MS Releases New Media Player Firefox Plugin

SilentChris writes "Microsoft today released a new Media Player plugin for Firefox that resolves the problems users of the older version were experiencing. According to the company's Port 25 blog, it's backwards compatible with Windows Media Player 6.4. The plugin is for Windows XP and Vista only, but if you have to watch WMV video at least it's less likely to crash your browser."

Comments

Who needs Media Player?

[Seumas]

Thanks Microsoft, but I've already got VLC.

I for one welcome our new plug-in overlords

[WillAffleckUW]

oh, wait, it's our old overlords.

Now I'm really confused.

Guess I'll just go watch those music videos I've been wanting to watch in Firefox ever since I reported some of the earliest bugs for playing media years ago ... YEAH! BABY GOT VID!

Don't waste your time on the plugin like I did

[KnightMB]

I downloaded the plugin just to give it a try. Never had any problems with embedded video except at cnn.com I thought maybe the plugin would fix that problem. After installing and giving firefox a restart, it still won't work with the cnn.com and nothing else appears to be different. Not sure what the point of the plugin was, but don't waste your time with it like I did. It solved nothing from what it appears to me. Using Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP Pro SP2

Re:Don't waste your time on the plugin like I did

[michrech]

I downloaded the plugin just to give it a try. Never had any problems with embedded video except at cnn.com I thought maybe the plugin would fix that problem. After installing and giving firefox a restart, it still won't work with the cnn.com and nothing else appears to be different. Not sure what the point of the plugin was, but don't waste your time with it like I did. It solved nothing from what it appears to me. Using Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP Pro SP2

Worked perfectly for me in Vista Enterprise. I didn't even have to restart Firefox (2.0.0.3). I'll be testing an XP machine I just put together shortly.

For those wishing not to use this update, for whatever your reasons, you can take three .dll files from an XP/WMP10 install and have working embedded video in Firefox under Vista.

Those three files are : npdsplay.dll, npdrmv2.dll, and npwmsdrm.dll

The last two are most likely optional, but I copied them anyway. The only drawback (if you can really call it that) is that the lower part of the embedded window are cut off by a few pixels, but it works perfectly fine.

Luckily for me, I'm surrounded by roughly 1800-ish XP machines, so I had no problems finding the files. I'm sure you all have someone you know with an XP machine that you could grab a copy of these files from.

This information is also available at various web pages if you look in Google.

Re:Don't waste your time on the plugin like I did

[Sam Ramji]

The reason the new plugin is better than just installing the three older files (which are the NPAPI compatibility libraries shipped with WMP 6.4 and previous) is that it expands the programmatic access to the WMP component - it's now fully scriptable from Firefox, with forward/back/pause features etc.

So use whichever one you like, but I am personally a Firefox user and prefer the experience with the new WMP 11 plugin. YMMV.

Also, in case you were wondering why it's a .exe instead of a .xpi, after talking with the guys at Mozilla we realized that the user experience for installing a .exe was better and additionally fit the Firefox model better. It's a plugin, not an extension; if you review the Adobe plugins they are also delivered as .exes.

Sam Ramji
Director, Open Source Software Lab
Microsoft Corporation

Or the better (free, as in choice) option

[VE3OGG]

Use VLC. Short of protected media (and really, I don't know too many people who use protected WMV), it seems to work wonderfully, and isn't dependent on a only two operating systems. If you want something more integrated, there is of course M-Player as well...

Re:Or the better (free, as in choice) option

[denis-The-menace]

I don't know too many people who use protected WMV
That's easy: Trojan writers.
There's this "feature" to install licenses for WMA/WMV files that permit the covert installation of Trojans, backdoors and other malware.

Stay away from .WMA/.MWV files like the plague they are!!!

Re:Or the better (free, as in choice) option

[Kalriath]

Actually, if Microsoft catches people installing trojans via the Licensing system, they revoke their license server. In case you weren't aware of what goes into getting the software to create protected WM* content:

1. Obtain Code Signing certificate from Certification Authority (Verisign, Thawte, or Geotrust only), which entails;
    a. Providing CA with registered company name, phone number and physical address
    b. Providing CA with copy of phone bill to allow them to call technical owner of said registered company
    c. Paying through the arse (about $500 USD) for certificate to be generated
2. Submit application to Microsoft. This is reviewed, then...
3. Microsoft sends a blank OCX file, which you then sign with your code signing certficate and return
4. Post back two copies of a signed contract which has your real name, registered company name, phone number, and physical address
    a. This contract says that you're dead meat if you distribute the software to ANYONE
5. Wait for MS legal to verify details and countersign agreement
6. Software is delivered to you via special extranet site which you probably didn't know existed
7. Software requires certificate to issue licenses which is generated by visiting a certain URL on WindowsMedia.com
8. Software can have its ability to issue licenses revoked at any time by revoking this certificate

As you can see, there's an assload of safeguards against what you say happens all the time, and Microsoft do revoke WMRM certificates for using them to install spyware or trojans. The contract then allows them to sue the person misusing the license manager SDK into oblivion as well, but I don't know whether they ever have or not.

If you're going to make a statement, make sure to back it up with real experiences or knowledge. Yes, I do happen to know how this process works. A company I work with had to go through it recently.

Re:Or the better (free, as in choice) option

[Breakfast Pants]

I'll just chime in with 'it happened to me'.

Re:Or the better (free, as in choice) option

[Kalriath]

And the bastard who did it had their license revoked, without a doubt. People don't pay Microsoft for access to the WMRM software, so there is no benefit in them allowing partners with access to it to damage it's (admittedly already quite bad simply because of what it IS) reputation with no gain for them OR anyone else. Microsoft once issued a press release about this after someone was caught doing it, saying they fully intended to both revoke the offender's license and prosecute. Sure, I realise that it doesn't help you much, but hell - at least they did what they could (including fixing the bug that allowed WMP to open license aquisition pages in the LOCAL COMPUTER zone in the first place). If someone's going to bash MS, the least they can do is pick one of the many REAL issues to get them for, there's no need to invent something.

Why now?

[MadJo]

Why would you need this plugin, when you have all sorts of different extensions dealing with this situation.
Like for instance: mediaplayerconnectivity.
Look you can use any player you like, and you don't need to have the browser open anymore, while playing the video.

I'm sorry Microsoft, but you are too little too late.

Re:Unlike the state of Florida or parts of it

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloading random-ass binaries off of somebody's ISP-provided homepage is rarely, if ever, a "better alternative". Quicktime Alternative, in this case, is a much better (and well-known on Slashdot) alternative than that crapware Quicktime Player for Windows (QT Player is not nearly as bad on OS X). QT Player for Windows is bloated, slow, and ugly nagware that tries start background programs every time you boot your PC and hijack file/program preferences.

Since you've never heard of Final Builds (which gives 11 mirrors for Quicktime Alternative), here's some more links for Quicktime Alternative:

• VersionTracker
• CNET Download.com
• PC World
• codecs.com
• VideoHelp.com
• afterdawn.com

Also, the parent post mentioned nothing about installing QuickTime on a Windows PC. The parent post was bitching about problems on his/her Windows PC. This is what the parent said in the original post (emphasis mine):

Firefox on Windows seems pretty sketchy with it's media support, by default there seem to be some handlers for relevant mime types missing (works fine once they are added manually though).

I was mostly having problems with WMV files (though also with some MPEG's), hopefully this will make things better (my only Windows machine is for gaming, so I tend to be using it to look at game related info when I'm browsing - which is where a lot of the crappy WMV files come from).

The decision to use WMV is undoubtedly a stupid one borne of ignorance though. From experience, I know there are plenty of ways to do streaming video in a non proprietary way that work fine in WMP, QT and other native video players

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:wmv files???

[Abalamahalamatandra]

Well, not to give too much up, and I won't post my script as that would be uncool to NPR, but...

I save off:

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=M E&showDate=17-Apr-2007&segNum=&mediaPref=RM&getUnd erwriting=0

as a file with a .smil extension, which gives me a nice file to parse with segment titles, audio src tags and such.

The showcode you can see as the first JavaScript parameter on the webpage link to the audio, and if you leave the segnum parameter blank, you get all of it for that day's show.

Then I just iterate over those (my script starts parallel processes to do more than one at once for speed, NPR hosts on Speedera edge caching servers) and run:

mplayer -nocache -vc dummy -vo null -ao pcm:waveheader:file=out.wav (audio src url)

Then I do the same multiple-process thing with lame to convert the wav files to mp3.

This is script-based stuff for a Linux box, not for real-time browsing. But I would imagine that a GreaseMonkey script could easily piece together a URL like that from the JavaScript code linked to each story.