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How do I get video to stream, rather than download?

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  • 7 have this problem
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  • Last reply by Chippy_boy

Chippy_boy
Chippy_boy
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I am used to Internet Explorer and am now moving over to Firefox. In Internet Explorer, if I am on a webpage that contains a link to a movie file (wmv, mpeg, whatever), when I clink on the link, Windows Media Player will launch and start downloading the movie. When it has buffered enough, it will start playing. i.e. it doesn't have to download the whole 500MB (or whatever) before it starts.

How can I get this behavior in Firefox? If I do this in Firefox right now, the whole 500MB downloads in FF before the preferred movie player launches and then plays the file. Clearly with big files this is not what you want to happen.

Does anyone know how to get FF to initiate streaming video? Using whatever player may be necessary.

I am used to Internet Explorer and am now moving over to Firefox. In Internet Explorer, if I am on a webpage that contains a link to a movie file (wmv, mpeg, whatever), when I clink on the link, Windows Media Player will launch and start downloading the movie. When it has buffered enough, it will start playing. i.e. it doesn't have to download the whole 500MB (or whatever) before it starts. How can I get this behavior in Firefox? If I do this in Firefox right now, the whole 500MB downloads in FF before the preferred movie player launches and then plays the file. Clearly with big files this is not what you want to happen. Does anyone know how to get FF to initiate streaming video? Using whatever player may be necessary.

All Replies (2)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Streaming is only possible if that file is streamed embedded in the browser.
Firefox doesn't pass a link to an external player, but downloads the full file before passing that file to that external program.

Try to install Flip4Mac to make Firefox use QuickTime to play WMP files embedded.

You can also copy the link to the clipboard and open that link (location) in the player program.

Chippy_boy
Chippy_boy Question owner
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Thanks for the info,

I don't know if I am staggered by this or not. In a way I am, in that I just can't believe now we are on Firefox VERSION 12!!! that such massive hole exists in its functionality and capabilities.

How can anyone think that downloading the whole maybe 10 GBytes of data BEFORE launching an external media player is an acceptable way to play an HD movie? Ok, for whatever reason you maybe want to download the file and play it offline, but to force you to do so is UTTERLY ridiculous.

If I was a developer, I would have looked to fix this in V0.1 not V12 ! It renders Firefox effectively useless for anyone who wants to stream movie files in an external player. I suppose I can copy the link and paste it into VLC, or whatever but really is copy and paste the best we can do?

Thanks once again for your helpful reply though.

Cheers