Where does Mozilla plugin read its settings?

[wrightflyer]

Hi,

If I run the standalone vlc on an Ububut 8.04.1 machine then to get good video output I need to go into video settings and change the video output device from "default" to either "X11" or "OpenGL" and this works a treat. What I cannot work out is how I can get this configuration change used by the mozilla-vlc-plugin when it's invoked by Firefox. I've read about ~/.vlc/vlcrc and have tried chaging this (even deleting and seeing if anything happens - there was a suggestion it would be auto re-created) but I don't think that file is involved. So is there a config file somewhere in the Linux filesystem that the mozilla-vlc-plugin reads for its settings? Or any other way to influence the plugin's behaviour?

So I guess the question boils down to: how does one set the options that the pugin, not the standalone player is going to use?

WF

[wrightflyer]

OK, answering my own question in case anyone stops by later: They BOTH use ~/.vlc/vlcrc so to make changes to what the plugin does then run the standalone VLC, change and save settings there (possibly creating ~/.vlc/vlcrc) and these will be picked up next time the plugin is invoked.

(clearly I'd manage to confuse myself that this was not the case - but it is!)

WF

[thannoy]

Thanks for the answer :)

About the config file location, I think it is .config/vlc/vlcrc since vlc 0.9.

[wrightflyer]

Right well this is REALLY annoying. As the above posts show I'd managed to prove to myself that the Mozilla plugin for VLC reads the same .config/vlc/vlcrc file as the standalone player so to change its behaviour you can use the user interface in the standalone, change settings, save them there and then the Mozilla plugin will obey those settings. But this was using a fairly old version of VLC.

Then I got the latest VLC source from Git and build/ran both the standalone and the plugin. All of a sudden it seemed that config changes I made in the standalone were not being used by the Mozilla plugin. I added more and more trace to the code to try and find out what was going on and finally stumbled upon the fact that at this Git checkin:

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commit 07f363a4228870c2210957ad202635ad1dc45e4d Author: Pierre d'Herbemont <pdherbemont@videolan.org> Date: Sat May 31 15:27:53 2008 +0200 mozilla: Use --ignore-config, we don't want local VLC to interfer with the plugin. Also support exception.

then vlcplugin.cpp was changed so that some initial parameters passed to the Mozilla plugin:

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/* common settings */ ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "-vv"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--no-stats"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--no-media-library"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--intf"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "dummy";

is now:

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/* common settings */ ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "-vv"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--no-stats"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--no-media-library"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--ignore-config"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "--intf"; ppsz_argv[ppsz_argc++] = "dummy";

and it's the added "ignore-config" in this which means that the plugin cannot be configured in anyway.

As I cannot see anyway in the Mozilla/plugin interface to have it pass command line parameters to the player how on earth is one supposed to changed its behaviour (such as video output interface) if it ignores the vlcrc file that can only be edited using the standalone. This just seems like madness to me though presumably the code author knew what he was doing?

Personally I'm going to revert this change in my own build tree but I'd like to know if there's some "official" way to configure the Mozilla player if it's not going to read the existing config file?

WF

[revolunet]

very interesting thank you

i think the only way to pass options to the plugin is with the vlc.playlist.add function.

[e1000]

I have been struggling for days to resolve this issue. If recompile vlc, I end up with a non working plugin, so fixing the error on the source as wrightflyer suggested does not seem to be an option for me.

revolunet mentioned that it is possible to specify options in the "vlc.playlist.add" function, can you provide an example of how to set the video ouput mode to x11 using the vlc.playlist.add function.
Thanks

[revolunet]

for example i use

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var itemid = vlc.playlist.add(uri, uri, ":start-time=30 :http-reconnect"); vlc.playlist.playItem(itemid);

adjust to your needs

[e1000]

Got it!!

I included the "vout=x11" option as shown and now the videos are showing properly.

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vlc.playlist.add(videoUrl,"video", ":no-video-title-show :vout=x11");

The only drawback is that the configuration options for vlc are mixed in with the code, but Oh well, it works and I can move on.

Many Thanks.

[revolunet]

well done

use an external config file...

[e1000]

Unfortunately, further testing has revealed that the X11 output option is significantly slower than with the default setting. The OpenGL setting also works but with similar drawbacks in performance.

I have also realized, by going through a collection of videos, that some videos do play normally in default mode on this machine. I have even transformed the offending videos back to RAW and re-encoded them using the theora codec, but the problem remains. I have spent the better part of the day attempting to detect what makes a video play well in Default mode.

Any tips are welcome.

My system is an ASUS Eeebox (intel 915 integrated video) with a minimal install of Ubuntu, (x and IceWM).

Thanks

Emil

[gibi2]

Well... as we are talking about settings, to me the un resolved issue is "where does the VLC plugin read its http proxy settings on windows?".
Did somebody test the 0.9.x plugins on windows from behind a proxy lately?
To me it is not working properly(I found no way to set the proxy to be used), but if somebody has a workaround I would like to know about it.

[ConteTacchia]

Hi to all,
I've read much about configuration of mozilla vlc plugin and I've tried to use playlist commands to select "pulse" as audio output
vlc.playlist.add(videoUrl,"video", ":aout=pulse");
so I get an error that will prevent me to set aout for security reason
I've a very strong problem with "alsa" sound system that is configured to redirect to "pulse":
I get in firefox stdout many message like this "drift is too big (169427), dropping buffer"
This problem is the same using vlc player out of firefox. Configuring "aout" parameter to "pulse" or "esd" it works fine.
So I need to make same configuration on mozilla vlc plugin but it seems that everything is against me.

To get a my personal branch and comment "--ignore-config" is my only choise ?

Any one can help me ?

thanks,
Maurizio

[sann2652]

Hi all,

I'm having some difficulties using an external config file with the Mozilla plugin - have spent about two days working on this and am still drawing a blank, so would really appreciate help.

I'm using VLC 1.0.5 and Firefox on an XP computer. I've embedded VLC in a web-page, and can play/pause the video with some javascript. I'm trying to let a visitor chose their sub-title track from either English or Japanese, both tracks are muxed into the .mp4 container. However, VLC needs a unicode font to be specified or else it can't display the Japanese characters...

In the VLC player I can set the font to ARIALUNI.TTF and everything works nicely. In the plugin, the player won't look at the vlcrc config file, and I'm having a devil of a time trying to set the font. Could someone explain how to pass the vlcrc (configuration) file through to the plugin, please?

Or I may be on the wrong track entirely. All other suggestions are welcome.

sann2652

[eric leu]

I have similar problem as sann2652. Is there any way that plugin can read external config file? I've spent couple weeks for this issue and have no luck so far. I embedded VLC 1.0.5 on IE8 run on XP Sp3 and play input video from TV tuner card. Everything run well when using VLC.exe. With proper preference setting, I can run vlc, open capture device, and run without additional setting. Everything was properly set in preference. Run smooth. Excellent software. But, in plugin, I have problem running vlc.playlist.add("dshow://", "Player", options); Options (a array of string) seem no affect. My Object look like this
<object id="vlc" name="vlc" codebase="http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/video ... /axvlc.cab" type="application/x-vlc-plugin"
height="100%" width="100%" classid="clsid:9BE31822-FDAD-461B-AD51-BE1D1C159921" events="true" >
<param name="Src" value="dshow://" />
<param name="ShowDisplay" value="True" />
<param name="AutoLoop" value="false" />
<param name="AutoPlay" value="True" />
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false" />
<param name="StartTime" value="0" />
<param name="Volume" value="10" />
<embed id="vlc" name="vlc" width="100%" height="100%" pluginspage="http://www.videolan.org" type="application/x-vlc-plugin"
version="VideoLAN.VLCPlugin.2" MRL="dshow://" showdisplay="True" autoloop="false" autoplay="True" ShowStatusBar="false"
'volume="10" > </embed></object>;

Does anyone has any clue? Or anyway I can set code with -no-ignore-config? Thanks for the help!

[sphelan]

Yes, I agree with Eric I've set the options argument in the MRL and it doesn't seem to have any affect on the plugins functionality. I was trying to set "--rtsp-tcp" or "--rtsp-http".

[sphelan]

I was able to get it to work by using ":rtsp-tcp" instead of the "--rtsp-tcp" that is listed in the documentation.

[richard41]

Why many people using Mozilla Firefox rather than Internet explorer??
Can someone give me a best answer with explanation.