I have been trying to add video to the kobo forms, but have been failing. I’m not finding any resources to fully explain how it is done and what actions need to be taken. Any assistance will be appreciated.
What have I done?
I have successfully added both image and audio files to the form and it works.
When adding video to the form, I can see the video player in the form, but nothing can play.
Tried to upload video files of various formats including mp4, avi, ogg, mov etc.
Where is the issue?
The issue lies that when I select to upload a media file, it never uploads or “sticks”. I can see the upload moving.
Welcome to the community! You could have a look at our support article How to use the ‘video’ question type to learn how to use the video question type in KoBoToolbox.
Thank you for the assistance and quick response. It is greatly appreciated.
We have been following the support article “Adding media to your form” like a bible and can see that the media formats appear within the form successfully. The image file shows the image, audio shows the audio player and there is a video player within the form. Both the image and the audio are successful in execution. We used .png and .wav
However, video fails at the upload stage. If you navigate to Form > Settings > Media, select “+ Add document” > “Choose File”, find your video file. In our case we first attempted with a mp4 and then select upload.
In the bottom left corner we see "Uploading (…%)… followed by “Waiting for kc.kobotoolbox.org…” And then nothing. The video file is then never uploaded.
Questions:
Is there a bug with uploading video files?
Is there a specific video format that is accepted for upload?
Is there something we are doing wrong?
Is there a workaround?
Hope this gives some more context to our issue.
Thank you and the community for the assistance provided.
did you find out anything about this issue? As I perceive it, the problem still exists: .mp4 files are not uploaded (are not shown in the uploaded media list in Kobo) // .3gp files are uploaded and shown in Enketo. But within Enketo the video-player says something like “no supported video or MIME type found”. This applies to version 2.019.52 (own server) and the current official Kobo deployment (2.020.30).
I’m thankful for any ideas or hints, since the problem seems to persist for at least a year and sometimes have to integrate video files within the form.
Hi @DSimon
The issue seems to be the browser as opposed to the web form applications. Can you check the browser and see if the extension .mp4 can be played off the browser. A quick check would be trying to open it on different computers and see if this theory holds.
“Different browsers do not support the same media formats in their implementations of HTML5 video and audio, mainly because of patent issues. The area of media formats on the Web has greatly suffered from patent law in many countries - including the USA and EU countries (the notes on patents in this article is provided as-is and without any warranty.) This article discusses the different codec and container combinations relevant to the web, including support in browsers on both desktop and other device types.”
The main problem is, that I am not able to upload .mp4 files in the media-section of a project in Kobo. I select them from my hard drive, hit “Upload” and wait for the upload to finish. Normally the uploaded file should now be shown under “Existing form files” but it doesn’t.
The problem regarding the playback of vides in Enketo is indeed browser-dependend. Using .3gp files, which are correctyl uploaded in an project’s media-section, Chrome is able to play the video, while Firefox is not.
I also noticed, that in a form with multiple languages, the video will only be played when switching to the first language listed in the language selector. In the underlying XLSForm all languages’ media::video columns point to the same video file. But thats another topic…
Kindly please be informed that we are currently looking at this issue (as there may be an issue with uploading video files viz. mp4 format). Will let you know once we resolve this at our end.
This issue is solved now by following instruction. As you know, you can upload images and audio files to the server of KoBo Toolbox but you cannot upload the videos.
Here is the tips.
As usual, you have to add the videos file name e.g. [video.mp4] under media::video Column header. Then you need to put the video files to your mobile phone manually. You have to copy and paste the videos to the folder location: /odk/forms/formname-media on your phone, After that, the videos will be linked to the KoBo collect on your mobile. hopefully.
After replacing the form with this particular XLS, I have redeployed the form.
I went to media section of settings tab and uploaded the required video:
Thanks @stephanealoo for the suggestion.
But practically, it is not possible to get this done at field level in more than 70 mobile phones. In such case, I would prefer using other mediums to circulate the message in the team groups that is easy for the team also to follow.
However, I would request the Kobo team to please resolve this issue as I feel that building it in form would always be the most preferred option.
Media file (in mp4 format):
Unable to upload an mp4 format as the platform does not support the same. Try using any sample that is available at your end.
