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alienresident / video-fix-videos-for-pseudo-streaming.md
Last active April 20, 2024 05:02
How to: Fix pseudo-streaming videos by moving Moov Atom
How to:

Fix pseudo-streaming videos by moving Moov Atom

Relies on some *nix CLI utilities: mediainfo; and qt-faststart (part of ffmpeg). I used homebrew to install them on OS X.

What is pseudo-streaming?

Pseudo streaming is simply a video that can start playing before it's fully dowmloaded. The videos are not streaming but rather progressively downloaded. What's important is that the file metadata (the Moov Atom) is at the start of the file rather than at the end. Usually this is an option set when encoding the file (called quick start or web start). If the files have not been encoded this way you can either re-encode or use a utility to move the Moov Atom. Re-encoding takes much longer than using a utility to move the Moov Atom so here's how to do it.

Steps

First check with mediainfo to see if video 'is streamable':