Last modified: 2011-05-15 09:52:39 UTC
Created attachment 4729 [details] Screen shot of empty player applet Safari 3.1 has added support for the HTML 5 <video> element, but without built-in Ogg Vorbis/Theora support. Ogg files do play successfully if the XiphQT components are installed, but if they aren't, attempting to switch the player to <video> mode will just give you an empty white video player box with no explanation of what's wrong. If it's possible to detect the failure and print a pointer to the XiphQT components, as done for the QuickTime mode, that might be helpful. This is only an annoyance on Mac OS X as Java will always be present, and the Cortado player will be selected as the default option under the current code. Tested w/ Safari 3.1 initial release on Mac OS X 10.5.2.
Seems to behave about the same on Windows, with the exception that if Java isn't present, you get a big fat dialog box popping up asking if you want Java... if that separate bug is fixed, it would then be falling back to QuickTime (I _think_ Safari will install QuickTime for you, but I'm not sure) which will prompt you to get the XiphQT plugins.
Bump... is this issue still current? Firefox 3.1 is coming out real soon which will put more publicity on <video> element support; we should make sure the experience is sane on Safari too. :)
The HTML5 stuff got some additions to allow for JS codec detection. To use it, you do something like this: dummyvid = document.createElement("video"); if (dummyvid.canPlayType("video/ogg;codecs=\"theora,vorbis\"") == "probably") { /* it should work */ } else { /* go nag the user to install stuff */ } But: I've not actually tested it (Firefox 3.1 beta didn't support it; the nightlies supposedly do but I haven't gotten around to testing it), and I have no clue if safari supports it or not and if it works correctly with XiphQT. Googling canPlayType brings up useful information. (I'd offer to hack on this, but I don't have access to safari, and getting test subjects is a pain)
Just an update— Firefox 3.5 has the canplaytype support too. It works fine. OggHandler has Safari detection now, but the the nag section is stubbed out. This is an example instruction page: http://air.mozilla.com/open-video-for-safari/ I'm thinking of something like falling back to java (if available, it usually is on Mac) and displaying a small system message below or above the video playback that directs you to a site customizable recent-safari specific instruction page which can be initially populated with text like the above Mozilla page.
If I have some time, then I'll check where we are on this. It will also be interesting to see if the webM support of perian can be detected now.
I tested TimedMediaHandler prototype with perian QT plugin and it seems that the webM media of the TMH plugin is properly detected and played. Maxwell, what about having 1 single page with "open video advice", giving you all the advice you need, for the platform you are accessing it from ? Then at "go nag the user to install stuff" we just point him to that link, so that we have all 'smart' detection in that page ? 'upgrade FF, switch to firefox, install xiphQT, install perian' etc. ?
I'm closing this as it was more about <video> detection, which is now fixed due to the canPlayType extension to the standard. I'll open a separate ticket about expanding the 'nag' options.
