Since you mention html5 in the subject, I think you will have to
provide a url for the page and hope the page does not use php server
side script which can not be viewed on your client computer. If the
page uses the new html5 code for video, a html5 capable browser, of
which recent Firefox browsers are, should work. However various html5
capable browsers have different built in house players, and surprise,
surprise, browser providers can not agree on a single type of video
format to support in their house browser. Thus to support video in
html5 with a house browser, one must provide the video in at least 3
formats, and then the html5 video code can be fairly easily set up to
select the video format needed for the html5 capable browser used. To
stream properly on some browsers, a mp4 video must be "hinted". The
most simple way to hint the mp4 video is to use the pay version of
Apple's QuickTime player which will hint the mp4 and convert it to
Apples .mov . Thus the video needs to be provided in mp4, .mov, and
ogg formats. In that way the correct video format for house players on
different browsers will be selected automatically.
Another complication is that html5 capable browsers will also support
video using conventional media players that must be installed on your
computer. This is why seeing the source code of the page is so
important.
I suggest that you view the page on IE9, if available. IE9 uses a
html5 house player that supports mp4 if of the right flavor. Next view
the page on Firefox. If Firefox works, an ogg type video likely has
been provided. If Firefox does not work, an ogg type of video likely
has not been provided for the Firefox browser.
If you can not provide the page url, I suggest you contact your friend
and suggest that he/she provide ogg and .mov support in the html5 code
so the page can be viewed on most html5 capable browsers (and your
friend may become an ex-friend
. If the page will not play on
Firefox, and if there are not errors in the html5 code, I know of no
plug-ins you can download that will help. If the html5 uses
conventional video player code, which it can, the required player must
of course be downloaded to the computer.