Member Avatar for roshan_iiita

I am unable to run WMV videos in firefox in both linux and windows even after installing wmpfirefoxplugin in windows and mplayer in linux. Actually first i tried in Windows, i found searching at forums that three dll files must be missing from "program files\Windows Media Player":
npdrmv2.dll
npdsplay.dll
npwmsdrm.dll
I downloaded these files and video started working in Windows. But in another system, it is not working even afer installing wmpfirefoxplugin and downloading these three dll files. And in Linux it is not working even after i installed mplayer plugin. What should i do then. Should i change the source code of my website ? I have tried all the MIME Types also in the code, but none of them worked.

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 397 Views
  • 23 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by roshan_iiita

Dani AI

Generated

This is a very common result of using browser plugins for Windows‑only formats: modern Firefox no longer supports the old NPAPI browser plugins that WMP/VLC/mplayer used, so embedding a native Windows Media plugin in the browser is unreliable or blocked. has already tried browser plugins on both Windows and Linux and suggested VLC — that’s fine as a desktop player, but browser plugin support has been removed from mainstream Firefox. (support.mozilla.org)

WMV is a Windows‑centric container/codec family (VC‑1 / WMV) and some WMV files may also be DRM‑protected. That means two separate issues: (1) the page needs a decoder for the codec, and (2) DRM content requires the originating DRM system and keys. On Linux you often won’t have the proprietary decoders or DRM components available to a browser plugin. (learn.microsoft.com)

Practical fixes (fastest, most future‑proof):

  • Repackage/transcode the videos to a web format (MP4 with H.264 video + AAC audio) and use HTML5 <video>. This removes the need for plugins and works across browsers. Example using ffmpeg:

    ffmpeg -i input.wmv -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart output.mp4

    After conversion, serve with <video> and optional WebM fallback for maximum compatibility. For local playback, use desktop players (VLC/mpv); the VLC web plugin is an older NPAPI component and not a reliable browser solution. (ffmpeg.org)

If you want to debug the original files first: inspect them with mediainfo filename.wmv or ffprobe -v error -show_streams filename.wmv to see codecs and streams. On Linux, installing the distro’s “restricted extras” or the appropriate GStreamer/codec packages can help play many WMV files locally (but not DRM). If the file is DRM‑protected, conversion or in‑browser playback outside Microsoft/PlayReady environments will usually fail; get a non‑DRM source or re‑encode the original. (github.com)

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Member Avatar for JasonHippy

Have you tried installing VLC?
VLC will play just about any multimedia file-type.

There is a VLC browser plugin available for Linux, but I can't remember if it is included in the installation of the main VLC player package or if it is a separate package. Best bet would be to take a look in your distros software repositories and see what VLC packages are available.

You could either do this graphically by opening up the GUI for your distros default package manager and set a search filter for vlc, or use the command line to search. So, for example if you were on a Debian based system you could use apt-cache search vlc on the command line to list all packages in the repositories related to vlc.

Edited by JasonHippy because: n/a
Member Avatar for roshan_iiita

Yes i have vlc plugin also installed in the web browser. But still it is not working.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.