I just subscribed to the STARTER option of PlayableMaker but I am running into an issue when exporting for iOS:
My project consists in a video with just a few Breaks and an End Screen. But no matter which platform I export the project to (Unity, Applovin, Web inline…) the video will show as a black screen on any iPhone and iPad (tested on iPhone 14, 15 Pro and iPad Pro 2 with iOS 26).
I had a similar issue with another playable online tool and I resolved it by converting my video from MP4 (AV1) to MP4 (H.264). But none of these formats work for PlayableMaker, which makes me wonder if your tool internally re-encodes the video to a format that is not supported by iOS?
In fact, the issue occurs also when I export a video from your video cropper tool:
My MP4 (H.264) video plays fine on my iPhone.
I import it in your video cropper tool.
I export and download the result.
The video now shows a black screen on iOS.
Is this a known issue? What format and codec do you recommend me importing into your tool so I can be sure it is going to work on iOS?
Hello, we checked your projects and see an issue with your videos, they cant be even opened on windows machines for example - because they are in avc and opus formats.
tested and everything works on ios, android and windows.
Not sure what kind of formats are avc and opus and how you create your original video files but this seems to be the problem. Please try it as well and let us know if it works
So why would one work and not the other? But then I noticed that the file size of the after-conversion video was much lower (1.64Mb vs 5.72Mb), probably because freeconvert has a pretty good compression software or something.
Since 5.72Mb is too much for a playable, PlayableMaker proposes to compress the file before working with it, and I think it’s this step that somehow converts the video codec into OPUS.
I’ve tried generating a super short video with my editor (<1Mb) and create a playable of it without converting it with freeconvert.com and this worked.
One more thing that makes me think PlayableMaker’s compression tool is causing this is that if I import a video (of more than 5Mb) into your cropping tool, and then export it, then I can see in the Media information that the video is using the OPUS codec.
We found out that the problem is not with OPUS like we thought , but with the avc codec.
There are multiple types of Profile Levels of AVC, and some of them are not supported by all browsers.
You can see the codec on your screenshot is the same H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10)(avc1) for both videos, but there is a AVC profile level which is not shown in the VLC codec page.
The video with issues has codec avc1.64001f (H.264 High Profile level 3.1)
The codecs we are using to compress the video is avc1.640028 (H.264 High Profile level 4.0).
It seems avc1.64001f works in Firefox, but does not works in safari and chrome.
avc1.640028 - works fine in each browser.
The video you have used is has probably avc1.64001f codec, and after the conversion with freeconvert you got a video with an another avc profile level.
We will figure out how to solve this issue inside the PlayableMaker app, and we will inform you ASAP.
Ok, we have tried multiple videos with AVC and did some investigation. We realized that the issue is not related to the AVC profile level.
MP4 files with the AVC codec are widely supported by most browsers, but there can be some exceptions, as in this case.
We cannot explicitly detect the problematic video, because you can use a browser (such as Firefox) in the Editor where the video plays correctly, but on your phone (for example, iPhone Safari) the issue may appear.
The best way to overcome this issue is to test your Playable Ad on mobile phones (we recommend testing on both iPhone and Android). You can build your Playable Ad for WEB only (no build will be charged), then share it and open it on mobile devices. If your Playable Ad works on both phones, you can be confident that there are no issues with the video codecs (please use the phone’s native browser).
If you encounter a video with a black screen, we recommend fixing it using a video converter tool. Alternatively, if possible, check the source of the video (the tool used to create it, or the coworker who provided the video, may be able to help).
