Test for media file playback on MZ (2nd attempt)

[Andrew Poulos]

With a "standard" Mozilla install on Win XP how can I detect whether or
not MZ can play/display a specific media file type, for example WMA and
WMV files?

(Sorry for inadvertantly originally posting this as a reply to Hans'
question.)


Andrew Poulos

 

[Martin Honnen]

With a "standard" Mozilla install on Win XP how can I detect whether or
not MZ can play/display a specific media file type, for example WMA and
WMV files?

The following checks whether a certain MIME type is registered in
Mozilla to have a plugin:

function checkMimeType (mimeType) {
var mimeTypes = navigator.mimeTypes;
for (var i = 0; i < mimeTypes.length; i++) {
if (mimeTypes.type == mimeType && mimeTypes.enabledPlugin) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

then test
if (checkMimeType('audio/x-ms-wma')) {
..
}

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

With a "standard" Mozilla install on Win XP how can I detect whether or
not MZ can play/display a specific media file type, for example WMA and
WMV files?

The following checks whether a certain MIME type is registered in
Mozilla to have a plugin:

function checkMimeType (mimeType) {
var mimeTypes = navigator.mimeTypes;
for (var i = 0; i < mimeTypes.length; i++) {
if (mimeTypes.type == mimeType && mimeTypes.enabledPlugin) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}

then test
if (checkMimeType('audio/x-ms-wma')) {
..
}

However, that does not test if a media file type can be played, it merely
tests whether that type is supported. Its result is misleading, for
example, with Mozilla/Firefox and the mplayer Plug-in if the plug-in is
installed but its configuration file says that support for Windows Media
is disabled.

The only way to make sure that media can be played is to include the object
and a proper alternative, e.g.

<object data="foo.wma">
alternative
</object>

(That would be valid HTML 4.01. There is also the proprietary EMBED
element which supports the same object-alternative-structure.)


PointedEars