My iphone records videos as quicktime *.mov files. When I open such a file in firefox I only get the audio but no video. It looks like it is treating it like an mp3 file.
When I right click on the file and say “download” I can select mpv (my default player) and it opens mpv and plays the video in mpv (or vlc).
As a workaround I tried to tell firefox to open mpv right away when I select a quicktime movie. But hat does not work:
Could it be that mpv doesn’t support those files? try to play a file from the terminal and check the log. Firefox doesn’t seem to have support for it anymore, so maybe you could try another player.
As the former “QuickTime Plug-In for Firefox” has been discontinued, there is an alternative here:
NoPlugin is the missing compatibility layer for modern web browers, allowing you to view most legacy content designed for browser plugins like Adobe Flash, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player. All browsers have phrased out the use of browser plugins, due to performance and security problems, so NoPlugin was created to maintain some compatibility with outdated/archived sites.
NoPlugin searches webpages for embedded plugin objects and converts them into native player elements, wherever possible. If the content can’t be played in-browser (e.g. most Flash embeds), NoPlugin will help you download the file and play it in a separate application.
I understand that firefox does not have a plugin to play quicktime itself. But why is firefox not immediately excecuting mpv (or vlc) if a click on a quicktime movie?
I have a test file in /tmp which clearly identifies as quicktime
When I enter “/tmp” as the url in firefox I see the file but when I click on it firefox is not opening the video player. Although I told firefox to do so (see screenshot first post).
How can I tell firefox to open the file with an external video player?
I am one step further now. I changed all “Open with …” entries in the “Applications” dialog to “Always ask”. But still firefox opens the file inline.
So I added media.play-stand-alone = false
With that firefox is now asking me what to do with the file. I said “open with mpv” and “do this with all files like this”. Now it is opening mov files with mpv.
And in the “Applications” dialog I see that firefox identifies the file as
It may be server related, as server may serve file with bad type in headers - this is reason sometimes files which should be displayed are downloaded. So I guess it can work both ways.
So I guess next step would be to check if Firefox uses ffmpeg, and where does it come and if it was compiled with QuickTime support. If not - here is your chance