Can videos be uploaded and displayed in posts?

Mat ‎ Thanks for the timely and in-depth response. Needless to say I'm quite aware of the problems associated with self-hosting videos. In a rare instance, however, a very short video would not be a problem. I sincerely appreciate the answer however you failed to answer my question. Can a video be uploaded, locally, for display within a post? Again: I completely understand that, in general, self hosting videos is a bad idea for all of the reasons you've mentioned.

Guy Merritt I dont think it is possible to upload large files directly in to a post now and display them in that post (didnt find a way to do so).

Mat ‎ Thanks Mat.

Mat ‎ After reading all that you said about the many different issues to take into consideration with allowing members of the Community to upload videos to a post, I understand, but I'm still wondering how the option to do so was available and worked rather well when we were using BuddyPress with the Youzify Premium plugins? We had the option to either turn on or off this feature in the backend, and when we enabled it for our members, we also had the option to select which file formats (.mov., mp3, .mp4, etc...) we would allow to be uploaded by the members. I'm just thinking that if that option is available with those plugins (BuddyPress, and Youzify), then surely something of that sort can be implemented here in FluentCommunity. Even if the instructions to do so came with a warning about all the negative aspects of allowing this option to be toggled on, such as what you've outlined above. And the recommendation could be added that the Community owner would need to have a specific server requirements for it to work properly, like WPManageNinja does with the installation instructions for their FluentCommunity plugin.

I think there are more other things related (RFC) to such a case and I am not sure if Ninjas can even consider such a feature but sure... lets wait for their answer and best practises.

BTW: uploading videos directly into a WP and displaying it will require other things to consider like using a custom video player etc. Not even mentioning other aspects like easy "DDOSing" by a community users or external bad actors.

Network Traffic & Protocol Details:

Protocol Used: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)

    Web browsers stream video over HTTP/HTTPS, which is built on top of TCP.

    TCP ensures reliable, ordered, and error-checked delivery of data.

    It's great for general web content but not optimized for real-time video performance.

    Each video chunk must be acknowledged by the client before the next is sent—adding latency.

What About UDP (User Datagram Protocol)?

    UDP is commonly used for live streaming, VoIP, and some video conferencing apps because it's faster—it skips the error-checking and handshakes.

    However, standard web playback (e.g., via HTML5 video tag in browsers) does not use UDP. Unless you’re building a specialized player with RTSP or WebRTC streaming, it’s TCP all the way.

btw2: old example showing TCP vs UDP for streaming short video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBDXzyS32Q

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7brFDwM64aQ

ps3. QUIC could help but this is above the subject here

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y8xHJJWwJt4

Mat ‎ video upload on activity is the most basic functionality any social platform should have. Unfortunately wpninjas decided to get money instead of get things done right. So maybe in a year, two or three... In the meantime, use peepso, they even have transcoding videos out of the box, pretty much since their launch.

Rosvaldas Nudas I am not saying that is not possible rather than there are many other things to take care of when implementing such a feature.

Its not just adding an icon and uploading a file. Also there other config requirements and its a complex process and some resources are needed.

This is what Peepso even mention in the System Requirements for Video Uploads

Video uploads are an advanced experimental feature that comes with a number of strict technical requirements and limitations.

Video conversion requires an external cron job, advanced PHP functions and a special library. It is also prone to consume a lot of server resources.

Please do not enable this feature without a thorough understanding of what is required. To properly configure it, please talk to your hosting provider about the following details:

• Powerful Server #

As a rule of thumb, the video uploads and conversions will most likely not work in a shared server environment. Please make sure to be using a good dedicated machine.

• FFmpeg 4.x

This library is absolutely necessary in order for the video conversion to work. PeepSo only supports FFmpeg version 4.0 or newer. Ask your hosting provider about this library and the executable path – you need to fill it in the Video Uploads preference pane.

Bear in mind, FFmpeg will not be detected if exec() or shell_exec() can’t run. Please read the section below.

• PHP: exec() & shell_exec()

Make sure these two PHP functions are not blocked on your server. Your hosting provider should be able to give you all necessary information. If it is not possible to enable these functions on your server, the video uploads will not work.

• PHP: other settings

Make sure that your server is able to receive big uploads. Ensure there are no configuration settings that prevent big files from being uploaded. PHP maximum execution time needs to be adjusted in order to accommodate bigger conversion jobs. PHP safe mode will most likely interfere with the conversion process.

• Cron Jobs (external)

To avoid interfering with regular page loads, all videos uploaded by your users have to be converted with an external cron job (ie not the cron job tool built into WordPress itself). Depending on your server, you can use wget and/or curl. The cron will convert videos that are queued. Conversion process starting from the oldest to newest, one video in one process.

Mat ‎ this text is for people who haven't been building sites for the last 20 years.

Rosvaldas Nudas Yes. You are right but I just tried to explain why it might be a challanging and as I started in my first post I used word "In General" - I am not saying its not possible.

All Geeks and Power Users knows Pros and Cons for sure.

If that is the important feature then Ninjas can decide what are next steps (not me).

Mat ‎ if u have the patience to explain such things to someone who thinks he can have social network with uploading videos on feed on his shared hosting, then you have better patience than wpninjas who ain't got no patience at all they straight away upsell other stuff and forget what the basics promised here.

Rosvaldas Nudas lets see...

For me its a simple and fast community and probably it would be easier to integrate with external tools like bunny.net instead of implementing this into a Wordpress.

But again... this is not my business case and I fully understand why someone wants to have "home made circle" (however Circle might be "cheaper" - time/money/expertise, in some cases than trying to mimic it in a Wordpress).

Stay tuned...

Mat ‎ True. People like the convenience of uploading a video to a website as they do to YT, Rumble etc, not understanding the bandwidth, network issues etc. Where clients need this and to avoid all the advertising there's a few options, like Vimeo pro, mux.com or on some sites am using videopress. But aside from vimeo, integrating these into fluent community feeds isn't seamless. Also looking at broadcast/webinar options like jitsi, mirotalk, peertube etc, but again has a server overhead and will never a simple plugin, although me and Grok at working on it. 🤨