Riddle me this

After pulling out most of my hair (whats left of it) to troubleshoot why my uploaded videos wouldn't process, I discovered that my host does not support ffmpeg in the reseller hosting I was testing with. I didn't care to make that determination previously as this reseller account was not intended for D7 installs, but that's neither here nor there.

What I'm confused about, is that when I upload a 3 second HD video it will process and render successfully, allowing me to view it on the site. Trying again with a 60 second video, no dice. Do small videos (less than 5mb) not require ffmpeg to be actually installed? My test videos were identical (.mp4) in everything other than size and duration.

It could be a matter of limitations set for PHP on your server. You should post any emails from the cron daemon regarding video processing. I recommend checking to make sure that the settings under Administration > Tools > Host Tools > Params are at their recommended levels.

I also recommend you make sure your hosting provider fully meets the minimum requirements for this script. It's something everyone should do before even downloading Dolphin. It will save you from a world of trouble.

I set the cron up with a dummy address, I'll have to correct that and see if the output gives me any further details.

Just to be clear, every indication on this server is telling me it should not work, and I accept that as this was just testing (my production sites are on suitable VPS that meet full specification, and work wonderfully) - but in certain situations it does work, and I want to determine why or how if it explicitly shouldn't.

php.ini limitations are good as far as max upload size, post size and other variables directly related to it, i have confirmed this by validating the uploaded files.. it's the processing that's got me baffled :)