Firefox Nightly now plays Amazon.com Flash videos using Shumway

Post by yellowapple » Sun, Feb 15, 2015, 12:51 AM UTC

tschneidereit wrote: post #98

yellowapple wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that Prime Instant Video isn't supported (according to the announcement) because Amazon uses Silverlight for that. However, it is possible to switch to Flash as a sort of fallback (this is a required step for, say, streaming PIV to a Chromecast). What would be required in order to get Shumway to actually play video from PIV (instead of Amazon simply demanding that the user installs Flash or Silverlight)?

The problem with PIV, as with a few other video services, is that it uses DRM. AS you're probably aware, there are some quite unfortunate laws around that which prevent anyone from just offering an alternative implementation of a DRM system. Hence, we can't even try. That's not to say that we won't ever be able to offer at least some support for services like this, there might well be ways to work out something cleve…

Post by niutech » Sun, Feb 15, 2015, 11:32 AM UTC

tschneidereit wrote: post #89

hammerandtongs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a serious point though. Flash, while pretty atrocious, is part of the cultural legacy of the web. Someday shumway may be the only way reasonable way to access this via archive.org etc.

This is indeed a major consideration: Flash will undoubtedly go away as a player, and if we don't want to lose all the legacy content with it as if it were stored on floppy disks, Shumway or something like it is the only solution. Note that for a lot of content, it's not even required to use Shumway in the form of a browser extension or built-in system: it's perfectly possible to run SWFs with Shumway as a website-de…

Post by tschneidereit » Sun, Feb 15, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

niutech wrote: post #103

tschneidereit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed a major consideration: Flash will undoubtedly go away as a player, and if we don't want to lose all the legacy content with it as if it were stored on floppy disks, Shumway or something like it is the only solution. Note that for a lot of content, it's not even required to use Shumway in the form of a browser extension or built-in system: it's perfectly possible to run SWFs with Shumway as a website-de…

Well, it does not work in Chrome on iOS 7.

Post by maherbeg » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 4:35 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #80

maherbeg wrote: post #76

I'm one of the developers on the video player used on that page. Great work guys! Edit: I should add in, the player is primarily Javascript with a small rendering engine for Flash fallback. Even in the Flash case, everything is controlled via JS through a flash bridge. We prioritize HTML5 video when possible across browsers and devices.

maherbeg: thanks! Our team was uncertain how to reach at Amazon to get your blessing. :) If you (or Amazon management :) have any problems or concerns, please feel free to email me at cpeterson at mozilla dot com! re HTML5 video: do you use it on desktop browsers? Mozilla is working hard to improve our HTML5 video implementation. Can we opt in Firefox for HTML5 video? Playing Flash videos in Shumway is just a steppin…

Post by cpeterso » Tue, Feb 17, 2015, 8:21 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #48

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like stream of consciousness, I'd call it serial association rather than parallel. " Sui generis " maybe? I'd be highly surprised if it were a new software naming method, it's definitely not a new thing of itself.

It was probably a sequence of thoughts, but the flash gordon | alf relationship is parallel, they're unrelated above the convergence point that is shumway.