Why Embedded Videos Wont Play On Linux?

[Colin Brace]

On 8/2/06, Leonard Chatagnier <lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Why doesm't embedded media files(video especially)
> play under linux as they used to?

Hi, I don't pretend to be "in the know" but I can offer you a few ideas.

First, as I am sure you realize, embedded flash and embedded WMV/MOV
are two separate issues. Alas, the increasing number of sites using
Flash 8 simply don't work under Linux. This isn't expected to be
remedied until the release of Flash 9 for Linux (late 2006/early
2007).

As for the mplayer mozilla plugin, I've had mixed results. In my
experience it makes Firefox very unstable. if it doesn't work for you,
try removing it and installing the gxine plugin instead; this may work
better. In my case, I ended up removing both and instead opening
WMV/MOV files in vlc externally, which works fine in most cases (the
exception being sites like comedycentral.com which use some funky
javascript to play embedded WMV files).

To gain a little more control over which program opens what, I
recommend installing the MIME type editor extension:
<ttp://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/mimetype-editor>

HTH/YMMV

-- 
  Colin Brace
  Amsterdam