We don't have access to ffmpeg as most hosts just don't provide it so I am unable to verify .mov is using a web standard codec for encoding the video.

In most cases .mov is completely compatible with .mp4 even to the point of just renaming the extension works a lot of the time, but without being able to verify the codec you may have uploaded videos that just won't play in other browsers.

The best I could do is allow upload of .mov and rename its extension to .mp4 on upload, but again you're likely to have videos that won't play on a lot of browsers if their device didn't encode the video with a web standard codec. I'm not comfortable adding a "maybe works" feature though and will review supporting ffmpeg, if it's available, and allowing other formats only if ffmpeg is confirmed available. I can also review adding a default disabled feature to toggle this on in a future release as well.

Note uploads in CB Activity are actually just CB Gallery. You can add .mov file extension to Files feature in CB Gallery so you can upload it as a file, but it will not be treated as a video.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/8707
forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/7606

Seems like upload of .mov videos straight from the iPhone library is ok most of the time on websites and applications.

Because they are transcoding the video. That's not a simple task on shared hosting, which is what 99% of our users use. Most, if not all, shared hosting won't allow you to install and enable the ffmpeg extension. Without it the only way to transcode is to use an external service to do it (e.g. AWS transcoding endpoint).

In fact I need it to be treated and displayed as a video so that users may watch it live in the stream.

Then you'll have to wait for ffmpeg to be supported in CB Gallery or for the following feature. I don't have anything further to suggest.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/8707

The above feature won't guarantee playback. It will just rename .mov to .mp4 and hope that the video was encoded with a web standard codec. It's the simplest solution I can do without ffmpeg.

And if we have the agility to add ffmpeg to our server, could we proceed with auto actions ? to transform a .mov to .mp4 ?

No, that'd need to be a part of CB Gallery upload process. Only way to add that would be to modify core code, which I cannot help you with.

We also have the ability to use AWS transcoding endpoint as we also use AWS

There are no plans to support AWS transcoding at this time. We only plan to support ffmpeg in a future CB Gallery release.

Could you help us on this ?

No, I'm busy working in CB Activity and am not going to interrupt its development to implement ffmpeg into CB Gallery. ffmpeg support is planned and will come in a later release of CB Gallery. A new CB Gallery release is planned after CB Activity, which will be its major rewrite for stored galleries and will review adding ffmpeg support then.