Firefox and MPGs

Bob Roosth

My normal browser is Firefox 2 (Windows). When I try to play an MPEG file, QuickTime is launched and the video does not play. If I bring up the same page in IE 6, it plays with Windows Media Player just as it does when I launch the file from my local disk.

I have tried to convince FF to use WMP instead of QuickTime, but not had much luck. A Google search gets me to an FF add-on that modifies the page, but that is not a real fix.

Suggestions?

SteveM

Bob Roosth wrote:

My normal browser is Firefox 2 (Windows). When I try to play an MPEG file, QuickTime is launched and the video does not play. If I bring up the same page in IE 6, it plays with Windows Media Player just as it does when I launch the file from my local disk.

I have tried to convince FF to use WMP instead of QuickTime, but not had much luck. A Google search gets me to an FF add-on that modifies the page, but that is not a real fix.

Suggestions?

Hey Bob,

I'm going to do some digging into this for you. In the meantime, can you provide us with an example MPEG link that it's doing this on? It is certain sites, certain MPEGS, or pretty much everywhere? The more you can let us know the better. I'll be diggin'.

Bob Roosth

SteveM wrote:

Hey Bob,

I'm going to do some digging into this for you. In the meantime, can you provide us with an example MPEG link that it's doing this on? It is certain sites, certain MPEGS, or pretty much everywhere? The more you can let us know the better. I'll be diggin'.

I have not gone looking at other SmugMug sites, but this i one page of mine:

http://fwusisrael2007.smugmug.com/gallery/2592319#136620823

A search brings up this one.

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2454141#128697810

Same problem

SteveM

Bob Roosth wrote:

I have not gone looking at other SmugMug sites, but this i one page of mine:

http://fwusisrael2007.smugmug.com/gallery/2592319#136620823

A search brings up this one.

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2454141#128697810

Same problem

Welp, after doing some digging, I did find some things out, most of it not good news.

First, the way that Firefox plays streaming media (EXCEPT Quicktime, as Quicktime's plugin can pretty much dominate anything). Check out http://kb.mozillazine.org/Streaming_media This gives workarounds using plugins, which is a pretty standard Firefox practice to facilitate modularity.

Also see: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Video_or_audio_doesn%27t_play which kind of explains the hows and whys.

So, not only does it sound like a limitation of Firefox, but of the way WMP is internally configured as well. If in your Firefox address bar you type "about:plugins" minus quotes, you'll see that no matter what you do, WMP won't associate itself with any file extensions than the default, hardcoded ones.

I'm sorry I don't have better news.

Oh and by the way, there's an error in your MPG movie encoding. In anything, locally or on the webpage, it plays at like 2x speed, then halfway through, the video freezes and the sound continues, so it looks like a bad encode/reencode.

Bob Roosth

SteveM wrote:

So, not only does it sound like a limitation of Firefox, but of the way WMP is internally configured as well.

Thanks for taking the time to do the research. I found one of those, but not the other. I was hoping I had missed something.

I have repaired that video. It might be up by the time you read this. I have others on this page.

http://fwusisrael2007.smugmug.com/gallery/2566913#136625769

I really don't care what plays them, but Quicktime is not playing mine correctly. I see that it does play the ones on that other link correctly, so it certianly could be something about my encoding. I am using FX MPEG Writer to convert AVI to MPG.

Tomorrow, I'll try it on another computer here and get my daughter to try on her MAC.

Follow-up, the next day:

Tried the site on two other Windows computers running Firefox. Both display the videos correctly with Quicktime. Mine still does not. So the issue is not QT vs WMP, but the configuration of my QT plugin. QT standalone plays them perfectly.

Again, thanks for the research.