Support in a Web View
Android 4.3 and earlier, the WebView technology available to developers is based on the Android Browser.
Android 4.4 and later is based on Chromium (the engine behind Chrome). When running Xibo on 4.4 or higher the Web View implementation automatically changes to use the newest available technology.
The <video> tag is understood by all versions of the android browser and chromium, however there are specific problems with each type of file you might want to play (remember that from 4.4 you need to look in the Chrome for Android column and not the Android Browser column):
Video tag: http://caniuse.com/#feat=video
WebM: http://caniuse.com/#feat=webm
Mpeg-4: http://caniuse.com/#feat=mpeg4
All HTML5 support: http://caniuse.com/#compare=android+4.1,android+4.2-4.3,android+4.4,android+4.4.3&compare_cats=HTML5
In all cases the HTML5 video will not start automatically and needs to be started by JavaScript, which might be the missing item from content. From 1.4/1.6 R37 this happen’s automatically.
Video Codec
In addition to the above the video must have a supported codec and container. Please see My Video won’t play properly
Xibo for Android
XfA uses a web view to play any embedded or web page media from the CMS. This means that any HTML5 video sent to Xibo for Android will come under the above terms.
Our conclusion
We have seen HTML5 video work on so few devices that we cannot offer support for it. After extensive testing it appears to be down to the firmware on the device and the implementation of the web view on that firmware.
Workarounds
Depending on the required result, Xibo for Android does offer several potential workarounds. Many HTML5 video requirements are focused on providing a streaming video from a RTSP/HLS video stream. These types of streams are natively supported in Xibo for Android using the Local Video Module. This module needs to be enabled in the CMS by clicking on Modules under the Administration section and then can be added to a Layout as normal.
More complex HTML5 video requirements often relate to overlaying dynamic content on top of a video. For these requirements Xibo for Android does support layered, overlapping regions and as an alternative HTML5 video, it would be possible to have a video as a “background” in one Region and overlay other content on top. This achieves the same result as a lot of HTML5 video content in web pages. Support for this is not natively available in the CMS and it is necessary to manually position two regions on top of each other.