VLC Plugin

[commenter]

Could a modified VLC plugin decode H.264 for Mozilla browsers on 10.4 & 10.5 ?

[Uncle Asad]

Could a modified VLC plugin decode H.264 for Mozilla browsers on 10.4 & 10.5 ?

Anything can decode H.264/.mp4 (e.g., the QuickTime plug-in can handle that codec and file format); the problem is that the <video> tag isn't handled by a plug-in, but is handled by native code internal to the browser.

So to use something else, you'd have to write a native backend in the browser (like the one for Ogg) that calls your decoder. And the decoder would have to support the API required for <video> (e.g., at least initially on 10.5, Safari's QuickTime <video> support didn't support all the required attributes of the <video> tag, such as no-buffer and seeking, because the QuickTime API in the OS didn't have a way to do that, and the Mozilla QuickTime-based implementation never got beyond barely playing video and couldn't support the <video> API.)

Or you'd have to do something that rewrites the <video> tags on web pages into <object> tags (which aren't directly compatible), and then whatever plug-in you have for the H.264/.mp4 media type would handle the <object> video. That assumes the site doesn't sniff for <video> + H.264/.mp4 before it decides to insert the <video> tag.