MFC goes mobile

[CallMeWilliam]

Some shots from Chrome on an iPad Air, I scaled down the image quality a bit to make the images smaller so it will be crisper IRL.

Model list when in a chat room...


In the model chatroom...


Model stream full screen...


Model menu...


More model menu...


As with most streams it will continue to play when the Home Screen (iDevice) is visible, so you could listen to the model in the room if you wanted background noise or whatever. Also I noticed that you can see the stream URI scrolling horizontally, I am not sure if it could represent an easier way to cap video feeds. So if you are listening to a models feed and someone picks up your device to see what you are listening to they could see the myfreecams in the URI. If you are embarrassed about something like that be aware of it.

The URI looks like so...

http://video448.myfreecams.com:1935/nxserver/mfc_111062323.f4v_aac/playlist.m3u8?nc=1399124866597

I thought that the nc variable was a random number but after clicking on several models however it seems that it may just be incremental unique to each stream launched.

First impressions was it works very well and the stream quality was very good same with the audio. I did find a couple of oddities when shifting between landscape/portrait quickly (but then most responsive sites have this issue with odd sized screens).

 

[LilyMarie]

...Does this mean they might be getting rid of the palm trees :shock:

 

[DudeExtreme]

Even though most of the models I see haven't chosen the Super HD feature, what I like about the new MFC mobile site is the navigation menu. It makes a lot easier for me to check my MFC mail, purchase tokens, view Archive chats (not archive videos), view Picture Gallery, transfer tokens, etc. Before, I had to do a lot moving around to get to the purchase tokens screen and even then the screen kept moving so it was it impossible to enter any information in. Even though I can't see or the hear the model right now, I can easily text her just to say, "I'm on my phone. Even though I can't hear or see your video right now, I just want to say hi." Tipping a model on the phone should be easier to do now than before. I will test this out on the iPad Chorme or Firefox and see how it works for the video feed.

Thank you Amber for sharing.

 

[eclipse76]

The URI looks like so...

http://video448.myfreecams.com:1935/nxserver/mfc_111062323.f4v_aac/playlist.m3u8?nc=1399124866597

I thought that the nc variable was a random number but after clicking on several models however it seems that it may just be incremental unique to each stream launched.

It's the same "technology" used by Chaturbate except the nc stuff seems to prevent recording or something.
I think it's better to watch the stream vertically, with the chat under.

 

[Kradek]

The URI looks like so...

http://video448.myfreecams.com:1935/nxserver/mfc_111062323.f4v_aac/playlist.m3u8?nc=1399124866597

I thought that the nc variable was a random number but after clicking on several models however it seems that it may just be incremental unique to each stream launched.

It's the same "technology" used by Chaturbate except the nc stuff seems to prevent recording or something.
I think it's better to watch the stream vertically, with the chat under.

The "nc" number is probably just the current date you loaded the page. 1399124866597 converts to "Sat May 03 2014 09:47:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)".

"nc" likely stands for "no cache". This is a standard way of adding some generally meaningless info to a url to prevent the browser from caching the page.

 

[weirdbr]

"nc" likely stands for "no cache". This is a standard way of adding some generally meaningless info to a url to prevent the browser from caching the page.

(Well, first of all, hi all.. First post :-D )

It's more than the browser's cache - there's a ton of ISPs around the world that (sometimes secretly) use caches/proxies to try to save money instead of buying bigger pipes.. But those proxies usually dont follow standards and can do bad things like sometimes ignoring the 'Last-Modified' and 'cache-control' headers so you have to resort to tricks like those to intentionally break the cache (or use SSL, but that uses a lot more CPU on the server).

The good thing IMHO is that the URL points to an HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) manifest; this is a new standard that is being pushed by Apple due to its mobile-friendly features and is something that most video-related sites are starting to support on mobile and desktop (youtube for example supports both HLS and its ISO/IEC cousin, called MPEG-DASH). The best feature from both is that you can support multiple video resolutions (and codecs) on a single manifest, so you can do like youtube does and change the quality of the video if the network gets better or worse... And it simplifies changing the default video codec, so hopefully they will change to using the VP9 codec later, since it gives the same image quality at half of the file size (which will be a great help for slower connections or mobile hotspots).

 

[spankamber]

I've noticed the feed is awesome but I can't watch and listen to model and see chat room at same time so this takes people away from the tip menu and chat and allows to just watch and listen on phone. Unless you click back to chat room tip then go back to the video feed unless I'm missing something?

 

[SexySteph]

I've noticed the feed is awesome but I can't watch and listen to model and see chat room at same time so this takes people away from the tip menu and chat and allows to just watch and listen on phone. Unless you click back to chat room tip then go back to the video feed unless I'm missing something?

I noticed the same the same thing on my iPhone. I heard it's different on tablets though.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I've checked it out a few times. Seems like decent feed but it's been around 30 to 35 seconds behind the feed on the normal website. Serious lag if you are trying to chat on a tablet.

Also if I try to maximize the video it says it can't play it. And I can't figure out how to just resize the video. So it's stuck at a really small screen.

I think I'll just use the normal site on my tablet and get back to the mobile every month or so to see if they have some more of the bugs worked out.

 

[The Insider]

You went to "www.m.myfreecams.com", which does not go to the mobile site. You need to go to the actual mobile site, "m.myfreecams.com" (I linked it in the original post)

I didn't notice the browser auto adding the www (should have worn my glasses)
But once I did get it straightened out it was still pretty bad for me.
Visually it looked nice but I had many of the same issues I had before.
I tried via wifi, 4g & 3g

I co-ordinated with a model amiga in a different part of the country and it was the same for her.
She was saying 1 frame every 5 seconds

ce la vie

 

[DaphneO]

sucks.. picking super hd dropped my fps from 23 all the way to 1... lol. im just gonna stick to the normal streaming options bc apparently my computer cant handle it?

 

[RebeccaT]

Wouldn't it be fun to be able to broadcast this way, too?

 

[Fay_Galore]

just tried it as a visitor, looks pretty good on my (old-ish) Iphone4s on wifi, you cannot view the model ánd the chatroom, but the feed looks great.

 

[moviedvd970]

i have a droid maxx. i see both the stream & chat at the same time. it seems to work pretty well. i wish it supported pinch to zoom to make taping some of the buttons easier though

 

[RebeccaT]

I can pinch to zoom on my iphone.

It seems to work a little differently on every device. I had quite a few people viewing on their phones testers and they lived it. Awesome work, MFC!

 

[RebeccaT]

By the way, if you have the B-line app you can watch Chaturbate on a mobile and you can have video and chat

 

[Avalyn_]

Does anyone know if the geo-blocking works the same on the mobile site?

 

[Lorelei]

Does anyone know if the geo-blocking works the same on the mobile site?

The short answer: Yes.

The long answer: If the viewer lives near the border of two states, the mobile device they're viewing on may be identified as being in the state that they don't live in. Thus there are models that I can view on my computer because it believes I live in State A, but I can't view on my tablet or phone because it believes I live in State B, which the model has geo-blocked. This works in reverse as well: A viewer in an area you have geo-blocked may be able to watch you on a mobile device even if they can't on their computer, because the mobile device is accessing MFC from a neighboring state. If you're concerned about that being a possibility, add neighboring states to your geo-block list.

Hope that helps a bit.

Edited because I am anal-retentive and left out a punctuation mark.

 

[RebeccaT]

I don't see models using this. Has it not been popular?

 

[SexySteph]

I don't see models using this. Has it not been popular?

Idk if this has changed but early in the beta it meant guys couldn't see a preview of your room. I stopped using it for that reason.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

I don't see models using this. Has it not been popular?

Seems to be. I counted 221 using it right now and the main homepage is showing 954 models online.

 

[RebeccaT]

I don't see models using this. Has it not been popular?

Seems to be. I counted 221 using it right now and the main homepage is showing 954 models online.

That's interesting. I wonder if it's been embraced more by models who are online at a certain time. Your post was about eight hours after mine which suggests models in a different time zone using it more.

 

[bsurs]

That's interesting. I wonder if it's been embraced more by models who are online at a certain time. Your post was about eight hours after mine which suggests models in a different time zone using it more.

They've changed it so that I now only see the "Mobile Feed" labels on the avatars if I'm using (or pretending to use) a mobile browser or using the mobile site, even though a number of models have them turned on.

I think the problem with the previews has been fixed. However, I think the ~40 second delay is still there and that really makes it hard to interact.

 

[eclipse76]

I've tried it again recently and the video feed which was working on Chrome on a laptop has been cut off. Disappointing because at least I had decent videos with no gaps with it, unlike the normal website.
Also they still advertise it as HD… despite all their streams being 320×240.
Who are they fucking kidding. The quality is awful on modern Full HD screens.

 

[weirdbr]

I've tried it again recently and the video feed which was working on Chrome on a laptop has been cut off. Disappointing because at least I had decent videos with no gaps with it, unlike the normal website.
Also they still advertise it as HD… despite all their streams being 320×240.
Who are they fucking kidding. The quality is awful on modern Full HD screens.

Keep in mind that this might be caused by Chrome itself - Chrome was just updated to version 38 this week (my laptop got it yesterday; my desktops got it about two days ago).