# how to play mp4 v2 video in Firefox?



## Bill_H (Oct 11, 2022)

I can watch drone videos .MP4 (Base Media v1 [ISO 14496-12:2003]) in Firefox.  

The controller generates screen capture videos that Firefox won't play.  The start button and progress bar show up, the progress bar and time value advance, but there is no video content.  The file type is:

```
$ file screen-20220925-103415.mp4
   screen-20220925-103415.mp4: ISO Media, MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14]
```
My system:
freebsd-version: 13.1-RELEASE-p1
desktop: MATE 1.26.0
FireFox: 103.0.2
pkg list | grep mp4: /usr/local/lib/gstreamer-1.0/libgstisomp4.so

Similar results for Chromium.

How can I play MP4 v2 videos on FreeBSD?

Thanks, Bill.


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## mer (Oct 11, 2022)

SirDice said:


> Not related to the issue but you should upgrade to 13.2. 13.1-RELEASE is now end-of-life and not supported anymore. Packages on the FreeBSD repository are now being built for 13.2 too, and they do NOT work on 13.1.


Hmm?  Release engineering page says 13.2-RELEASE is slated for Q1 of 2023, so 13.1-RELEASE should be supported until at least then. There is a -p2 for 13.1-RELEASE.


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## SirDice (Oct 11, 2022)

Oh, bugger. Screwing up my versions again. I live in the future didn't you know?


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 11, 2022)

Ground control to Major Tom


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## mer (Oct 11, 2022)

SirDice said:


> Oh, bugger. Screwing up my versions again. I live in the future didn't you know?


There's a Talking Heads song there somewhere or a Back to the future movie.

I was concerned that I missed something.


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## jmos (Oct 12, 2022)

Bill_H said:


> How can I play MP4 v2 videos on FreeBSD?


Here it plays videos that `file` defines as "ISO Media, MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14]". But Firefox is not really a good video player - I would recommend VLC or mplayer therefore. Also you could check it with a new, blank user account - on my machine it makes a difference (haven't found out why so far).


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## SirDice (Oct 12, 2022)

Bill_H said:


> desktop: MATE 1.26.0


What videocard does the machine have and what video driver are you using?


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## Bill_H (Oct 13, 2022)

jmos said:


> Here it plays videos that `file` defines as "ISO Media, MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14]". But Firefox is not really a good video player - I would recommend VLC or mplayer therefore. Also you could check it with a new, blank user account - on my machine it makes a difference (haven't found out why so far).


Thanks, good to know it works somewhere.  Thinking maybe my system was missing some software, I did a pkg search on mp4v2 and found a library mp4v2-2.0.0.  Installed it, but no joy.

Yes, if need be, I will try other players to get something that works.  Ultimately would like a video editor.


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## Bill_H (Oct 13, 2022)

SirDice said:


> What videocard does the machine have and what video driver are you using?


My tests were 1) on a VM using xllvnc and Tiger VNC and 2) on the host which has a VisionTek Radeon HD 7750 3M PCIE, 2GB DDR3, 4K UHD Three Monitor Card.   The drivers loaded for the VisionTek GPU:
# kldstat | grep -e drm -e amd
 13    1 0xffffffff83200000   31fd70 amdgpu.ko
 14    2 0xffffffff83120000    7f020 drm.ko
 17    1 0xffffffff831bc000     9e08 amdgpu_verde_mc_bin.ko
 18    1 0xffffffff831c6000     4358 amdgpu_verde_pfp_bin.ko
 19    1 0xffffffff831cb000     4358 amdgpu_verde_me_bin.ko
 20    1 0xffffffff831d0000     4358 amdgpu_verde_ce_bin.ko
 21    1 0xffffffff831d5000     41d8 amdgpu_verde_rlc_bin.ko
 22    1 0xffffffff831da000    11228 amdgpu_verde_smc_bin.ko


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## Bill_H (Oct 13, 2022)

I tried running Firefox from the command line in safe-mode and the log showed no problems different from  the drone  or controller videos.

I installed exiftool to dump metadata of the video files and found the compressor id of the mp4 v1 file was avc1 and the mp4 v2 file was hvc1.  I believe those ids involve the H264 and H265 codecs, respectively.

I will try installing one of the players: mplayer, vlc, or xine.

Thanks for your help.

Bill


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## fernandel (Oct 16, 2022)

I am using multimedia/mpv and on Firefox I have extensionn "play-with" which open me video with mpv player.


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## SirDice (Oct 17, 2022)

Bill_H said:


> on a VM using xllvnc and Tiger VNC


You can pretty much forget about watching video over an VLC connection.


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## Voltaire (Oct 18, 2022)

SirDice said:


> You can pretty much forget about watching video over an VLC connection.


You mean VNC connection anyway instead of VLC connection. mpv is the best video player in terms of resource usage and I have experience with the configuration, which is very simple. VLC should also work but uses more CPU and RAM. I can play mp4 files on _FreeBSD 12.3_ via Firefox. I don't know what version of these mp4 files is, but I find it strange that it doesn't work for you. Seems to me it should work. I've played movies over a VNC connection in the past using Lubuntu and FreeBSD. There is the difference that I used Lubuntu. *The problem was audio.* I think it has picture but no audio:


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## jmos (Oct 18, 2022)

Voltaire said:


> I've played movies over a VNC connection


…and it doesn't look like 15fps? Even with the highest settings… IMO: If you can access a remote desktop you should also be able to transfer the movie file to your local machine and play it there. Makes more sense.


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