#3 Requires Windows Media Player 11 plugin to view some webs

[Asus QT team]

Bugzilla Bug 44812
Asus | Firefox (ALL): Requires Windows Media Player 11 plugin to view http://dli.elearn.hinet.net video.

BIOS:0801
Build:2008-02-15
Language:ENG/CHT/CHS
Method
1.To open internet/Web/atfter Input on the web site
"http://dli.elearn.hinet.net"
2.click "Hinet E & Learning"
3.click "Free Reading Tentatively"
4.click "Australia Pictures - Sydney holidays"
5.no image

[PCMan]

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I have tested the mozilla plugin of mplayer, vlc, and totem. None of them work.
The mplayer plugin is correctly loaded, but it cannot access the URL.
I connected to that URL manually with UserAgent set to "Windows Media Player", but this didn't work.
Some services provided by Hinet, such as the radio, require that the user agent string is "Windows Media Player".
However, this time we are not that lucky.
I have read the source code of that webpage and also the source code of mplayer plugin, but unfortunately, nothing unusual was found.
Some VBScript is used in that page, but that part won't affect the playing.
The mplayer plugin didn't implement all interfaces provided by WMP, but for this page,
it should be enough. This is really weired. I'll try to do some further investigation on this.

[PCMan]

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Well, I found the problem.
Windows Media Player uses User-Agent "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324"
If I open the URL with mplayer -user-agent "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324", the movie can be played correctly.
So if we can set the user agent in the plugin, the bug can be fixed. :-)

[PCMan]

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OK. After some investigation, I know the real cause of this problem now.
In addition to setting the UserAgent, some workarounds are needed, too.
That website appends "&MSWMExt=.asf" to the urls of videos.
That means, the URL passed to mplayer plugin is "http://REAL_URL_OF_THE_VIDEO&MSWMExt=.asf".
After removing "&MSWMExt=.asf", we can get the correct URL of the video file.
Mplayer itself doesn't affect by this fake URL, but the plugin does.
If we can remove that weird "&MSWMExt=.asf", and pass the real URL to the plugin,
the video can be correctly played.

I patched the mplayer plugin, but it didn't get the correct URL because the URL it loads
is determined by multiple complicated factors, and all code related to URL didn't located in one place.
So simply patch one place didn't work. Some more workaround is needed.

Basically, the bug is caused by the UserAgent string, and the fake URL passed by the server.

[Yuan Chao]

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Gecko Media Player plug-in from the same author of mplayerplug-in is of better compatibility according to the author. Though it also has trouble viewing Hinet E-learning page. Since the author has moved his focus on Gecko Media Player, it would be better to shift for future releases.

[Chih-Wei Huang]

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For those who can't read Chinese page at http://dli.elearn.hinet.net,
here is a direct link to the video page:

http://dli.elearn.hinet.net/asp/FreeDemo.asp?P=3909&V=19392

[PCMan]

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I get this fixed, finally, after quite a long time of debugging.
No modification of the source code is needed.
The problem can be fixed simply by changing the configuration.

1. Install mozilla-mplayer package.

2. Add a config file "~/.mplayer/mplayerplug-in.conf",
with the following two lines in it.

user-agent=NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324
vo=x11

Done!
The video can be correctly viewed now.

[PCMan]

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Here is a sreenshot:
http://pcman.sayya.org/eeepc/mplayer_plugin_screenshot.png

The config file can be put here, too.
/etc/mplayerplug-in.conf

For details about the config files, read this.
http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/config.php

This works for me.

To the Asus QA team and other hackers:
If you guys see my message, please get this tested.
If things work, this bug can be closed and marked as FIXED.
Thanks!
Good luck

[Chih-Wei Huang]

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Hi pcmanx,
It doesn't work in my test. :(