theora - Jan 2010 - Theora video support in Firefox and Opera

Firefox: 3.6 is out. What's new? I don't know (see :-( below)

Trying to play videos:

+ Can play (in some cases) Internet videos
+ Can play (in some cases) videos from local storage
+ Seems to pass the testsuite tests ,
http://wiki.xiph.org/TheoraTestsuite , ("offset" looks good, 4:4:4 and
4:2:2 too, not sure about the 322x242 "not divisible by 16" - there is
a black line ...)

- The video controls still don't work with JS off,
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449358 , got
1'000'000'000
duplicates but no fix, if this is not fixed for 3.6, what is fixed
then? WtF ...

- The system requirements ,
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html , are
hard core nonsense:
> Firefox 3.6 System Requirements
> Operating Systems
>    * Windows 2000
>    * Windows XP
>    * Windows Server 2003
>    * Windows Vista
>    * Windows 7
> Minimum Hardware
>    * Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500 MHz or greater)
>    * 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
>    * 52 MB hard drive space
Regrettably to play the "duck" test at least 1 GiB RAM and 3 GHz are
required, and it behaves really badly on "insufficient" hardware: very
unresponsive (you can hardly leave the "offending" page), and
doesn't
play (too busy with decoding frames but all dropped before landing on
the screen?)

Better not to discuss "usability" of Vista with 233 MHz and 64 MiB RAM
:-D

Opera10.5 Alpha:

Doesn't work: Either player appears but playing doesn't start (even
with small movies working in FireFox), controls are there (even with
JS off), but all what one can do is to move the audio volume button,
or asks "Open with what" offering Firefox or Opera (???), or displays
the movie as text ... Also local movies don't play either.

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 10:22, dos386 <dos386 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Opera10.5 Alpha:
>
> Doesn't work: Either player appears but playing doesn't start (even
> with small movies working in FireFox), controls are there (even with
> JS off), but all what one can do is to move the audio volume button,
> or asks "Open with what" offering Firefox or Opera (???), or
displays
Only embedding <video> in a page works right now, if you're trying to
open a video file directly it won't do anything useful. As for the
rest, can't you get even Wikipedia-embedded <video> to work? Please be
sure to report any bugs at http://bugs.opera.com/ and we will look at
them.

-- 
Philip J?genstedt

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 8:22 PM, dos386 <dos386 at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Firefox: 3.6 is out. What's new? I don't know (see :-( below)
Full-screen support is new (right-click on the video). And I'm sure
the Firefox developers have a stack of little improvements. I've found
it to be much more reliable.
> Opera10.5 Alpha:
>
> Doesn't work: Either player appears but playing doesn't start (even
> with small movies working in FireFox), controls are there (even with
> JS off), but all what one can do is to move the audio volume button,
It's a first alpha version - give them a chance! :-)
> or asks "Open with what" offering Firefox or Opera (???), or
displays
> the movie as text ... Also local movies don't play either.
Displaying movie as text is usually a problem of the setup of the Web
server, which does not provide the correct mime type. Are you sure the
Web server that you used it with was correctly set up?

Regards,
Silvia.

On 1/29/2010 1:22 AM, dos386 wrote:
> irefox: 3.6 is out. What's new? I don't know (see:-(  below)
>
> Trying to play videos:
>
> + Can play (in some cases) Internet videos
> + Can play (in some cases) videos from local storage
> + Seems to pass the testsuite tests ,
> http://wiki.xiph.org/TheoraTestsuite  , ("offset" looks good,
4:4:4 and
> 4:2:2 too, not sure about the 322x242 "not divisible by 16" -
there is
> a black line ...)
>    
Are you having sound-related problems?  I've seen some problems on Linux 
that are probably related to sound.
> - The video controls still don't work with JS off,
> http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449358  , got
1'000'000'000
> duplicates but no fix, if this is not fixed for 3.6, what is fixed
> then? WtF ...
>    
It's because the controls are scripted with the same interfaces as the 
HTML5 video and use JS to run them.  They run in the page content.  
(It's also the reason you can easily replace the controls with your own!)
> - The system requirements ,
> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/system-requirements.html  , are
> hard core nonsense:
>
>    
>> >  Firefox 3.6 System Requirements
>> >  Operating Systems
>> >      * Windows 2000
>> >      * Windows XP
>> >      * Windows Server 2003
>> >      * Windows Vista
>> >      * Windows 7
>> >  Minimum Hardware
>> >      * Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500 MHz or greater)
>> >      * 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
>> >      * 52 MB hard drive space
>>      
> Regrettably to play the "duck" test at least 1 GiB RAM and 3 GHz
are
> required, and it behaves really badly on "insufficient" hardware:
very
> unresponsive (you can hardly leave the "offending" page), and
doesn't
> play (too busy with decoding frames but all dropped before landing on
> the screen?)
>    
I played the Duck video on my laptop which has a lot of memory and a 
1.8Ghz processor.  A reasonably modern laptop, but nothing like a rocket 
ship.  On Windows, though.  If you're on Linux the graphics aren't as 
fast as they are on winows + mac.
> Better not to discuss "usability" of Vista with 233 MHz and 64
MiB RAM:-D
>    
Heh, yeah.  I wonder if these need to be changed.  No idea when the last 
time we looked at it.

--Chris

On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:35:55 -0600, <theora-request at xiph.org> wrote:
> Only embedding <video> in a page works right now
Will opening it directly be available in the close (half-a-year) future?  
(Taking into note that 10.5 is trying to be out the door ASAP)



-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 22:05, Daniel Hendrycks <kondo8 at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:35:55 -0600, <theora-request at xiph.org>
wrote:
>
>> Only embedding <video> in a page works right now
>
> Will opening it directly be available in the close (half-a-year) future?
> (Taking into note that 10.5 is trying to be out the door ASAP)
As people tend to try opening files directly to test support, this is
high up on the list of planned improvements.

-- 
Philip J?genstedt

> As for the rest, can't you get even Wikipedia-embedded <video> to
work?
no (maybe CPU performance again ???)

[doublepost]

Wikimedia files do play for me in Firefox 3.6, although apparently
only (JS off) in the "raw" mode (small 320 x 240 1 MiB example):

[NOPE]
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:135241main_neutronstar4lunch-magic.mov_NASA_WebV_Oct3.ifps15fr15.vbr150.ogv

[OK]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/135241main_neutronstar4lunch-magic.mov_NASA_WebV_Oct3.ifps15fr15.vbr150.ogv

[/doublepost]
> Please be sure to report any bugs at http://bugs.opera.com/ and we will
look at them.
It requires an account
> It's a first alpha version - give them a chance! :-)
I will.
> Are you having sound-related problems?
No speakers connected. And from the testsuite, only 1

RATIO.OGV "pixel_aspect_ratio.ogx" 1'909'943 1.82 MiB
E34DE890E3D6E5BBA75A39D56E993148
Theora+Vorbis | 28.28 s | 540 Kbps | ffmpeg2theora 0.10.2 | 352 x 288
16:9 25 fps
libTheora 3.2.0 2004-03-17 + libVorbis 1.0.1 2003-09-09

example has sound at all.
> As people tend to try opening files directly to test support, this is
> high up on the list of planned improvements.
:-)

Chris wrote:
> > Better not to discuss "usability" of Vista with 233 MHz and
64 MiB RAM:-D
> Heh, yeah.  I wonder if these need to be changed.
The IMHO better approach would be to get it working (in Firefox and Opera) down
to those 233 MHz, even if a 30 fps 1 min movie evolves into a 1.5 fps
20 min movie
then. The priority of the player should be reduced, and the sound suspended as
necessary if the video gets behind the sound. Also frame dropping should be
optional at most, otherwise the effect is "100% CPU used and 0% video
visible
on the screen" (same trouble with VLC).