Millisecond Forums

What's the file type / file extension of that video?

I tried it with a .mov and a .wmv - neither work

Okay, thanks. Trying to figure out whether the size is the issue or whether something else is going on?
- Are you able to upload any *small* MOVs or WMVs or do they throw errors as well?
- What are the full file names of the videos you are trying to upload? Do they contain any special characters?
- Have you changed your account password recently? If so, have you tried logging out and back in prior to uploading?

the files are labelled, for example, neutral_video.mov so only an underscore. 

And yes, I just tried to upload a a shorter video which only measured 2mbs and that did upload. 

So is this a file size problem? If so, what are my options? 

Great, thanks. Looks like it's the size then.
What you can do unilaterally:
- Decrease size of the videos if possible (1 or 2 MB less should be sufficient; ~25MB is right around the current upload cap).
- If you have your own webspace available, you can host your videos there (they need not reside on the millisecond.com server). I.e., it is perfectly possible to do

<item myvideoitems>
/ 1 = "http://www.myserver.com/mydirectory/myvideo.wmv"
...
</item>

If neither of the above is viable, we can increase the upload limit.

Ok thanks for letting me know. I will re-render them. However, before I do, and attempt to upload them, I am wondering whether the next problem will be the total experiment size?

I have 3 conditions in my study (of which participants receive only one). Each of these has both a mov and wmv associated with it (to solve the codex issues), so that's 6 videos of around 20 mbs each. Will that 120mb total go over the total experiment limit? 

Also, am I right in thinking that even though participants only receive one of the six videos, they will still have download the entire set to run the experiment?

It is these kinds of difficulties  that lead me to think streaming a video in a html window would be a much better option, but as we were discussing in the other thread, there seems to be a very inconsistent performance from Inquisit's web player in doing that.  

I just published an update to the file uploader, so you should no longer see that error with a 25MB file. (Please let me know if it persists.)

The quota for all combined files in the experiment is currently set at 40MB, but you'll see an informative error message if your upload would exceed it.

If you have access to another web server, you could host them video files there and edit your script so that Inquisit downloads them from your server. 

As for streaming, this will be supported in Inquisit 5.

Thanks,
Sean

Thanks for the reply Sean. Unfortunately I do not have access to my own server, so does this mean it is simply not possible to run this experiment with Inquisit 4?

OK, while I wait for your reply to the last question (which I am intuiting is a no), I thought I'd ask one final question on this topic – addressed to either Dave or Sean, or any one else that has had any experience: if I do get my own server space and upload the video stimuli to that, will my participants still need to download ALL the videos associated with the experiment? or will it work (hopefully) that only the videos associated with the assigned experimental condition (1, 2 or 3) and detected operating system (win or mac) get downloaded? If it is the former, which will entail an 120mb download, then I really see no way of making this kind of study work with Inquisit (I can already see the mTurk lynch mob finding a suitable tree). If it is the latter  (a 20mb download) then that is much more feasible and I can see this study working. 

Thanks for your time/advice,