[SOLVED] Can't watch videos on site Real.Video

[stevepusser]

There is a safe way to install and use the latest Firefox and Thunderbird releases by using the binaries from Mozilla. This question gets asked and answered here at least once a week, and it's in the Debian wiki, too.

Many new program releases can also be backported on the Stable release. If you don't care to do it yourself, odds are that another distro has already built compatible packages. Note that many users confuse backporting with just installing the upstream deb packages, but that's not how it works at all.

Debian has updated rustc in Stable to a version suitable for building Firefox 61 from source, but hasn't done the same for cargo...which is odd, because you need an updated cargo to build a newer rustc.

[Fernando Negro]

Hello, None1975.

It's OK. Don't worry. I don't mind the possibly harsh language.

I'm not the kind of person who always wants the most recent software - to the contrary. One of the reasons why I left Ubuntu (LTS, even) for Debian (and like Debian so much) is exactly because I wanted, above all, stability - and don't mind having slightly older software.

But, in this case, I really need to be able to watch videos on Real.Video, because of censorship on other mainstream alternatives.

And, I can't really choose between the lesser of two evils... Since, Real.Video will now be the place where one of my main sources of information will post its videos, and I really need to have my "Book Antiqua", "Helvetica" and other fonts rendering properly on my blog, so that I can know how well do my texts appear to my readers.

I believe that with Dai_trying's instructions I will be able to solve my problem.


Hello again, Segfault.

In my case, my problem is really only with this particular website. Since, as I said, I can watch videos on any other video sharing website.

(And, the great improvement in speed that I observed with the new Quantum version of Firefox, is an unusual occurrence with new versions of this web browser, I believe - since, Firefox doesn't seriously alter its engine all the time.)

The video sharing website in question, that I want to use, is a kind of "grassroots" initiative, that was created in response to the growing censorship on sites like YouTube. So, the people building it don't have that much financial resources, I guess, to build a good quality website that is compatible with all sorts of web browsers.

I still like Debian's conservative approach to stability very much. Since, I often use my computer for serious and important stuff (including correspondence) and really cannot afford to have instability on my computer (which I have had, with other distributions, on critical moments.)

I will then reinstall Debian still today, and hopefully post here some good news afterwards.

[stevepusser]

If you don't mind having some default bookmarks set to MX Linux sites, we have been putting the new Mozilla binaries into our MX Linux deb packages, along with menu and alternatives system integration.

http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/f/firefox/

Since Pale Moon can still be built from source, even on Jessie, and switched to using libavcodec long before Firefox, odds are that it can also play that video...but did you even bother to try installing the gstreamer packages I recommended to get the h.264 playback working on FF 52.9?

By the way, Realvideo is already a trademark of RealNetworks. I don't know if they are still alive to fight the rather blatant Real.Video violation, though.

[Fernando Negro]

SUCCESS.

I've just downloaded the tarball from Firefox's own website (of version 61.0.2 already) like Dai_trying said, and it worked!

I can now watch the videos on Real.Video with no problems, and the fonts on my blog are being displayed/rendered correctly.

(I have not tested Firefox extensively yet, for any stability issues. But, even if I do find some, this web browser is being constantly updated - and therefore, it would make very little sense to complain about that... But, for the time being, everything seems to be working fine, on this new "Quantum" version of Firefox running on Debian 9 "Stretch".)

Thank you very much, Dai_trying, for your tip.

I will then edit one of my previous posts, to make it reference this (more) correct solution.

[Fernando Negro]

...but did you even bother to try installing the gstreamer packages I recommended to get the h.264 playback working on FF 52.9?

No, stevepusser, I haven't done so (yet).

The type of trolling comments that I see you making on these forums, and your insult to one of my information sources on this thread, make me just automatically (want to) ignore whatever you say...

But, for the interest of everyone who uses Debian, and that might happen to have a similar problem, I will make such tests that you mention, once I can - and, I will then leave here some feedback.

[sunrat]

...but did you even bother to try installing the gstreamer packages I recommended to get the h.264 playback working on FF 52.9?

No, stevepusser, I haven't done so (yet).

The type of trolling comments that I see you making on these forums, and your insult to one of my information sources on this thread, make me just automatically (want to) ignore whatever you say...

You ignored one of the most helpful people here. You may have solved your original question sooner if you had followed his advice.

[Bulkley]

You ignored one of the most helpful people here. You may have solved your original question much sooner if you had followed his advice.

+1

[debiman]

...but did you even bother to try installing the gstreamer packages I recommended to get the h.264 playback working on FF 52.9?

No, stevepusser, I haven't done so (yet).

The type of trolling comments that I see you making on these forums, and your insult to one of my information sources on this thread, make me just automatically (want to) ignore whatever you say...

wow, that's rich.
i haven't seen stevepusser trolling for years, anywhere.
i always see him contributing constructively, sometimes offering debian packages compiled specifically to user request, and much more.
calling him a troll is ... just stupid.
if i was him, i'd block your IP from downloading the packages.

But, for the interest of everyone who uses Debian, and that might happen to have a similar problem, I will make such tests that you mention, once I can - and, I will then leave here some feedback.

please do, you might (partly) redeem yourself in our eyes.

[stevepusser]

I have expressed my strong opinions about medical woo pushers and Alex Jones, which some may take as "trolling."

However, it's a logical fallacy to ignore any advice because you don't like the source. An argument should stand or fall on its own merits, regardless of where it comes from. Attacking a source to discredit an argument is a type of ad hominem attack called "poisoning the well".

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I have expressed my strong opinions about medical woo pushers and Alex Jones, which some may take as "trolling."

Not me

I would like to express my support for stevepusser's posted views about "voodoo science" and I am also a firm believer in evidence-based medicine.

Here's an excellent site by a qualified medical professional that works tirelessly to expose such nonsense:

https://www.badscience.net/

Disclaimer: I am not a medical Doctor but I did train as a Medical Student for several years before leaving the profession, I was top of my year in the academic sections of the course and I hold a degree in Biomedical Science.

Anyway, sorry for the troll post!

[jibberjabber]

Fernando Negro wrote:
The type of trolling comments that I see you making on these forums, and your insult to one of my information sources on this thread, make me just automatically (want to) ignore whatever you say...

The trolling started with the link the OP posted, the video is trash, as well as some of the comments in the comment part. Obviously posting a link like that to a politically oriented video would attract "troll like" comments, using a pretext
"I can't watch this video", and knowing others would follow the link to see if they could, in a nut shell it is "click bait". If one does not want trolling comments, then don't post links to trash videos, ... and then when others comment on the video, cry "troll",... Now that the problem is solved, there is no real reason to even keep the link to the trash, that is in the first post.
The OP could have just posted a link to the https://www.real.video/
And said they were having problems viewing videos on that site,
Why did they feel the need to point us to a specific video ? And then get so upset when some one points out that this:

(Despite Mike Adams being a purveyor of woo for his own enrichment, and a supporter of the vile and despicable InfoWars. Jeesh, guys.)

Seems to me like the OP deliberately choose that video, and deliberately started what would be a "troll bait" topic,.... Sorry, I took the bait as well,
but that is the way I see it.

[emariz]

I edited the first message, because any video could have been given as an example.
Please, let us focus on the technical issues described by the original poster and not on a video, or the thread will be locked.

[stevepusser]

I have seen posts about Stretch upgrading to the firefox-esr 60 release by September, when the 52.X ESR series reaches end-of-life. That should also be using libavcodec and would solve the h.264 HTML5 problem in the original post. Debian added the necessary rustc update in 9.5, but for 64-bit only, and still does not have the cargo build-depend at all. Since Ubuntu already has backported those all the way back to 14.04, hopefully Debian will follow suit shortly.

I'm sure we'll see a lot of complaints about user's favorite extensions being broken with Firefox Quantum, though.

[Fernando Negro]

However, it's a logical fallacy to ignore any advice because you don't like the source. An argument should stand or fall on its own merits, regardless of where it comes from. Attacking a source to discredit an argument is a type of ad hominem attack called "poisoning the well".

I didn't say anything about any lack of credibility of your technical advice. To the contrary, if I said I would "make such tests that you mention" it's implied that I have understood that, most likely, you know what you're talking about.

Anyway, as for such tests, there's no need to do them anymore...

For some strange reason, now that I've made a fresh Debian installation some days ago and made other tests,

Either if I use my same old "~/.mozilla" directory, or if I just force Firefox to create a new one, I can now watch the videos on Real.Video with Firefox ESR.





The installation procedures I made this time (installing Xorg etc) were the same ones as last time. And, I had Debian properly updated before, when I couldn't watch these videos. And, as I said, I could watch videos on any other website before (so Firefox was working properly, in terms of video playing capabilities). And this (being able to now watch the ones at Real.Video with Firefox ESR) happens even if I use my same old "~/.mozilla" directory.

So, the only conclusion I can make is that, most likely the people at Real.Video made some sort of improvement on their website in the last days (maybe updated their "Player Version"?) that now allows people with Firefox ESR to watch their videos with no problems...

(Indeed, because I could watch videos on any other video sharing website with no problems - like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion etc - I strongly suspected that the main problem - surely, in terms of "compatibility" - was with the website itself. And, this being a very recent website that only went live some weeks ago, they're probably still fixing bugs, improving things etc a lot.)

[Fernando Negro]

emariz,

The reason why I pointed to a specific video, was because, in case other people wanted to make their own tests, we could all be talking about the same "experimental sample". Since, even if all the other videos I had tried to watch on that website wouldn't play also, there was always the slight possibility that this wouldn't happen with every video. (And, in fact, on YouTube, I can see that the videos that are played use different codecs.)

The whole "Real.Video" website is, due to its nature, essentially filled with videos of a (mainly) political content. And because of this, it didn't make much sense to look for something "neutral". But, for the sake of everyone's time and patience, I will be careful in the future to choose samples that are as "neutral" as possible.