Note: Many issues with playback using the MediaFront module are usually due to improperly formatted/encoded files. Please take the time to learn how to properly format and encode your files.

See HTML 5 Video File Formats and Encoding for video specific information

Introduction

Different browsers/devices do not support the same media formats in their implementations of HTML 5 audio. This due to mainly patent issues, open-source vs. proprietary and disagreement over which is the "best" format.

To make your audio work in the latest versions of all major browsers, you will need to serve your video in both MP3 format and OGA format.

MP3: Internet Explorer and Safari
Oga: Firefox 3.5+, Opera 10.5+

View a complete Browser Compatibility table.

Formats In Depth

Audio formats consists of two layers:

  1. The container format that wraps the audio codec, but doesn't contain the raw data itself.
  2. The audio codec which contains the actual, encoded audio samples.
Container Audio Codec File Extension
MP3 mp3 .mp3
OGA Vorbis .oga

Additional Encoding Info

MP3

ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself.

There are two unrelated versions of ID3: ID3v1 and ID3v2. For best playback your MP3 file should use ID3v2. This places the tag at the beginning of the file allowing the file to be played almost immediately instead of waiting for the entire audio file to load before being able to hit play.

MediaFront Supported Formats

MediaFront supports a range of file formats for playback of audio on your website. However, MediaFront does not decode the media files itself. Instead, it relies upon the browser (in HTML5 mode), the Flash plugin (in Flash mode).

MediaFront will figure out which rendering mode to use on which browser/device for your files.

The 7.x-2.x version of MediaFront supports the playback of the following audio file formats:

ogg, oga and mp3

Troubleshooting

Make sure to test your audio playback in multiple browsers, Operating Systems and devices to see if you can replicate the issue you are having before proceeding. Isolating which browser, OS and device that are causing the issues will aid in determining which solution might be best.

Issue: The player doesn't play your files.

Solution: The mimetype might be set incorrect or not at all on your server. The mimetype must be set, or HTML5 browsers refuse to play the files.

Read:
Setting mimes type in Apache
Setting mime types in Windows IIS
Setting mime types using cPanel

Issue: Audio does not start playing until the file finishes completely loading.

Solution: ID3 Tag (which contains the file's meta information) is located at the end of your file. (i.e. Your file is using ID3v1 rather than v2)

How to do this?

  1. In iTunes, right-click your file
  2. Select 'Convert ID3 tags'
  3. Check off 'ID3 tag version'
  4. Select 'V2.4'