Why Embedded Videos Wont Play On Linux?

[Leonard Chatagnier]

Just converted from Debian to Ubuntu and want to
complement Ubuntu for a great, reliable and easy to
use Linux OS.
Now my Question:
Why doesm't embedded media files(video especially)
play under linux as they used to? This issue started
with me about 2 or 3 months ago when I first upgraded
to Deb Sid. There was some talk about needing flash
player 8 to play videos on some sites which currently
isn't available for linux. I've been strugling ever
since Sid upgrade to get Mozilla mplayerplug-in to
work on AP, Reuters, etc without any success. The best
I've been able to do is get the player to load
mplayerplug-in, go through the buffering and playing
cycle(but no actual playing) and now under Dapper it
just freezes up with a greyed out screen and crashes
Mozilla when I shut it down. I don't know if I have a
setup issue or if there is something inherent in Linux
preventing it from working. Would appreciate some
elaboration on the issue from those in the know. I did
save my $Home from Deb Sid with a local setup and
there may be some conflicts as a result.
Any insight appreciated.

Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net