Deprecate/remove Ogg Theora video output formats in favor of WebM
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	• brooke
	Aug 3 2017, 8:05 PM

Description

The ogv.js media player shim used for Safari/IE/Edge supports WebM in current versions, but we also generate Ogg Theora video output which are currently used *only* with the ogv.js output mode as the Ogg Theora videos play back a bit faster.

In the short term, we're having trouble migrating ffmpeg2theora for Ogg Theora generation to the latest version of the base OS for the scalers (T145742)... and in the long term we'll need to drop Ogg to support adaptive streaming, so was already planning to deprecate it.

Todo:

enable WebM playback in ogv.js mode (T172444)
remove the Ogg video formats from $wgEnabledTranscodes
-> move on to server migration T145742

Details

Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
Remove ffmpeg2theora from package list	operations/puppet	production	+0 -2
Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config	mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler	wmf/1.30.0-wmf.15	+6 -2
Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config	mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler	master	+6 -2

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Status	Assigned	Task
Resolved	• MoritzMuehlenhoff	T143536 Upgrade all mw* servers to debian jessie
Resolved	None	T144006 Move the MW Beta appservers to Debian
Resolved	• MoritzMuehlenhoff	T145742 Migrate video scalers to jessie
Resolved	• brooke	T172445 Deprecate/remove Ogg Theora video output formats in favor of WebM
Resolved	• brooke	T172444 Enable WebM playback for ogv.js video player shim

Event Timeline

• brooke created this task.Aug 3 2017, 8:05 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptAug 3 2017, 8:05 PM

• brooke added a parent task: T172444: Enable WebM playback for ogv.js video player shim.Aug 3 2017, 8:06 PM

• brooke added a subtask: T145742: Migrate video scalers to jessie.

• MoritzMuehlenhoff subscribed.Aug 4 2017, 8:07 AM

Tentatively setting User-notice because "On very slow computers or at very high resolutions, you may hit CPUlimits at one resolution step lower than with Ogg."

What would be the timeline for this (if possible to say)?

@Johan sometime in the next few weeks (it's holding up a server migration for the video scalers so we don't want to wait too long). We can pick a date if that helps with any required messaging; I just don't want to flip the switch in the middle of Wikimania while we're all busy. ;)

Note that 'ogg' and 'ogv' video file uploads will still work (auto-converted to WebM for output), but the 'ogv' video derivatives will stop being produced. Ogg audio files are unaffected.

A date is always appreciated. (:

Let's say we flip the switch Wednesday, August 23, 2017? That gives some time to finalize the patches after Wikimania, and avoids the eclipse day when people are likely to be busy. ;)

Change 370855 had a related patch set uploaded (by Brion VIBBER; owner: Brion VIBBER):
[mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler@master] [WIP] Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/370855

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Aug 9 2017, 5:31 PM

Sounds good. I'll include it in the Tech News issue to be distributed on August 21.

Johan moved this task from To Triage to Announce in next Tech/News on the User-notice board.Aug 15 2017, 11:23 PM

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2017/34 looks OK?

Johan moved this task from Announce in next Tech/News to In current Tech/News draft on the User-notice board.Aug 16 2017, 12:19 AM

The current wording is somewhat confusing to me. How about this instead (not a native speaker):

The ogv.js media player (used on web browsers which don't support WebM natively such as Internet Explorer/Safari/Edge) will now play videos in the WebM format instead of the previously used (and now deprecated) Ogg Theora. Ogg Vorbis audio files will continue to be supported.

@MoritzMuehlenhoff Even if you're a non-native speaker, you'll be far better at understanding this than many non-technical native speakers. (: Examples of words that can be very complicated for some readers: "natively", "deprecated". But I've tried to build on your suggestion, and include more information. Is it clearer at all?

(Tech News will always have to sacrifice precision for simplicity, but there's a link to this task, so those who want to know more can follow it and hopefully read more here.)

The first sentence is still misleading: This should simply be "Videos will now always be played the WebM format instead."

With the new setup uploaded videos will no longer be converted to Ogg videos, so this should simply refer to videos in general.

@MoritzMuehlenhoff Ah, thank you for the correction!

I rewrote it a bit https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tech/News/2017/34&diff=17122835&oldid=17122825 -- let me know if everyone's happy with this version. :)

@brion , @Johan Looks good to me!

Liuxinyu970226 subscribed.Aug 18 2017, 5:26 AM

RandomDSdevel awarded a token.Aug 23 2017, 1:32 AM

Task logic order was inverted; fixed.

Johan moved this task from In current Tech/News draft to Already announced/Archive on the User-notice board.Aug 24 2017, 8:30 PM

Change 370855 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler@master] Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/370855

Change 373692 had a related patch set uploaded (by Brion VIBBER; owner: Brion VIBBER):
[mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler@wmf/1.30.0-wmf.15] Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/373692

All seems well with playback, planning to merge disabling of the .ogv generation at today's SF late swat.

ReleaseTaggerBot added a project: MW-1.30-release-notes (WMF-deploy-2017-08-29 (1.30.0-wmf.16)).Aug 24 2017, 10:00 PM

Change 373692 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/TimedMediaHandler@wmf/1.30.0-wmf.15] Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/373692

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2017-08-24T23:17:00Z] <thcipriani@tin> Synchronized php-1.30.0-wmf.15/extensions/TimedMediaHandler/TimedMediaHandler.php: SWAT: [[gerrit:373692|Disable Ogg Theora video transcodes in default config]] T172445 (duration: 00m 45s)

Done! Old transcodes will still exist for now; should leave them there for a while to ensure HTML caches referencing them go out of style, but new ones won't be created and newly generated pages won't use/reference them.

Should now be safe to transition scalers to updated Debian without worrying about custom ffmpeg2theora or libtheora packages.

ReleaseTaggerBot edited projects, added MW-1.30-release-notes (WMF-deploy-2017-08-22 (1.30.0-wmf.15)); removed MW-1.30-release-notes (WMF-deploy-2017-08-29 (1.30.0-wmf.16)).Aug 25 2017, 12:01 AM

Change 373733 had a related patch set uploaded (by Muehlenhoff; owner: Muehlenhoff):
[operations/puppet@production] Remove ffmpeg2theora from package list

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/373733

Liuxinyu970226 unsubscribed.Aug 29 2017, 1:03 PM

Change 373733 merged by Muehlenhoff:
[operations/puppet@production] Remove ffmpeg2theora from package list

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/373733

Ladsgroup edited projects, added User-notice-archive; removed User-notice.Aug 13 2022, 1:53 PM