htaccess shorten URL

Question

I have a URL like this:

http://www.example.com/folder1/assets/Video/150/filename.mp4

I'm trying to shorten it like this

http://www.example.com/challenge/Video/150/filename.mp4

My current .htaccess implementation is this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/challenge/Video$ /folder1/assets/Video [L]

But it's not working any assistance would help, I've tried other variations that I've seen but apparently, I'm doing something wrong.

EDIT 1)

To help give more insight: The user uploads a video to the server, and then the user is able to see/watch user submitted videos from the server. When the user submits the video the url is:

http://www.example.com/folder1/assets/Video/150/filename.mp4

When the user retrieves the video, I wanted them to get this URL http://www.example.com/challenge/Video/150/filename.mp4

to hide the actual file path/directory.

Edit 2)

I just added a picture from the results of the changes that @arkascha suggested, after fixing the PHP errors, i'm getting this when i change [END] to [L], when I use [END] I get a 500 error:

Edit 3) This is my full HTACCESS code:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^\.]+)\.example\.com
RewriteCond /var/www/example.com/%1 -d
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS}  =""
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /%1/$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

RewriteRule ^/?challenge/Video/(\d+)/(.+)$ 
\/WebServices/assets/Video/$1/$2 [L]

When I removed everything above and just left the rewrite code you gave me it worked, but, i'm sure I may have needed to have some of these there. So if someone can help direct me to what line is causing it to act funny. I think it's the:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

but i'm not 100% sure. Thanks

Answer 1

This probably is what you are looking for:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/?challenge/Video/(\d+)/(.+)$ /folder1/assets/Video/$1/$2 [END]

In case you encounter an "internal server error" (http status 500) using that rule chances are that you operate a very old version of the apache http server. Have a try replacing the [END] flag with a [L] flag in that case. Your http servers error log file will have a specific for that issue.

The above internal rewriting rule will work in the http servers host configuration and likewise in dynamic configuration files (".htaccess" style files).

A general hint on that: you should always prefer to place such rules inside the http servers (virtual) host configuration instead of using dynamic configuration files ( .htaccess style files). Those files are notoriously error prone, hard to debug and they really slow down the server. They are only supported as a last option for situations where you do not have control over the host configuration (read: really cheap hosting service providers) or if you have an application that relies on writing its own rewrite rules (which is an obvious security nightmare).