Firefox and BBC videos (Fx 3.6.9)

[Argus]

Am I the only one to see this image, "click to play", when watching videos at BBC News?

BBCPlayer.PNG

Earlier, some months ago, I had no problems with the videos at the BBC News site, or the “BBC Media Player”-flash thing. Since I live outside the UK, I know next to nothing about the BBC iPlayer, or all the discussions that have surrounded that one, but in this case I'm talking about the embedded videos at their news site, that only needs Flash Player.

Some videos started as soon as you launched the page, others you had to start yourself, either by clicking on the image "click to play" or on the play button. But now I see that little image in all videos, quite annoying if the video start by itself and you have to click on it only to get rid of it. This started when BBC redesigned their site some month ago.

I guess it's my fault, or me and my browser, as usual... But I've tried without add-ons, that didn't change a thing. Well that’s not completely true, the video didn't load completely without add-ons, I saw that little circle (buffering) during the play, so I had to enable the add-ons to get a good screen shot (to avoid a little discussion about videos buffering etc.). Oh well.
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To balance, my comments about the BBC News site; some month ago the Swedish national public radio redesigned their news site, and boy did that one get clunky. Here we have users that triple or quadruple their Internet speed, upgrade their RAM etc., and what do they get? Redesigned sites that put them back to square one.

[HansV]

You're lucky, I can't view the BBC News videos at all, either in Internet Explorer 8 or in Firefox 3.6.9. I merely get a still image with an endlessly spinning circle.

[PaulB]

Argus, I get the same thing and it did seem to coincide with the redesign of the BBC site.

Hans, have you tweaked your Flash Global Settings? I did, then eventually noticed that the BBC videos were not playing at all. Had to go back and reset some of the settings in order to get the videos to play, albeit still with Argus' problem.

[HansV]

Hans, have you tweaked your Flash Global Settings? I did, then eventually noticed that the BBC videos were not playing at all. Had to go back and reset some of the settings in order to get the videos to play, albeit still with Argus' problem.

Good catch - I did indeed change those settings. But alas, resetting them for the BBC website didn't help, I still get the endlessly spinning circle.

[Argus]

I had some problems similar to that, Hans, with a Swedish site a year ago, but in that case they had changed some parts of their news site, the one with all the videos didn't work at all, just a blank background. Some random use of the big Delete key, in the subfolders to this path (Windows XP) helped in that case. I.e the LSOs (Local Shared Objects), the whole shebang was removed.
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random code>\

Here is one, recent, example of a video that doesn't start until you click the play button or on the "click image", but it still shows that annoying thing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11315819" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Click to play"? I just did!

[Bigaldoc]

Am I the only one to see this image, "click to play", when watching videos at BBC News?

Not knowing which video you tried, I went to your BBC link and tried this one and it plays OK for me here in the USA:

BBC News - Pope's visit will focus on giving 'gift of faith'

[Argus]

Hi Al,
I didn't mention any particular video since I see the image "click to play" in all videos I've watched the last weeks. But I guess I should have mentioned where one can find them on the site, I only linked to the site. I get the same result with all videos in the "Watch/Listen"-box at the top of the page that contains some of their recent videos.

They DO play, but I get the image on top of the video, as described in the OP, until I click one extra time. Not a big problem, more an annoying one, and since I don’t know what other people see, I asked. At the moment it seems like Hans has got bigger problems, with no videos at all. Let’s see what fellow Loungers in the UK get when they visit the news site.

[PaulB]

There does appear to be different 'categories' of videos on the BBC site. There are those like the one Al points to. They load and start playing by themselves without having to hit the 'Click to Play' button. This one works for me as well. Others require that the 'Click to Play' be pressed. That's OK but most times the 'Click to Play' overlay remains on screen and does not go away until pressed again. Annoying, but better than no video at all like Hans.

BTW Hans, I was referring to the global settings in Flash, not the local settings for any given site. There are a myriad of web domains involved in getting a BBC video to your screen, any one (or more) of which could block the display of a video based on its settings. Just a thought.

[HansV]

Here is one, recent, example of a video that doesn't start until you click the play button or on the "click image", but it still shows that annoying thing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11315819" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Argus, that one does display the "Click to Play" icon. When I click it, it is replaced with the endlessly spinning circle.

Life's too short to worry about it.

[DaveA]

Then I would say the site has been tweaked for use with IE as I have no problems with any of them using IE8 32 bit on a Windows 7 machine.

May be something that FF is doing?

[DaveA]

Just fired up my copy of FF 3.6.
All of the videos run just fine.

I do NOT have any FF add ins installed, all I have done some time ago, was install FF with NO tweaking.


OK, I now have 3.6.10 and Flash was updated at the same time and All seems to be working.

I have checked out at least 15 different videos, the ad runs on each one and then the main video runs.

[PaulB]

Then I would say the site has been tweaked for use with IE as I have no problems with any of them using IE8 32 bit on a Windows 7 machine.

May be something that FF is doing?

Dave, I experience the same behavior playing BBC videos using both IE8 and FF. I'll wager that Hans experiences his 'endlessly spinning circle' with both IE and FF. This indicates to me that Flash settings are at the root of the issue. Have you tweaked Flash settings or are you running a vanilla install of Flash?

[HansV]

Yes, I see the same behavior in IE8 and FF3.6.10.

I have reset all Flash settings, but it doesn't make a difference. I'm not going to spend more time on this, I can see flash content on YouTube etc. without any problems, and I can live without BBC news videos.

[Argus]

Argus, I get the same thing and it did seem to coincide with the redesign of the BBC site.
[...]

There does appear to be different 'categories' of videos on the BBC site. There are those like the one Al points to. They load and start playing by themselves without having to hit the 'Click to Play' button. This one works for me as well. Others require that the 'Click to Play' be pressed. [...]

Paul,
Thank you for confirming that, I missed to comment that yesterday, sorry. And yes, as I mentioned in the OP, there are different types of videos; the overlay is there in all of them.

Guess we could send one of the UK guys over to the BBC and tell them to remove that sticker they put on every video.

[PaulB]

Excellent idea!

[Argus]

It seems like they've fixed it. Hooray.

[Leif]

It seems like they've fixed it. Hooray.

Who - Mozilla or the Beeb? I've noticed since the upgrade to Firefox 3.6.11 that ZoneAlarm wanted me to allow some player plug-in the first time I watched video. Might be related...

[Argus]

Auntie Beeb, I assume, but what do I know. I should perhaps have sent them a short message, instead of a post here.

Yes, the plugin container was added some versions ago, I think, perhaps it came with the 3.6 branch. If we're talking about the same thing; I don't use the BBC iplayer, can't use I think. Anyhow, it (the plugin container) needs its own access to the web. Given how much the Flash player is used, perhaps we should skip the browser altogether and surf the net with the plugin container. :cynicalgrin:

I'm now looking forward to solve other Fx related quirks (even though the above was a BBC thing, it seemed) ... such as the cursor. If you click on a link but doesn't move the mouse, you'll see the "hand" as the cursor after the page has loaded, it doesn't return to the arrow (using default cursors). It's been like that since Fx 3.

c.png

[PaulB]

... such as the cursor. If you click on a link but doesn't move the mouse, you'll see the "hand" as the cursor after the page has loaded, it doesn't return to the arrow (using default cursors). It's been like that since Fx 3.

Hmmm... First I've heard of this problem. I can't reproduce what you describe. I can confirm that the BBC videos are now working better.

What is the plugin container?

[Argus]

Hmmm... First I've heard of this problem. I can't reproduce what you describe.

I can, I see it all the time if I don't move the mouse; just tested in safe mode, same thing, the cursor isn't updated when the page loads, not until I move the cursor.

What is the plugin container?

Introduced in Fx 3.6.4, it is the software that takes care of some plugins; they are loaded separately in this process so that Fx doesn't crash if one of these plugins do. If, for example, Flash player crashes, you will see a place holder on every tab instead of, for example, video content, and you only have to refresh the tab, not restart the browser.

But it worked quite well for me to refresh (F5/Ctrl-F5) a tab with a wonky video in older versions without the plugin-container, crash or not. And now it seems like the Flash Player crash more frequently, since I get to see the place holder instead ...