Microsoft Is Releasing an H.264 Plugin For Firefox

ndogg writes "Microsoft has announced that it is releasing an H.264 plugin for Firefox. This plugin does not add H.264 capabilities to Firefox, but rather allows it to use the H.264 capabilities built into Windows 7. With that in mind, it sounds like it may not work on anything other than Windows 7."

Re:Good enough?

[moonbender]

I know I'm probably responding to a troll, but for the record, hardware video (including H.264) acceleration is supported on Linux desktop via VDPAU/VA API. I can't vouch for the Intel/ATI VA API, but VDPAU has worked fine for me. Playing back a 1080p H.264 file has basically no impact on system load.

Re:What was the advantage of HTML5 and video?

[BZ]

They tried to set a standard video codec.

Opera and Gecko refused to implement one of the possible contenders (H.264) for patent reasons. Furthermore, H.264 doesn't comply with the spirit of the W3C patent policy, though it does comply with the letter (because while a W3C spec can't require implementation of a W3C-designed techonlogy that has W3C members holding patents on it and not licensing them, it _can_ require implementation of a patented technology developed by someone else, via citing it by reference).

Apple refused to implement anything other than H.264.

Microsoft refused to comment, basically.

Google implemented H.264 and the other containers+codecs Gecko and Opera implement (WebM/VP8 and Ogg/Theora).

So anything that was going to be specified was going to be a fiction in practice....

Cool story bro!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I've read about half the comments, and so far the general sentiment of the FOSStard community to my understanding is this:

- Microsoft should have written an h.264 plugin for Firefox on Linux and OS-X.
- It's typical of Microsoft to do something like this and not support XP.

- Etc.

Here's the deal, guys:
H.264 support is not "built into" Windows 7. It's built into Windows Media Player 12. That version shipped with and is exclusive to Windows 7. It can't be installed to XP. Microsoft has previously released a Firefox plugin that enabled some older version of Windows Media Player to run an instance within Firefox. There are some sites out there that use old IE-only extensions to play video and they embed an instance of Windows Media Player directly into the browser window. The old Windows Media Player Firefox extension only enabled Firefox to support this garbage.

Now they have released an updated plugin based on Windows Media Player 12 that (not surprisingly) only runs on Windows 7. Since it's based on Windows Media Player 12, it supports H.264. It probably is even neater now since it interprets HTML5 tags and automatically invokes. It's not just for embedded Windows Media Player crap anymore.

Re:Good

[GigaplexNZ]

I'm assuming by Win7 only they're including the beta version they called vista.

Unlikely, Vista doesn't include the H.264 Media Foundation codec that ships with Windows 7.

Re:Good

[SanityInAnarchy]

Where's a "-1 Wrong" option when you need it?

Yes, it does. It doesn't support Firefox-compatible addons. It does support Firefox-compatible plugins. There is a difference.

Re:Good

[LWATCDR]

No I have not and no their really isn't.
The reasons that they give for not using OS-provided codecs are at best questionable.
1 is security. But then you are assuming that Mozilla's codecs are more secure than those proved by the OS.
2. Availability. Windows XP doesn't have native h.264 support but 7 does. I am not so sure about Vista but you easily add h.264 support. OS/X has it native and Linux everybody adds it.

Application provided codecs make as much sense as Application provided printer, sound, and graphics drivers. It is all about code reuse and flexibility. And yes there was a time when each application did provide printer, sound, and graphics drivers. And by going with OS based codec support adding newer and better codecs will be a simple matter of adding the support to the OS. Just like printers, graphics, and sound are today.