Hi James,

Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully, legal resolves the MP4 situation soon.

Best,
Dev Jadiya

On Sat, May 16, 2026 at 6:41 PM James Heilman <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hey Dev
>
> Excellent work. Hopefully we will be able to upload MP4s via the
> Upload Wizard soon. I think we are just waiting on legal.
>
> James
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2026 at 3:02 PM Dev Jadiya via Wikimedia-l
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'd like to share a Toolforge tool I've built for uploading
> > device-recorded videos to Wikimedia Commons: clip2commons.
> >
> >   https://clip2commons.toolforge.org/
> >
> > It encodes locally in the browser using the WebCodecs API and uploads
> > via the official MediaWiki API.
> >
> >
> > WHY ANOTHER TOOL
> >
> > This is intended to complement, not replace, video2commons.
> > video2commons handles URL imports (YouTube, archive.org, etc.) and
> > remains the right tool for that workflow.
> >
> > clip2commons covers a different case: a video file already on the
> > user's device that needs to reach Commons. For that case, the
> > existing options are:
> >
> >   - video2commons (file upload mode): the file goes to a Toolforge
> >     encoder pool that is shared and currently overstretched
> >     (Community Wishlist W447, W392, W443, W512, W523, W536 are open
> >     about v2c stability or capability gaps).
> >   - UploadWizard: accepts files up to 5 GB chunked, but does not
> >     convert formats. iPhone .mov and many Android .mp4 files fail
> >     TimedMediaHandler post-upload or upload as patent-encumbered
> >     formats.
> >   - Manual ffmpeg + UploadWizard: works for those who can do it,
> >     but is outside what most uploaders are willing or able to manage.
> >
> > clip2commons does the WebM/VP9 conversion in the browser via
> > WebCodecs, then uploads chunk-by-chunk to commons.wikimedia.org.
> > There is no shared queue, no server-side encoder pool, and no
> > infrastructure that needs maintenance to keep the tool running.
> > The only resource constraint is the user's own device.
> >
> >
> > VALIDATION
> >
> > End-to-end test, 1-2 Mbps connection, 683 MB 1080x1920 portrait
> > (Original) file (6 min 13 s):
> >
> >   - In-browser encode: 15 min 20 s
> >   - Total wall-clock (encode + upload combined): ~16 minutes
> >   - Final file: 163 MB, VP9/Opus, 1080x1920
> >   - Result on Commons:
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Script_Publisher_Presentation_at_Developer_Skill_Development_Program_India_01.webm
> >
> >
> > PROVENANCE / LICENSING UI
> >
> > The "Release rights" step mirrors UploadWizard's question tree
> > exactly: same root choice (own work vs. someone else), same
> > sub-questions for "contains the work of others" and "not protected
> > by copyright law", same hard blocks for "I don't know" and
> > "copyright-protected", same VRT-pending workflow for permission
> > uploads, same set of accepted CC license templates per branch.
> >
> > This was deliberate. Files uploaded through clip2commons should be
> > indistinguishable in policy terms from files uploaded through
> > UploadWizard or video2commons. The wikitext output uses the
> > standard {{Information}} + {{self}} / bare-license-template
> > structure with [[Category:Uploaded with clip2commons]].
> >
> >
> > BROWSER SUPPORT
> >
> > Verified working (full encode + upload):
> >   - Google Chrome (desktop and mobile)
> >   - Microsoft Edge (desktop only)
> >   - Brave
> >   - DuckDuckGo browser
> >   - Samsung Internet
> >   - Dolphin
> >   - Bing browser
> >   - Opera Mini (already-WebM/VP9 files only)
> >
> > Limited mode (already-WebM/VP9 files; cannot re-encode):
> >   - Firefox (desktop and mobile)
> >   - Safari (encoder support coming in 26.1)
> >
> > Not currently supported:
> >   - Microsoft Edge on Android (WebCodecs implementation incompatible)
> >   - Opera (decoder errors at encode start)
> >   - Yandex
> >   - Tor Browser (WebCodecs disabled as fingerprinting protection)
> >
> > Browsers in the "limited mode" or "not supported" lists show a
> > clear banner up front instead of letting the user start a doomed
> > upload. video2commons remains the recommended fallback for those
> > browsers.
> >
> >
> > KNOWN LIMITS
> >
> >   - No URL imports. video2commons remains the right tool for that.
> >   - Hard cap: 1 GB / 1 hour input file. Larger files risk OOM during
> >     in-browser encode on memory-limited devices.
> >   - Encode time depends on the device. Modern hardware encodes at
> >     roughly 0.2x to 1x video duration; older devices can be slower.
> >
> >
> > FEEDBACK WELCOME
> >
> > This is beta. Bug reports, policy / wikitext / copy review, and
> > testing on devices and connections I do not have are all welcome.
> >
> >   - GitLab issues:
> >      https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/toolforge-repos/clip2commons (MIT)
> >   - My talk page:
> >     https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dev_Jadiya
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Dev Jadiya
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines
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>
>
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>
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