title: Base64 video encoding - good\bad idea?
body: <p>I'm working on a mobile front-end project using cordova, and the backend developer i'm working with insists that the media files (images/videos) should be transferred as base64 encoded in json files.</p>
  
  <p>Now, with images it's so far working. Although it freezes the UI for a few seconds, it can be deferred somehow.</p>
  
  <p>The videos however are so far a pain to handle, the length of a single/simple video being transferred is nearly 300,000 in length. It brings my poor laptop through a wild spin, and gets the uri after about 20 seconds of going through the code (and it still not working, and I don't feel like debugging it cause it nearly crashes my laptop with every refresh).</p>
  
  <p><strong>So my questions are:</strong> </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is base64 encoding a popular way of transferring media in mobile development?</li>
  <li>And if not, what alternative way would you recommend using to transfer/present these videos?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I should mention though, the videos are meant to be viewed at once by a large number of people (hundreds perhaps), and the other developer says that their servers can't handle such traffic.</p>
  
  <p>Much thanks for any advice, I couldn't find this info nowhere. :)</p>