Force HTML5 video to use NPAPI?

[jobbautista9]

I noticed when I disable WebM support and then try to play a WebM video directly, the browser offers me an option to play it with the VLC Web Plugin. I wonder how feasible it would be to force all <video>s (as well as <audio>s) to be handled by NPAPI instead of the browser. Would such a behavior even be compliant with the HTML5 spec?

[moonbat]

Can you post a sample link to try this? Also what version of VLC are you using? I have 3.0.20 on Linux and there's no NPAPI included.

[UCyborg]

ViewTube (you want the user script) can work with YouTube.

VLC 3.0.21 for Windows comes with NPAPI plugin. Judging by this commit, I have the impression it's bundled as a leftover. I've not seen it on Linux.

[jobbautista9]

Can you post a sample link to try this? Also what version of VLC are you using? I have 3.0.20 on Linux and there's no NPAPI included.

Sample VP9 WebM: https://base-n.de/webm/out9.webm

I have VLC 3.0.21 on Windows, which includes an NPAPI plugin versioned 3.0.3.0. I think for Linux you might have to recompile VLC with the NPAPI plugin enabled in the build config.

ViewTube (you want the user script) can work with YouTube.

Unfortunately it doesn't work with VORAPIS... Either VORAPIS will have to make their custom video player more compatible with YouTube's or ViewTube will have to target VORAPIS's player too.

Anyway I am aware of the ViewTube userscript (and I have used it before VORAPIS became a thing), but I would like something more universal... I'm thinking of writing a global userscript that converts all <video>s and <audio>s to <embed>s. It would still be nice if the browser itself offers the usage of NPAPI when it encounters an HTML5 video or audio in a webpage it can't play though.

[UCyborg]

I see, everything being wrapped in layers of JavaScript makes things difficult. I haven't experimented with this for a while. When I did try it, I didn't like that it didn't blend in as smoothly as expected. VLC may also not be the most optimal video player in general.

[jobbautista9]

FWIW I've found that I can use Greasemonkey to force audio and video accessed via top-level navigation to be played via an NPAPI plugin. It's cool to see userscripts even working for a page generated by the browser itself!

Code: Select all

// ==UserScript==
// @name        NPAPI for top level audio and video
// @namespace   job.tilde.team
// @include     *
// @version     1.1
// @grant       none
// ==/UserScript==

if (document.querySelector("link[href^='resource://'][href$='TopLevelVideoDocument.css']")) {  
  const html5Media = document.querySelector("video")
  const npapiMedia = document.createElement("embed");
  npapiMedia.src = window.location.pathname;
  npapiMedia.type = "application/x-vlc-plugin";
  if (html5Media.getAttribute("style")) {
    npapiMedia.style = html5Media.getAttribute("style"); /* match audio's inline style */
  } else { /* video does not have inline style */
    npapiMedia.width = html5Media.videoWidth;
    npapiMedia.height = html5Media.videoHeight;
  }
  const npapiStyle = document.createElement("style");
  document.head.appendChild(npapiStyle);
  npapiStyle.sheet.insertRule("embed {\
                              position:absolute;\
                              top: 0;\
                              right: 0;\
                              bottom: 0;\
                              left: 0;\
                              margin: auto;\
                              max-width: 100%;\
                              max-height: 100%;\
                              user-select: none;\
                              }");
  document.body.replaceChild(npapiMedia, html5Media);
}

While it targets all webpages (it will check first if the document head has a stylesheet for top-level video though before executing the rest of the script), it will not affect local files (file:///) opened in the browser. You can force Greasemonkey to apply the userscript to file:/// URLs by toggling extensions.greasemonkey.fileIsGreaseable to true in about:config, but I don't recommend doing this as you're setting yourself up to malicious userscripts trying to steal the contents of your filesystem. You're better off using a proper media player for local files.