[kde-linux] Re: mp3 playback within Firefox?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 10:16:04 -0800 as excerpted:

> Thanks for the welcome Duncan. I hadn't really looked for a list for KDE
> until you mentioned it on another list.

=:^)

> Strangely the Preferences Dialog doesn't list OGG files. There are only
> about 10 entries there. I tried emerging smplayer and adding it for
> mp3's. It works fine, but opens the application every time I click on an
> mp3 link. That's really more the way I want a right-click on the link to
> behave, when it asks Save File, Open with..., and have smplayer be the
> default.

Unfortunately, firefox is... not kde... and doesn't have kde's usual level 
of configuration available.

> With OGG files Firefox is automatically opening a new tab, and then
> running some little XML based player on that page. I like that for
> previews as it doesn't open a whole new app and put another app name on
> my bottom panel. It's all done just in Firefox. I've very surprised that
> mp3s are done the same way.

I'm not sure the degree to which this relates, but it /may/ have something 
to do with the fact that mp3 is still patent encumbered (just a few more 
years... 2016, IIRC), while ogg/vorbis is free of known encumberment.  If 
you've been watching the whole html5 thing play out, you know that's been 
a big issue with the html5 native video tag as until Google's vp8 codec 
release, the top two choices were the patent encumbered x264, which the 
FLOSS community (including mozilla/firefox) couldn't stomach, or theora, 
which Apple, etc, wouldn't accept.  html5 native audio, OTOH, was rather 
easier to resolve as all parties were apparently able to settle on ogg/
vorbis.

Now the chances of you running the firefox-4 prereleases with their html5 
support isn't too high, but an educated guess would be that firefox 3.6 
(earlier??) supports ogg/vorbis natively as well, but can't do that with 
mp3 due to patent encumberment.

> I guess I need to continue to figure out how Firefox is actually playing
> the OGG files.

That would help clarify things, certainly.  Perhaps the above provides a 
pointer in the right direction to look...  Before html5, of course, plugins 
were the way both audio and video were supported, but it's quite possible 
firefox has had native ogg/vorbis support for some time.

(BTW, ogg is simply the container format, while vorbis is the actual audio 
encoding.  While ogg has unfortunately commonly been used as an extension 
for ogg/vorbis, that's technically incorrect, just as zip or tbz2 refer 
not to whatever's contained, but rather, to the compressed container 
used.  Thus, when referring to the combination of container and audio 
codec, I always use ogg/vorbis, while using simply ogg or vorbis, when 
referring to the container or audio codec without its container, 
individually.  Altho, much like GNU/Linux, I accept that it's likely a 
losing battle, because the full name is simply too long and cumbersome for 
popular reference.  (FWIW, I do normally simply use "Linux", myself, using 
"Linux kernel" when I need that distinction, and only use GNU/Linux when I 
need the distinction between it and say GNU/Solaris or Dalvic/Android/
Google/Linux.  So I'm not /that/ much of an absolutist.))

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman