Embedded mov videos are muted. Can't unmute them
Hi to all!
I'm on Firefox Nightly 71.0a1 (2019-09-20) (64-bit) on Arch Linux. I'd like to watch a mov video, embedded in a website. The video is fine but the control shows it as muted. Indeed there's no sound. If I click on the sound control of the embedded video player, I can't toggle the sound control, which stays muted. The controls works on Chromium so it's not a problem of a video with no sound.
Thanks a lot for your help!
EDIT: I've tried with other mov files. I went to the Apple site: https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/downton-abbey/ I can watch the clip with sound but here the audio control can't be toggle or change: the volume stays at the same level.
Modified by gustavklopp
All Replies (5)
There are some cases in which Firefox does not understand the audio encoding and therefore disables audio. For example, the lectures in this thread: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1268331
On the Apple site, at first I thought I couldn't adjust the audio either, but I was able to do by clicking and dragging the white dot; just clicking in the empty space was ignored.
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/coursera/lecture1/lec1a.mp4
That's a very good example, it's exactly the problem!
For the Apple site, I think I've found a solution: I've installed Gnome-mplayer: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?arch=any&arch=x86_64&q=gnome-mplayer
And now I can change the volume!
Maybe we could somehow tell Firefox to use gnome-mplayer to read this embedded MOV file?
EDIT: I've tried to change in 'preferences > applications' all the mp3, mpeg4 video to bind it to the 'Gnome-mplayer' (located in /usr/bin/gnome-mplayer on my system) but it seems to be ignored...
Modified by gustavklopp
Hmm, if you mean embedded videos and MP3s, then you can't change from Firefox's built-in player to a different one. Firefox uses certain system libraries for decoding (on Linux, it's FFmpeg, I think), and (at least on Windows) it will ignore other options on the system
If you mean media files that open in their own tab, you can disable playing media in its own tab and that should help you force an external launch. The setting for that is:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste stand and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the media.play-stand-alone preference to switch the value from true to false
Now if you (or the site) directs an MP3 or MP4 or MOV file to its own tab, Firefox should pop up the download dialog (or if you don't have Always Ask, follow the directions in Preferences > General > Applications).
Thanks a lot for this explanation.
I've tried to change as you've mentioned but, while it works for the link to a video like http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~hinton/coursera/lecture1/lec1a.mp4, it doesn't seem to work for embedded MOV video.
No pop-up to suggest to play the video in an external program.
I think it's because the video is embedded (I can't find a link example since my example video is behind a paywall).
I've found a (cumbersome) solution by using an addon like 'video downloadhelper' which detects the embedded video: I download the video and watch them on an external player like VLC.
For some embedded videos, if you right-click them, Save Video As... is available. But if the site replaces the context menu or uses an overlay in front of the video element, then the add-on might be the fastest way to save it.