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Does Firefox not support mp4 video on websites?

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I have an embedded mp4 video background on my site. It functions properly in every browser other than Firefox.

It's not content on a page, so I can't put multiple versions in and have the browser pick.

I also can not use YouTube video as a background video -- nor am I willing to use Flash [since this requires plug-ins to work, and most people are afraid of having Flash on their systems].

Is there any solution, or will this just not work for anyone using Firefox?

Thanks.

I have an embedded mp4 video background on my site. It functions properly in every browser other than Firefox. It's not content on a page, so I can't put multiple versions in and have the browser pick. I also can not use YouTube video as a background video -- nor am I willing to use Flash [since this requires plug-ins to work, and most people are afraid of having Flash on their systems]. Is there any solution, or will this just not work for anyone using Firefox? Thanks.

Chosen solution

just so that you know -- i *may* have found a fix if not a solution:

i re-encoded it through handbrake, and it seems to work fine on firefox now -- at least on my mac. still waiting to hear about the pc.

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All Replies (15)

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Can you post the code that you use to play this video or possibly post a link to the web page?

Did you check the Web Console (3-bar Menu button or Tools > Web Developer) for error messages?

Modified by cor-el

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it's a background video plug-in from siteorigin used on a wordpress site.

http://scottwolfson.com

there should be a background video playing beneath the logo, and it does on every browser but firefox. on firefox, it's just black with the logo.

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I can see the video using the built-in HTML5 media player as the background, but I'm not hearing sound, so I'm not sure if that is how it is supposed to work.

  • http://scottwolfson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web-home-screen.mov

I don't know if Firefox on Mac supports this type of media file. http://scottwolfson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web-home-screen.mov

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there isn't any sound -- it's just for background.

however, on neither my firefox [mac] nor another person's firefox [pc] is the video showing.

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The video works for me on Linux, so Firefox is able to play the file if there is support in the operating system for playing this MP4 file.

  • Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)

Any luck with opening this data URI via the location/address bar?

data:text/html;charset=utf-8;base64,PHZpZGVvIHNyYz0iaHR0cDovL3Njb3R0d29sZnNvbi5jb20vd3AtY29udGVudC91cGxvYWRzLzIwMTYvMDEvd2ViLWhvbWUtc2NyZWVuLm1vdiIgY29udHJvbHM+

Modified by cor-el

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as i said previously, it works on all other browsers on those same machines.

plus -- mp4 is built-in to macs...

as to the URI above -- once again, success in every browser but firefox...

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Try to update to Firefox 44 to see if it works in that version in case Firefox 43 has a problem on Mac.

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yes -- we tried the update, as well. still no luck.

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Chosen Solution

just so that you know -- i *may* have found a fix if not a solution:

i re-encoded it through handbrake, and it seems to work fine on firefox now -- at least on my mac. still waiting to hear about the pc.

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On Firefox 44 + Windows 7 "web-home-screen-optimized.mp4" plays automatically behind "logo-1.png". The dancers seem happy.

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thanks -- yes, that's not the original one. that's the re-encoded one i did through handbrake. i still don't know why the original file didn't work.

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By the way, this is a standard video tag inserted behind an img tag (attached screen shot), so the plugin certainly could code the video tag to handle alternate formats such as WebM or OGG/OGV.

When I look up the SiteOrigin Slider Widget Background Video documentation, it shows that you can upload multiple formats for a video. Check out that section of the following page and see whether you can use one of those alternate formats to support Firefox on platforms without MP4 decoding: https://siteorigin.com/widgets-bundle/slider-widget-documentation/

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thanks. i'll take a look. however, the plug-in only has 1 place for video, and there's a drop-down to pick what format it's in. so while it can take multiple formats, it might not do so in the same widget the way we used to upload multiple versions and have the browser pick which to play.

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i will mention again that re-encoding with handbrake apparently has solved the issue. however, i'm still not certain why this was an issue in the first place.

thanks all!

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Hi trobotcrow, I'm not very familiar with video encoding, but the re-encoded video shows these properties in PowerDirector, a program I installed recently:

Video Type: H.264 AVC Bitrate: 3.31 Mbps Frame rate: 24 fps Profile: Main Profile Frame type: Progressive

Perhaps there is an important difference if you compare the parameters from the earlier video?