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Enable MP4 (H.264 + AAC) HTML5 video in Firefox on Windows XP without Flash


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4 hours ago, DrWho3000 said:

general.useragent.site_specific_overrides;        true

should I changed this to false ?

It should be "true." However, with FF 52, it won't do anything unless you add some custom Javascript:

On 3/24/2019 at 11:04 AM, VistaLover said:

I was able to restore SSUAO functionality in Firefox 52.9.0[1] 32-bit on my VistaSP2 x86 laptop and bring it on par with the UXP browsers (i.e. SSUAO are now possible natively, without the need for extra extension(s)) :thumbup  

Full Guide (tested only in FxESR52, should work in other Fx versions):

1. Load "about:config?filter=site_specific" in a tab and make sure

general.useragent.site_specific_overrides;true (should be by default)

2. Exit Firefox

3. Create the following text file


pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0);
pref("general.config.filename", "config.js");

rename it to "config-prefs.js" (make sure no hidden .txt extension is present) and place it inside

<FirefoxInstalDir>\defaults\pref\

(a file named "channel-prefs.js" should already be there by default)

4. Create the following text file


// needs to start with a comment line
Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/Services.jsm");
Services.obs.addObserver(function (aSubject, aTopic, aData) {
  var chromeWindow = aSubject;
  chromeWindow.setTimeout(function () {
    Components.utils.import("resource://gre/modules/UserAgentOverrides.jsm", chromeWindow);
    chromeWindow.UserAgentOverrides.init();
  }, 1000);
}, "browser-delayed-startup-finished", false);

rename it to "config.js" (make sure no hidden .txt extension is present) and place it inside <FirefoxInstalDir>\ (i.e. in the same directory as firefox.exe). 

5. Launch Firefox; now you are ready to create SSUAOs inside about:config as you would do in New Moon and/or Serpent 52. E.g. I created 

general.useragent.override.browserspy.dk;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0

and when visiting the test site with FxESR52 I get:

ZCauXYb.jpg

(to re-iterate, this is without any UA modifying extension... :P).

I think you'll find the above to your satisfaction... ;)

 

 

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is there a way around with FB vids, to view inline on newsfeed instead of some going to the expanded theatre mode  and NOT play or do

i see some seem to have sound, some not

is this to do how it was encoded, frame or the css/js ??

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Do any Facebook videos play automatically inline for you as they should do?
As I said to you in another thread, I'm pretty sure that some won't play anyway, IIRC because they are too deeply linked.
:)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Can we disable the plugin container, in the past I noticed it was mainly needed to help play flash games, and removing it, there was no adverse effect and FF ran smoothly without it, but now If I disable or remove it FF, having Primetime Decryption FF complains Primetime has  has stopped and need to reload page

I found it is a resource hog

I know in older versions it was together but in wisdom was decide to seperate into 2 seperate processes

dom.ipc.plugins (on Firefox 9 there are two, while there are five on some older versions).
Set all of them to false to disable plugin-container:

DISABLING
After disabling it, the usage is more like 35-50% and 25-40%. That’s an improvement from 100-130% to 60-90% ==> ~40% net.

By default, Firefox loads plug-ins in a separate process called plugin-container.exe, which is meant to keep the main Firefox process (firefox.exe) unscathed in the event of a plug-in error or crash.

Plugin-container is known for being resource intensive (CPU and RAM). But fortunately, it can be disabled without disrupting the browser's operation.

Edited by DrWho3000
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hopefully  this is the right thread

Can someone help , when I have Netflix going I get 2 instances of pluging in container, sure I only use to have the one

this seems to be since i did a New profile

is there a way of only having the one, OR does silverlight have its own seperate one ?

should this be dom.ipc.plugins.enabled  true or false

Also I have the exact same settings (or sure I have) in prefs in my other XP SP3 PC, yet when I try to use Netflix I get plugingin container and sliverlight then disappears and get a DRM error,   ...............   is there a componet I could be missing / need or something I need to get DRM working

or be looking for something missing

deffo got all 6 blue ticks in the youtube/html webite

i have Primetime on both XP SP3 PC's works fine on youtube  fine on both

have exactly same Silverlight version on both, have all the same plugins and files (even checked the WMP DRM files)

 

If I go here http://html5test.com/ my other PC scores better than this one yet the other refuses to play Netflix  but this one does

 

 

Edited by DrWho3000
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  • 1 month later...

SSE-PC Palemoon 27.9.6
Youtube download
After some success with CYS Complete Youtube Saver I was not lucky anymore.
Found luck with Ant Video Downloader 2.4.7.47 but then there were problems during saving.  videos were stored as .webM-files. But only in restricted account. I know i was "working" in the association-settings.
i exchanged old admin-account is now the restricted one and restricted one is admin-account. had to do this since there was access to a certain ebay-store anymore(no videos there).
Could now check this behaviour by setting back the accounts.
In admin-account videos are stored as mp4. Ant will download sound and video seperately and melting them after they are finished.
Both CYS and Ant Video Downloader rely on ffmpeg. there are instructions how to setup. i have two ffmpeg-versions. one with exe in bin-folder the other with no bin-folder. with the latter i was successful finally.
Here i have setup a STICKY for SSE-users maybe also true for others. Its not yet complete.
Since til now nobody told me how installer is running(if ever it will run with sse) i am running Palemoon/Newmoom 27.9.6 directly from the folder.
Question is now: How to solve the webM-files- problem?

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On 7/8/2019 at 12:39 PM, 3dreal said:

Since til now nobody told me how installer is running (if ever it will run with sse)

Only people in the same position as yours can answer that; the maintainer stated already he doesn't have access to an SSE-only machine, so he can't test it himself :(

The installer comprises several binaries and batch files - it can be extracted to a folder with 7-zip (in your case, you'll have to use an SSE compatible 7-zip version, you probably already know what that is...); then try to run the binaries (7z.exe, choice.exe, choice16.com, wget.exe, xxmklink.exe), via command line, on your machine; if they run, good bet is the installer itself will also work... By studying the .bat files in a text editor, you can get a pretty good idea as to what the installer does and where it installs files...

Hope I've helped (in an otherwise off-topic post :angry: )

On 7/8/2019 at 12:39 PM, 3dreal said:

Question is now: How to solve the webM-files- problem?

No; question is in what way is your video-downloading query relevant to this very thread? ... :angry:

Edited by VistaLover
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  • 3 weeks later...

OK guys, a lot of good work here - 24 pages!

I am on WinXP SP3 4gb RAM.  FF 52.9 ESR.  Most You Tube videos do not play.  Some do.

 

I downloaded Primetime and put it in the correct FF folder (took a while to find for FF 52.9).  It does not work or show up in Plug-ins..

 

I have looked and Googled for 2 hours and I can not find where the heck "Preferences" are in FF 52.9.  I've looked through all the pages under "Options" and can not find "Preferences". 

Where do I I enter these Preferences in FF 52.9? :

==================================

To be able to install and operate the Primetime CDM, add and/or set the following FF preferences in about:config (be careful, all of these are cAsE sEnSiTiVe!):

media.gmp-eme-adobe.enabled (boolean; true)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.forceSupported (boolean; true; FF 49.0+)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.forcevisible (boolean; true; FF 45-48, no longer used in 49.0+)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.visible (boolean; true; FF 49.0+)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.version (string, not integer; 17; required for manual install now that automatic install is no longer an option)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.abi (string; x86-msvc-x86 (EDIT: x86-msvc-x64 for 64-bit XP users); not required, you can set it if you want to more closely mimic automatic install)

media.gmp-eme-adobe.lastUpdate (integer; 1500000000; not required, you can set it if you want to more closely mimic automatic install)

media.gmp.decoder.enabled (boolean; true)

media.eme.enabled (boolean; true; defaults to false if you downloaded a DRM-free version of FF; thanks @heinoganda for pointing this out)

==================================

 

Thanks! 

 

Tony

 

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1 hour ago, aoresteen said:

Where do I I enter these Preferences in FF 52.9? :

==================================

To be able to install and operate the Primetime CDM, add and/or set the following FF preferences in about:config (be careful, all of these are cAsE sEnSiTiVe!):

The boldened text is where you add/set the preferences

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  • 4 weeks later...

None of this is working for me on Windows XP SP3 32-bit with Firefox 48.0.2. I can play most YouTube videos fine, but some just will not play, which is strange because you'd think they would all play if one plays. I can't watch any other videos on any other webpages that are HTML5, and every video on those sites gives me the error "No video with supported format or MIME type found." What the hell am I doing wrong?

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I suspect that the reason why some videos on YouTube work for you and others don't is that older ones still have a Flash fallback available, and newer ones don't.
If you right click on a video that's working and the Flash plugin menu comes up, that would confirm that.
As to why the system isn't working as it should for you, all I can suggest is that you go through this thread and double and triple check that all the necessary settings are present and correct in about:config, and that the necessary files are all present in the <Firefox Profile>\gmp-eme-adobe\17 folder.
There should be three files there, eme-adobe.dll, eme-adobe.info, and eme-adobe.voucher.
It's far more likely that a setting is missing or wrong though.
HTH.
:)

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4 hours ago, Dave-H said:

I suspect that the reason why some videos on YouTube work for you and others don't is that older ones still have a Flash fallback available, and newer ones don't.
If you right click on a video that's working and the Flash plugin menu comes up, that would confirm that.
As to why the system isn't working as it should for you, all I can suggest is that you go through this thread and double and triple check that all the necessary settings are present and correct in about:config, and that the necessary files are all present in the <Firefox Profile>\gmp-eme-adobe\17 folder.
There should be three files there, eme-adobe.dll, eme-adobe.info, and eme-adobe.voucher.
It's far more likely that a setting is missing or wrong though.
HTH.
:)

No, all the YouTube videos that play and don't play all use the HTML5 player and have the same right-click menu. YouTube completely removed Flash support a few years ago because the Flash Player will no longer play any YouTube videos. I have all the files and they're in the correct locations. I even tried checking the file version of the eme-adobe.dll to make sure the version Firefox automatically downloaded and installed was not a newer version causing a Windows XP incompatibility, but both file versions are the same. According to an HTML5 test, my browser does not support H.264 (MP4), even though both MP4 preferences are set in about:config. I just don't know.

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10 hours ago, vipejc said:

I can play most YouTube videos fine, but some just will not play, which is strange because you'd think they would all play if one plays.

This assumption couldn't be more wrong... ;) Youtube (i.e. Google) employ a variety of streaming methodologies and combinations of video+audio codecs, there's not a one-size-fits-all philosophy here...

The older VP8 video codec is natively supported in Firefox, so is the newer VP9, but I'm unsure about its support in Fx 48 that you're using :dubbio:; Firefox also supports natively the very widely used h264 (AVC1) video codec, but only on Vista SP2 (with platform update supplement); h264 support in Firefox implies Windows Media Foundation (WMF) framework, an OS feature absent in XP; the use of Adobe Primetime CDM in Firefox under XP is meant exactly to mitigate this missing OS feature, since the CDM comes with its own h264 decoder, which the browser can then use to decode unencrypted MP4 video...

Right-clicking the Youtube embedded HTML5 player and then choosing "Stats for nerds" will tell you what codecs are being used in the streamed video;

zjrIHfc.jpg

Additionally, MPEG-DASH streaming in Youtube (notably the high resolutions) requires the browser to support Media Sourse Extensions (MSE), but not all Youtube videos use that, some use the older "progressive download" type of streams; OTOH, live Youtube streams (may) use AppleHLS streams; so no, if one clip plays, it's not a given all the rest would also play... ;)

5 hours ago, Dave-H said:

older ones still have a Flash fallback available, and newer ones don't.
If you right click on a video that's working and the Flash plugin menu comes up, that would confirm that.

1 hour ago, vipejc said:

No, all the YouTube videos that play and don't play all use the HTML5 player and have the same right-click menu. YouTube completely removed Flash support a few years ago because the Flash Player will no longer play any YouTube videos.

@vipejc is correct; YouTube have completely killed their Flash embedded player; I suspect those "older" clips that do play are in the older VP8 codec, supported natively in Firefox...

1 hour ago, vipejc said:

According to an HTML5 test, my browser does not support H.264 (MP4)

If you head to about:addons/plugins (and even about:plugins), can you spot an entry for the Adobe Primetime CDM? if yes, is it always enabled? If there isn't an entry for it, something's gone awry in its proper installation...

Any reason why not using Firefox ESR 52.9.1 (on which the procedure is known to work)? :)

Edited by VistaLover
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41 minutes ago, VistaLover said:

This assumption couldn't be more wrong... ;) Youtube (i.e. Google) employ a variety of streaming methodologies and combinations of video+audio codecs, there's not a one-size-fits-all philosophy here...

The older VP8 video codec is natively supported in Firefox, so is the newer VP9, but I'm unsure about its support in Fx 48 that you're using :dubbio:; Firefox also supports natively the very widely used h264 (AVC1) video codec, but only on Vista SP2 (with platform update supplement); h264 support in Firefox implies Windows Media Foundation (WMF) framework, an OS feature absent in XP; the use of Adobe Primetime CDM in Firefox under XP is meant exactly to mitigate this missing OS feature, since the CDM comes with its own h264 decoder, which the browser can then use to decode unencrypted MP4 video...

Right-clicking the Youtube embedded HTML5 player and then choosing "Stats for nerds" will tell you what codecs are being used in the streamed video;

zjrIHfc.jpg

Additionally, MPEG-DASH streaming in Youtube (notably the high resolutions) requires the browser to support Media Sourse Extensions (MSE), but not all Youtube videos use that, some use the older "progressive download" type of streams; OTOH, live Youtube streams (may) use AppleHLS streams; so no, if one clip plays, it's not a given all the rest would also play... ;)

@vipejc is correct; YouTube have completely killed their Flash embedded player; I suspect those "older" clips that do play are in the older VP8 codec, supported natively in Firefox...

If you head to about:addons/plugins (and even about:plugins), can you spot an entry for the Adobe Primetime CDM? if yes, is it always enabled? If there isn't an entry for it, something's gone awry in its proper installation...

Any reason why not using Firefox ESR 52.9.1 (on which the procedure is known to work)? :)

You may be right about some YouTube videos playing that use the VP8 codec but others not playing because FF 48 does not support the VP9 codec. But even if that's true, how do you explain some of my music videos playing and others not, when they are all encoded and uploaded the same exact way?

The Adobe Primetime CDM is shown under my plugins, enabled, and set to Always Activate. I even tried disabling Flash and my ad blocker for testing.

Yes, the SSE1-only AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU I'm using will not run on FF 49 or newer according to Mozilla and those versions will issue me a warning that if I try to install it, that version of FF is not supported by my CPU. The Adobe CDM is supposed to work on FF 48, too, is it not?

I'm considering installing the last version of Google Chrome to support Windows XP (49.0.2623.112), which should have H.264 video and audio support, exclusively to watch H.264 (MP4) videos, but I really don't want to.

 

 

Edited by vipejc
Added Google Chrome idea for workaround.
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