You are still relying on the non-universally-supported video tag. To support all phones you need an alternate.
Presumably this can be constructed with javascript as well to keep the url out of a static source view. Though that's rather hollow protection since a web browser is under no obligation to conceal the result of the javascript.

In the short term I'm actually not worried about supporting every possible phone. While we're still in "experimental mode" with this project, I'll be happy just to cover most modern phones, including iPhone 3.0 and later, and Android 2.0 and later. I may also look into others such as Blackberry and the new Windows 7 phones, but that depends on the ratio of effort to payoff. If things go well, later on I'll pursue backward compatibility more aggressively.

Video source protection is impossible to guarantee 100%. Again, it comes down to a matter of effort to payoff. A good hacker can get around anything I might put out there without my spending way more than it's worth to lock down, so I'm really just interested in thwarting the attempts of an average user. By avoiding any direct links, and embedding the video in the page using Javascript/AJAX to prevent simple source code lookups, I should be protected against all but the most dedicated attempts by skilled individuals. It's worked well enough for me on the regular website.

At any rate, back to my original question: Did my latest round of updates work for your phone? Apparently Android 2+ will play nice with both the html5 video tag and H.264-encoded video. But it turns out it only likes it with an mp4 extension, so I updated all my video clips with the new extension.

Also, on the man's and lady's parts, I updated some code which should in theory make it change according to screen orientation on the Android. I'm interested to know if that fix worked.

Thanks again for your input!

Regards,
Jonathan

The watermark in the videos is a lot better idea than the javascript, since it discourages someone from making commercial use of them. Despite not being listed in the docs .m4v's do work on at least some phones, but maybe not on others. The video tag is not universally supported on all phones. It's not necessarily clear that an alternate fallback to the video tag similarly obfuscated would make the decoded url any easier to incidentally discover during routine usage than it already is in the video tag version, though perhaps it might in some cases - who knows? I'm not particularly interested in viewing the videos on my phone anyway, but tend to respond when I see inaccurate information or assumptions posted.

Hey Jonathan,

You can now flip the phone and get the rotation. It looks good. I can't get the video to work still, not any of the videos and I do have some technical proficiency...not tons but enough to get videos to work.

What is the APP called?? or where can you download it??

Right now it's a "web app", meaning it's really just a web page that's formatted for mobile devices. However, on the iPhone you can make it act very much like a regular app with an icon on your home screen, so you won't even notice that it's not a bonafide app.

Step 1
Open up the Safari app on your iPhone.

Step 2
Navigate to https://mobile.ballroomdancers.com/

Step 3
Click the plus symbol at the bottom of the screen. Note: On iOS 4.2, it seems to have changed to a box with an arrow coming out of it.

Step 4
In the pop-up menu, click the "Add to Home Screen" button.

Voila! The Ballroomdancers app on your iPhone.

FYI, I am on the cusp of adding the Learn the Dances section of the website to the app, so you'll be able to view our entire video archive very soon.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Dear Jonathan, Bravo, I just successfully downloaded your mobile Web App to my Iphone and I'm delighted. Thank You so very much. Keep it coming with more instructions for all the other dances. Ingrid

Oh, I feel left out. I have a Blackberry. I know all Blackberry owners would want this app, so keep up the good work and bring us in from the cold.

Thanks so much

iphone app works great. Thanks. We will definitely use it.

We can't afford to produce an actual app yet, which is why we're going with the web app for now. If we do ever produce an iPhone app, it will be free. However, as with the website, your access to content within the app will be based on your membership level. Non-members will be able to view beginning bronze videos, regular members intermediate bronze, and premium members full bronze, plus all levels with full instruction and a complete variation of the week archive.

Basic membership is free. Premium membership will be released in a couple of months for a cost of $99 per year. Regards, Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com