Flagship portfolio .mp4 video from Amazon CloudFront needs 2 clicks to play

We are using a jw player for embeds of a streaming .mp4 from Amazon CloudFront when placing the videos into blog posts.

When placing the same videos in the portfolio in the Flagship theme, the video turns white and spins as if it cannot find the video… If you know to click a second time over the middle of the video thumbnail, it then starts to play.

This occurs both when multiple portfolio items are displayed and where the single item is displayed.

We would like to make it so it works in one click.

We would also like to make it so if a visitor clicks on the Thumbnail Image from the top level of the portfolio (where all the items are listed), the visitor will be taken to the point where he then has the chance to read the description or play the video when he is ready (rather than having the video play like an embed at the top level)

Ideal behavior = Visitor clicks thumbnail image, is taken to playable video with description, can play video when ready.

this works with YouTube… How can this be accomplished with a streaming .mp4 video? Are we missing a step or setting? (Interesting note: when no thumbnail is used, the video plays on one click… But it has a black rectangle with a play button instead of a nice image until you play it)

We believe the bundled Avia portfolio has a built-in player, so these features may be part of what is wrong. Perhaps settings could be optimized, but we have tried various setting combinations. If JW player could be integrated or otherwise made to work with the portfolio, that may be an approach to consider…

Thank you in advance for any help with this. I expect it may be useful to others, as well…