# non flash working on FreeBSD 9?



## spoom (Jan 30, 2012)

Here'a a weird one:
I upgraded to 9 CURRENT from RC3, installed firefox with *pkg_add -r firefox*. This gave me firefox 9.01 or something like it (sorry for my memory lapse as I have other thoughts and I just recall the thought of the moment) and I ran some pages from a local site I am developing; one page in particular plays videos (mp4's) and I clicked on the link and to my surprise it played fine. I had not installed flash player. So, I am wondering what could have happened.

It no longer works as I have been fixing broken port and package dbs and working on the site on another FreeBSD 8.0 machine; so much may have changed.

Is it possible, there is another video player I had used that does not use flash?


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 30, 2012)

Is your local markup wrapping the mp4 in a flash object? Browsers do not need flash to play mp4s if they have the right plugin to play them.


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## spoom (Jan 30, 2012)

Could it be I mucked up the plugin. I don't have any installed at the moment.
What plugin could that be or how do I find out which one... I'll try the big G.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 30, 2012)

I'm stuck out of town without FF and only a Win desktop. In the address bar, you can enter 'aboutlugins' to see what plugins you have. Also, under the menu, you can look for the Content tab to see which files are associated with which player. But, on your web page, you should know if you wrapped your mp4 around a flash object unless this is something you cut/pasted.


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## SirDice (Jan 31, 2012)

Just a note, 9-CURRENT doesn't exist anymore. It's either 9.0-RELEASE, 9-STABLE or 10-CURRENT.


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## spoom (Jan 31, 2012)

Ooops! Those labels never did stick in my mind.
Thanks both of you for responding.
BTW, the file associations are under the Applications tab.
On the FreeBSD 9 machine there are no installed plugins and the associations are minimal to say the least: just a couple of irrelevant entries.
I guess that means I have to install the plugins. Ok, so I'll have to do as I had done for FBSD 7.2 and 8.0: go with the linux stuff and follow the directions for the flash plugin from the FBSD manual.
As to the mp4 file on my web page, I don't understand the wrapping around a flash object.
I am using "jquery.tools.min.js" and "flowplayer-32.6.min.js" with "flowplayer-3.2.7.swf".
If I recall correctly, this is supposed to play mp4 files; and so it does on FF on other machines. 
But from the swf player being used, I believe that the player expects to use the flash player and does an on-the-fly conversion.
Now, that is not really what I had in mind, but for the moment it works well if FF is set up right.
What I really want is to be able to play the videos without flash! And supposedly HTML5 and CSS3 are supposed make this possible... in theory, at least... but I haven't grasped the theory yet.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 31, 2012)

spoom said:
			
		

> As to the mp4 file on my web page, I don't understand the wrapping around a flash object.


I said that backwards. Flash is sometimes wrapped around an mp4 to let Flash play it.





> What I really want is to be able to play the videos without flash! And supposedly HTML5 and CSS3 are supposed make this possible... in theory, at least... but I haven't grasped the theory yet.


CSS3 has nothing to do with playing audio or video. The HTML5 elements, video and audio, work well in all browsers (but only 9 and above in IE) and is used on YouTube. The only problems most people seem to have is getting the buttons to work as they wish. The other issue is which format to use. The choices are H.264, WebM and Ogg. Chances are you'll have to supply the first two. Some of the best information on all this can be found on the Mozilla Developer Network.

I have other links but, as I said, I'm stuck out of town without my tools. Google for Kroc Camen's "video for everybody", too.


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