoded, but no luck. There’s still no video on my Android smartphone. Is there anything else I should change?

The level is now 3.1, but the video still appears to be “Main” profile rather than “Baseline”. It does play on my Nexus 4 in Android 4.4 but Baseline is the highest officially supported H.264 profile for Android.

You can get information about your video’s encoded format using Mediainfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Also, are you testing with an original Motorola Droid or is it more recent? What version of Android are you running on those devices? HTML5 video is basically non-functional in Android 2.2.

Oh, and 1080p is often a problem for mobile playback. You might get better results with 720p or less.

Thanks, Kyle. It’s JellyBean, and it’s odd because I set Handbrake to “baseline.” I’ll try again–maybe it’s also a 1080p problem–and thanks for the Mediainfo info. I really appreciate your taking the time for this!