Jump to content

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


Recommended Posts


7 hours 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. 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.

Sorry, I didn't realise that Flash support had now been completely removed from YouTube!
I thought it might remain for very old videos which were originally Flash only when that's what YouTube completely relied on.
As VistaLover says, there are several other encoding methods still used on YouTube, but Flash obviously isn't now one of them!
:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, vipejc said:

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.

Actually, I never said that; what I said was: 

5 hours ago, VistaLover said:

so is the newer VP9, but I'm unsure about its support in Fx 48 that you're using

i.e. I couldn't be sure off the top of my head whether VP9 support is present in Fx 48; I had to search about this,

Implement VP9 video decoder in Firefox

suggests VP9 codec support landed in Fx 28, ergo is indeed present in Firefox 48 :) .

In any case, I've instructed you how to tell the video codec used in the clip reproduced in youtube's HTML5 embedded player; based on your report (and my search), VP8+VP9 ones should be OK; h264 (avc1) wouldn't play :(

5 hours ago, vipejc said:

how do you explain some of my music videos playing and others not, when they are all encoded and uploaded the same exact way?

How one's own clips have been originally encoded and packaged (in what media container...) prior to uploading them to youtube is kind of a moot point, because once the original encodes reach yt's servers, they are being re-encoded (re-coded and/or trans-coded) to several different formats/resolutions, to be able to meet yt's dynamic streaming requirements; you can easily check this fact by using one of the several "youtube downloading" apps (e.g. the CLI youtube-dl) and see how your originally uploaded video (in a defined resolution, bitrate, container, etc) is now available in several "qualities".

Google have recently (Aug 9th 2019) removed :realmad: their very useful youtube/HTML5 test page,

http://web.archive.org/web/20190805082454/https://www.youtube.com/html5

which was invaluable in troubleshooting HTML5 video playback in browsers (they've replaced it with 

https://www.youtube.com/supported_browsers

and I suppose the reasoning behind the original's removal is that Google now only support latest versions of Firefox, Google Chrome, Edge, Opera - all these browsers had been, since long ago, passing the tests extant in that previous page with flying colours; of course, they don't care about older unsupported versions of browsers on unsupported OSes... :no: ).

5 hours ago, vipejc said:

Yes, the SSE1-only AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU I'm using will not run on FF 49 or newer (snipped). The Adobe CDM is supposed to work on FF 48, too, is it not?

As I said, the procedure outlined in the first post of this thread was tailored, tried, and known to successfully work in Firefox ESR 52, the last released for XP (but with an SSE2 capable processor); Fx 48.0.2 is not Fx ESR 52.9.1, so there might be other factors why the procedure doesn't yield the expected result in your case (???...)

Perhaps some of the documented about:config prefs need to be modified for Fx 48? Some other(s) missing? ... Hard to tell; it would help if other SSE-only XP users could test and report back (to rule out it just isn't you..); @looking4awayout, would you possibly care to oblige, please...? :lol:

Firefox 48 was at a peculiar spot with regards to Adobe Primetime CDM; Adobe had signaled Mozilla that their closed-source module wouldn't be able to be used on XP for its original purpose, i.e. decrypt DRM content, and that they (Adobe) would only continue its development targeting Vista onwards...

The module itself had some unresolved bugs on XP machines that Adobe weren't inclined to fix; Mozilla OTOH did not have at the time a concrete plan what to do with it; they swayed between leaving it visible and enabled on XP (and Vista OEM) for MP4 decoding purposes, not downloading it by default on XP, hiding it completely on XP (just like they did with WidevineCDM) etc... So, as to what extent was/is AP CDM supposed to work in Fx 48, I can't honestly be sure...

The module was at one stage upgraded from version 15 to 17 (16 was only an interim update for 64-bit Firefox), and then EOL'ed in favour of WidevineCDM; v17 had lesser bugs on XP, Mozilla decided to keep it alive a bit longer, until Fx 51; Fx 52 did not come with official support, nor would it download it by default; finally, the underlying support code was completely removed from the codebase in Firefox 53.0.

Pending reports from other SSE-only users, I'd speculate that your failure is caused by the CDM's inferred dependency on a SSE2 CPU; while the browser itself may be fine with just SSE, the module might be needing SSE2 instruction set to function properly... 

I tried to find documentation to sustain my claim, but, sadly, Adobe have now removed almost everything related to the CDM ("help.adobe.com/en_US/primetime/drm/HTML5_CDM" now redirects to a recent page :realmad:); I stumbled upon a blog article by some Russian guy,

https://weekly-geekly.github.io/articles/373803/index.html

it's quite long, but inside it there's this part

Quote

media.eme.enabled
false , SSE2 / « Primetime, Adobe Systems, Incorporated»

... which I interpreted to mean: "set this pref to false, unless you have an SSE2 CPU and the Adobe Primetime CDM installed" ; so my bet is on Primetime requiring SSE2...

It's quite a long shot, but perhaps you might try the previous version of the module, version 15, accessed via

https://cdmdownload.adobe.com/firefox/win/x86/primetime_gmp_win_x86_gmc_30527.1.zip

(if it doesn't need SSE2, then you might have a chance...)

6 hours ago, vipejc said:

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.

You are not left without other options :) ; several members here on SSE-only processors use @roytam1's Firefox ESR 45.x.x fork (but I'm not sure whether he has modded it for h264 support under XP) and New Moon 27-SSE; the latter does indeed come with h264+aac support, courtesy of custom LAV files you have to download separately and place inside NM27's main folder - just be sure to download the SSE-only flavour of the LAV .dlls :) (and I'm sure you know already, but security-wise, official Firefox ESR 45.9.0 is more secure than Firefox 48.0.2 :whistle: ).

Hope I've helped a little... :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a few about:config prefs that differ between FF 45-48 and FF 49-52:

On 5/11/2016 at 11:02 AM, mixit said:

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+)

HTH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, VistaLover said:

You are not left without other options :) ; several members here on SSE-only processors use @roytam1's Firefox ESR 45.x.x fork (but I'm not sure whether he has modded it for h264 support under XP) and New Moon 27-SSE; the latter does indeed come with h264+aac support, courtesy of custom LAV files you have to download separately and place inside NM27's main folder - just be sure to download the SSE-only flavour of the LAV .dlls :) (and I'm sure you know already, but security-wise, official Firefox ESR 45.9.0 is more secure than Firefox 48.0.2 :whistle: ).

my 45esr build has same mechanism as nm27 does. related rev: https://github.com/roytam1/mozilla45esr/commit/18929e06248829cb89bdef39b2b61e6ae2895e16

Edited by roytam1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just peeking in, I do remember that HTML5 videos do work if I enable the OpenH264 plugin in Firefox 45 ESR SSE. However, I don't know if Primetime works. On the other hand, I tend to avoid using those on my system, because they bring the CPU usage up to the sky as my video card does not accelerate those videos, so, at least for YouTube, I use YT 2 Player in tandem with Greasemonkey + Viewtube, so I can watch the videos in VLC with actual hardware acceleration. I don't have more powerful SSE only CPUs than the overclocked 1.4Ghz Tualatin I use daily.

I used to have a video card that could theoretically accelerate those videos natively, an ATI Radeon HD4670, but I never got the system boot to Windows with that card installed, and after a couple of reboots it stopped POSTing without giving any other sign of life.

Edited by looking4awayout
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@VistaLover: Google Chrome 49.0.2623.112's installer gives me an error that it's encountered a problem and needs to close. This is because the last SSE1-only version of Chrome is 34.0.1847.137, which installs fine. 

I never said you said FF 48 definitely supported the VP9 codec. I was saying it was a general possibility, but I needed to research it, and yes, I can confirm FF 48.0.2 does support the WebM VP9 codec. ;^) Yes, the problem is just H.264 video will not play in FF 48.0.2. I highly doubt FF 48.0.2 is the problem because the Adobe CDM clearly works with multiple versions from 45 to 52.9.1. There shouldn't be any change between versions that would break that compatibility.

I've checked all my about:config preferences and file locations and everything is correct. I even tried experimenting with other preferences not in your instructions that deal with video, but nothing worked.

It's funny you said that my problem may be that the Adobe CDM v17 may require an SSE2 processor because I was just about to suggest this. I will definitely try the Adobe CDM v15 and share my results. After dealing with this annoying issue with many different newer versions of software that will not install, I never considered this could be the problem because there's no usual errors by the Adobe CDM. 

Good idea. Let's get another AMD Athlon XP user running FF 48.0.2 on Windows XP to confirm if the processor missing SSE2 is the problem or it's something else.

HTML5 tests show FF 48.0.2 does not support H.264 video or AAC audio, while Chrome 34.0.1847.137 supports both codecs, and it's two years older than FF 48.0.2! (Mozilla Firefox just keeps getting worse.) It's interesting how both browsers have features the other doesn't, which is why I'll keep them both installed. All videos are playing in H.264 in Google Chrome 34 as expected, but it's very inconvenient opening Chrome just to watch a video I should be able to watch in FF 48.0.2. Not to mention it sucks up double my less than 1 GB of system memory should I have both browsers open at the same time. According to the YouTube HTML5 tests, Chrome 34 has all five features, but Firefox 48 is missing H.264, and MSE and H.264, and the problem may be my legacy SSE Athlon XP CPU, so I will install the Adobe CDM v15, test, and recheck the page to see if these 2 features are then supported. And you're right about why YouTube removed their original HTML5 tests page. 

Nowhere in your walk-through did it mention anything about you using a SSE2 processor. If it did, I would've considered that the problem long ago. 

I have an idea: is there any way to take the H.264 (MP4) video codec and AAC audio codec from Google Chrome 34's installation files and copy-and-paste them to FF 48's appropriate folders? Would that solve my missing H.264 video and AAC audio issues, even though I should already have H.264 video with the Adobe CDM, but it's not working for some stupid reason. I also have an AAC codec from a codec pack, so shouldn't FF 48 also have AAC audio support?

Tried older v15 Adobe CDM and still fails. Tried activating QuickTime plugin, which also shows support for MP4 video and AAC audio, but failed, too. If it works for FF 45 to 47, it should work for FF 48. This doesn't seem like it has a solution. I tried editing the media.gmp.decoder.h264 preference from 2 to 1, disabling WebM, OGG, and Opus video formats so just H.264 was enabled, disabling Flash Player, and the OpenH264 Video Codec by Cisco. The problem may be some kind of unique incompatibility on my system. It could be anything. I'll wait until Looking4AWayOut and any other Athlon XP users test this issue and see how they do.

Thanks for the browser suggestions, but I'm going to stick with FF 48 and Chrome 34 until I retire Windows XP within the year and switch to Windows 7 64-bit, which will be my final Windows OS for life.

You did help a lot. Thank you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/7/2019 at 11:32 PM, roytam1 said:

my 45esr build has same mechanism as nm27 does. related rev: https://github.com/roytam1/mozilla45esr/commit/18929e06248829cb89bdef39b2b61e6ae2895e16

How would I take an unbranded build of Firefox 48.0.2 and add H.264 video and AAC audio to it? What are all the other benefits of your FF ESR 45 build, Roytam? Security is not a concern for me, VistaLover.

Edited by vipejc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@vipejc

I am sorry to say this, but I will not take part in these tests, because as I already said, my system is not capable enough of running HTML5 videos in software rendering without lagging, spiking the CPU usage to 100% or slowing the system down to a crawl.

For my setup, I use better alternatives which I already mentioned before. And unlike VP9 and OpenH264, they are actually hardware accelerated...

If I had a working Radeon HD4670, I could have tried. But the only one I had caused Windows to freeze at the splash screen, and after a couple of reboots, the card no longer POSTs. :(

Edited by looking4awayout
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, looking4awayout said:

@vipejc

I am sorry to say this, but I will not take part in these tests, because as I already said, my system is not capable enough of running HTML5 videos in software rendering without lagging, spiking the CPU usage to 100% or slowing the system down to a crawl.

For my setup, I use better alternatives which I already mentioned before. And unlike VP9 and OpenH264, they are actually hardware accelerated...

If I had a working Radeon HD4670, I could have tried. But the only one I had caused Windows to freeze at the splash screen, and after a couple of reboots, the card no longer POSTs. :(

It's okay. I know what you're saying. These legacy SSE1-only CPUs are very slow to render video in 480p and up through software. They either drop frames, are choppy, or freeze the computer too long (CPU usage spikes to 100%), and make it impossible to play them. I download them to watch offline with my video card that supports 1080p using hardware acceleration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Windows_Media_Player#Installing_the_new_plugin

Quote

New WMP plugin for Windows XP and above: Windows 7/Vista and some versions of Windows XP do not include the standard WMP plugin. Microsoft's Technet division has developed a new Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin (file name "np-mswmp.dll") for Windows XP and above. This new plugin can be installed to solve a missing plugin issue (see below) or to take advantage of its new features (e.g., scripting support) on systems that already include the standard WMP plugin.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...