Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

[jph1]

Hi folks,

Got a slight problem with Real Player streams in Firefox (specifically from the BBC site). I found this topic, which gives several good suggestions:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=1968.0

...but no joy.

Basically when I launch a Real Player stream from the BBC site, it looks as if Real Player is trying to initialise within the browser window (the control panel appears briefly), but then the whole player area goes grey and I get nothing.

I can get the streams to play in RealPlayer outside Firefox if I click 'Launch in stand-alone player' link.

The plugin is definitely showing in aboutlugins. The files nphelix.so and nphelix.xpt are present in /usr/lib/realplayer/mozilla/, and links to these files exist in:

/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/
and
/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/

and I've also put links in my ~/.mozilla/firefox directory, to no avail.

I've also checked that libstc++5 is installed, and it is.

Any suggestions or ideas appreciated. I'm running Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy).

Thanks

James.

[dibl]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

I run the 64-bit system, so I have no hope with Realplayer. :P

But, I watch BBC videos!

You need to install VLC and the mozilla plugin -- working from memory here, I think it is mozilla-plugin-vlc or something close to that.

With that installed, you click on the BBC video, and then when the dialog opens (the one that shows "high speed, low speed, Microsoft Media Player", and a fourth item I can't remember, under the lower left-hand corner of that screen is a tiny-font link that says something like "Launch in a stand-alone player". You click that. It will put up a download message and appear to be finished. You right-click the download window/file, and it will try to open it with mplayer -- at least that's what it does on mine. You click the drop-down window and choose "other", and it will allow you to browse to /usr/bin/vlc, which you mark and then "open". It will then commence to try to play the graphics (which don't play so well) and the titles (ditto) and after a couple of burps the vlc player will open and play the audio-video stream perfectly.

[jph1]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

Hi dibl,

Thanks for the reply.

As I mentioned in my original post, I can get the BBC Real Player streams to open in the stand-alone Real Player already, it's only the embedded player that doesn't work. And I can get the embedded video to work with the MPlayer plugin, but I've always found that the quality of the RealPlayer streams is better, so that's what I'd like to get working if I can.

I've also been having problems with some other applications which it seems may be due to my X server configuration (see my other post here

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3091811.0

Might the RealPlayer issue also have something to do with the X server config?

Thanks again for the advice.

J.

[jph1]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

Update: I'm now getting a message saying "Could not find an appropriate hxplay or realplay in the system path to use as an embedded player".

I don't understand this - if I enter "realplay" in Konsole, the stand-alone player works fine. A shortcut exists at /usr/bin/realplay which points to /usr/lib/realplayer/realplay, which is correct.

If it works from Konsole and in stand-alone mode, how come it can't be found for use as an embedded player? I'm confused...

[dibl]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

See if there's help here:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3091913.0

I actually can play the RealPlayer streams, but only when I "Launch in Stand Alone Player" from Firefox, and then it appears to do a download, and then if I wait it loads up in the desktop player and plays. Try it.

[randcoop]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

BBC video streams are notoriously difficult to play in Firefox in (K)Ubuntu. You can read threads for hours both here and on the Ubuntu forums.

Part of the problem seems to be that BBC changes the way they stream with some frequency.

But mostly the problem is that the Realplayer plugin is terrible in Linux and the mplayer plugin is only mildly better. Most people have accepted this reality and use the separate launcher or some variation in order to watch the BBC (alternatives include using MediaPlayerConnectivity add-on, or using FlashGot to download the link and then play the link from the command line).

It is, to understate the case, a major frustration of linux that it is not able to easily run video streams from many locations on the Net. Most of the blame undoubtedly goes to the proprietary software developers who write their programs to work in Windows. Some of the blame also goes to Linux programmers and users, some of whom consider it a point of personal pride not to "need" videos that can't be seen using Linux software.

In any event, I suspect that you've found already the best way to view the BBC videos (launching the separate program).

[dibl]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

I hear the frustration.

However, in my experience, it is getting better. The gnash project seems to be making good headway. I just now (5 minutes ago) popped up a BBC news video in FireFox 3 -- it took some time but it opened by itself ( I didn't have to click "Open in stand alone player) and it runs very cleanly. Here it is:

[img width=400 height=391]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6052/bbcvideorj7.png[/img]
[img width=400 height=8]http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6052/bbcvideorj7.5cd74e3aa0.jpg[/img]

No magic here -- just gnash and flashplayer-nonfree and vlc, on Hardy Heron 64-bit.

[jph1]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

That's good news about FF3 and Gnash. I've only just got 7.10 in, so don't think I'll be trying Hardy for a while, but I look forward to trying it in due course.

A bit of further research into the Firefox 2.0 / Real Player issue has revealed that the BBC streams require the RealPlayer plugin version 10.5, which obviously doesn't exist for Linux, so that partially explains what's going on with the embedded streams.

In the meantime I've got it working with the MPlayer plugin, and that'll do for now.

Thanks for all the advice, greatly appreciated.

[randcoop]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

dibl: I appreciate that you're able to get BBC to work on your system, but I don't understand how you're getting it to run Realplayer files in VLC. My understanding (from the VLC site) is that VLC cannot read Realplayer files.

Is it possible that you're using the WMV preference from BBC? That is much more usable for Linux users than the Realplayer stream.

BBC used to warn that WMV was not as extensively used as Realplayer on their site. That warning no longer exists, and so it's certainly fine to run the WMV streams.

[dibl]

Re: Reaplayer streams not working in Firefox

but I don't understand how you're getting it to run Realplayer files in VLC. My understanding (from the VLC site) is that VLC cannot read Realplayer files.

Sorry -- I must have been misleading on that. On BBC radio the radio stream plays in RealPlayer (the ver. 10.0) as far as I can tell, and I have to "Launch in stand alone player" to get it to work. It acts like a download in FF -- the download window pops up. Then after some seconds have passed, the player begins playing the stream (I have opened the player in advance of clicking the link).

I don't know any more of the details of how it's working -- the player is ver. 10, and the site says the plugin is ver. 10.5, but the music does play here, when done that way.

The BBC news videos are playing with gnash, as best I can tell -- I don't have to "Launch as standalone" for that.