Re: can free software flash browser plugins play flv files in-browser?

[Dmitry Borodaenko]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:50 AM, boud <address@hidden> wrote:
>> When "flowplayer" plugin is enabled, Samizdat will display flv and
>> mp4/h.264 files inline in the page in addition to the usual download
>> link. Flowplayer requires a Flash browser plugin (free Flash
>> implementations Gnash and swfdec are reported to work in most cases)
>> and JavaScript.
> i'm rather puzzled about "most cases", especially for flv files,
> since both in debian-etch and debian-unstable i have failed to get
> a published flv file to be shown in an iceweasel browser.
>
> i can believe that the non-free macromedia plugin works "in most cases",
> but that's a different issue to suggesting that gnash or swfdec work
> correctly.

The "most cases" is based on user reports on Flowplayer site. Some
users report success with gnash, and some with swfdec, and most users
report to have either one, or the other working. At the time this
feature was tested, swfdec from Debian/unstable worked for me. I just
did a re-test, and the swfdec version in unstable (0.6.0-4) doesn't
work, but version in Debian/experimental (0.7.4-2) still works fine.
Both gnash and swfdec projects aim to support flv playback, so there
are good reasons to hope that with time this situation will improve.
After all, for most people, flv playback is the main reason to have a
Flash plugin installed in the first place.

-- 
Dmitry Borodaenko