Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Archive/MP4 uploading

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MP4 uploading

  • Problem: Users can't upload directly their MP4s, and they have to use an "external" system (video2commons) and, most of the times, upload it before to YouTube so it can be grabbed. This creates some problems: video uploading is not encouraged, video production depends on other services and we can't enrich articles. Currently, nearly all the publishing platforms in the world allow using a wide variety of formats, and we are the only one not allowing to upload the most used video format. New users can't use the video2commons solution, because they don't have permissions in Commons, so we can't make video creators engage in our project and they won't free license it anywhere.
  • Who would benefit: Readers and uploaders. Also people who isn't aware of the video format we need to use
  • Proposed solution: Allow MP4 uploading directly, to everyone without restrictions.

Discussion

This was a community decision that would have to be overturned before WMF developers could work on this I think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:52, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

mp4 is a proprietary format I don't think it works well? Gryllida 22:53, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As of earlier this year, all MP4 patents are now expired, so it is no longer patent-encumbered. TheDJ is correct though that Commons would need to have a new RfC to overturn the results of the old RfC before the WMF could work on supporting it. Kaldari (talk) 05:10, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is a 2014 decision, at that time patents was not at the same stage as today, and also a RfC is just a consult... If here we have enough support, is not necessary a RfC there. However, I believe that the priority should be a internal transcoder to .webm, upload videos at WCommons is painful. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton m 06:56, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As a video editor working for a Wikimedia chapter, I strongly support rethinking the blanket ban on uploading .mp4 files. I am not sure that Kaldari is correct about .mp4 patents expiring though - I thought it was .mp3 patents that expired earlier this year. However, if they are correct and .mp4 is also out of copyright, this would be a very good reason to have an RfC about changing the ban on these files. As a video editor, .webm is a poor quality format, which cannot anyway be used in common editing programmes like Adobe Premiere Pro. If I wanted to use video files from Commons, I currently have to transcode them into a usable format, which would be of low quality, and then when I output the file again, I'd have to transcode back to webm. The result of all this is that Commons is totally useless to video makers. This has also created a situation where we don't have many video makers in our community who could press for change. If we could change this, Commons would become the most important and useful resource for video makers on the internet. --Jwslubbock (talk) 12:22, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Or it might be the MPEG-2 (h.262) patents Kaldari was thinking of. But MP4 is apparently often used with h.264/MPEG-4 AVC, for which the last patents apparently don't expire until at least 2028. I don't know about other video codecs that might be used with MP4. Anomie (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, you're right, I was thinking of MPEG-2 video! Who's using this new-fangled MPEG-4? In that case, this wish is pretty much impossible, as the Commons community isn't going to agree to support a patent-encumbered format. Kaldari (talk) 17:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree with this proposal. Today, MP4 format is a standard everywhere and why shouldn't we make life easier for people contributing to Wikimedia projects. --Luky001 (talk) 00:38, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

there are some tools not let you feel the transcoding work, video2commons notably: https://tools.wmflabs.org/video2commons/, which make it easy to contribute mp4. but - i needed to use google to find it. imo a simple interface like video2commons should be standard. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 06:33, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ThurnerRupert: Can't you just insert magic word __INDEX__ to your files, so your files are hard-coded indexed by all search engines around the world? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:39, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OTOH, @TheDJ and Gryllida: Then why do we allow seleted users to have specific permission to upload MP3 files? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:07, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Liuxinyu970226: MP3 files no longer have any patents. Uploads of these are only restricted because people feared that Commons would be used as a website to share 'illegal' mp3s and that the community would not be able to keep up with reviewing them. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:39, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The main blockers for this proposal are social and legal, not technical. If a new RfC on Commons overturns the existing consensus against uploading MP4, we would be happy to reconsider. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ryan Kaldari (WMF): Why isn't this proposal in the voting list? -Theklan (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Theklan: The Commons community already decided that they don't want to allow MP4 video (by a wide margin). The Community Wishlist is not the appropriate forum to overturn that decision. If you start a new RfC on Commons and it looks likely to pass, I would be happy to re-open this proposal. However, it seems unlikely that Commons will choose to accept MP4 until all of its patents have expired. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 03:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ryan Kaldari (WMF): I'm not suggesting to store MP4 in Commons, but to allow uploading it. You can upload MP4 to the system and then make the conversion to webm in order to have the file. In other words: YouTube allows the uploading of virtually any file and then stores it in mp4 format. Let's do the opposite! -Theklan (talk) 08:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Theklan: That was one of the options that was proposed at the previous RFC, but it didn't receive a lot of support. Ryan Kaldari (WMF) (talk) 18:25, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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