No sound in videos when uploaded with android app

[shawnggraham]

I have had a hard time with adding video content from an android phone.  Everything works fine with the web interface but when using the alfresco android app, it does not record the sound with the video.

[afaust]

What kind of video are you uploading via Android app (mimetype / audio + video encoding)? I would expect that there is proper audio, but just in an encoding that cannot be handled by default.

[shawnggraham]

Im sure your right on that but i see no way to adjust this in the process of uploading directly from the android app so it must be in how the application is encoding it.  This is why im somewhat confused.

Here are the details of the issue.

(Here is what DOES work ->) If i open my camera on the phone and take a video it gets stored on the camera first.  I then open the alfresco content management app (android) and use it to upload the video the same way i would upload any other file.  I then go to alfresco share and view it in the in-browser video player and  everything works fine. 

After examining the the recorded file details here is the information on the file

Video codec = H.264 (Baseline Profile)

Audio codec =MPEG-4 AAC

Channels = Stereo 

(Here is what DOES NOT work ->) To streamline input to specific projects we first open the alfresco content management app (android), we browse to the folder we want to upload the video content to.  Then we click on the + icon to add content and we select the video camera icon on the bottom of the page.  The camera opens and we shoot the video, verify we want to upload by clicking on the Check mark and then the video begins upload.  After this process if we browse to the alfresco share and watch the movie in the in-browser video player the video plays, but there is NO SOUND? 

After examining the the recorded file details here is the information on the file

Video codec = H.264 (Baseline Profile)

Audio codec = Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR)

Channels = Mono

It is the same camera/phone in both cases and we have tried it on several different phones with the same results.  The only thing i can assume is that the alfresco app is encoding the video with a different codec than the phones default and it is not compatible with the in-browser codec used by alfresco share. 

At first i thought that the app may be missing the sound entirely however, If i download any of these videos that lack sound in the in-browser video player and run them on say...vlc player there is indeed sound in the video and it works.

If i had to guess, It appears to just be a codec mismatch between the Phone application and alfresco share in-browser video player...

I hope its resolvable as this is(as trivial as it seems) a really helpful feature as we can have several people then working on one project live and as they shoot video it is kept in one project folder and we do not have to do any shuffling around of things later on.

Thanks ahead of time and i hope this helps someone else out as well.

[shawnggraham]

I would even be ok with a fix that meant adjusting the in browser video player parameters to play videos with the codec = Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR). Im not to concerned about the stereo sound just..that there is sound. In retrospect, that sort of fix would only increase the types of videos that could be played via the player.  It would however mean a change in server install/setup and not really address the issue that seems (at least to me) to be originating at the android app.

[afaust]

The Alfresco App is not encoding anything - all encoding is still done by the actual recording application, but it may be that by triggering the camera application from within the Alfresco App, it is called with some specific parameters that change the default behaviour / encoding. Did you create a support case / JIRA issue / feedback with Alfresco directly (this platform is NOT a support system).

[shawnggraham]

Ok, if the application is calling the phone with certain parameters (and i can see no other possibilities on this) then it is an aspect of the application that needs to be changed (default settings page...something along those lines). As far as creating a support case / JIRA issue / feedback with Alfresco directly? Every time i try and locate a bugtrack for this application i get pointed to the alfresco forums (here basically),  I thought this was the place for that.  Do you have a link where i can request a feature such as a default settings that would include "audio/video codecs preferred"? 

[afaust]

The public issue tracker is backed by JIRA (new issues typically get filed in the ALF project and are then moved to the appropriate sub-projects after triage). Enterprise customers (those paying for support) have access to a special Support Portal. This platform / forum is typically a good starting point for any question, but if you feel something is a bug / incorrect behaviour, it certainly does not hurt to also create an issue so you may have a chance to get an "official" response while discussing this with other community members.