How to embed media stream (is my code correct?)?, Some users say they cant use it others can. Options

[Conoco]

How can i ebmbed a video streaming in my site? I use this code but some users complain that they cant see the videos playing. What should I do?
This is the code i use:
<embed width="400" height="350" type="application/x-mplayer2" name="MediaPlayer" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/wi… src="My Media src here" autostart="true" autosize="true" showcontrols="1" showdisplay="0" volume="100" enablecontextmenu="0" stretchtofit="false" showstatusbar="1">

Could it be something to do with IE and Firefox? Or maybe some codec thing that some people have them and others not? Is my code not correct or compatible with all browsers?

Thank you for your help.

[wgabrie]

If you must use the embed tag, first, you should use the object tag, with perhaps a few param tags, and then fall back to embed.

The reason is that embed isn't a standard tag and browsers may not always support the embed tag. -- I know because my Opera browser keeps trying to kill embeds by reducing their functionality with each new release. (I wouldn't mind so much if my favorite folk music site didn't rely so heavily on repeating embed tags to play out songs. )

Back to what is at hand, it is as you suspected about the plug-in, I think you have a Windows Media video. Someone who doesn't have Windows Media Player will have trouble playing it. Someone on a Mac, for example would need to download Flip4Mac. And, I don't know about Linux (though, with open source software, I suspect that Linux users have something) or what any of the PDA/mobile browsers that are coming out need.

You might also consider a video converter software, and offer several formats for viewers to choose. I think there are free ones but I forgot which one I liked, when I did a project similar to this, so I can't make any suggestions.

And, of course sites like YouTube actually combines many uploaded video formats into flash format and that seems to work cross-platform somehow, if the viewer has the flash plug-in installed.

This post has been edited by wgabrie: Oct 9 2010, 12:48 AM

[Conoco]

Thank you for the reply, do you think it could be the missing object tag? If all users are windows users, do you think there would be a compatibility problem from people using windows xp and people using windows vista or 7? From the way the media player 11 or other version its OS has. If the OS and media player doesnt affect this would there be any compatibility problem from people using internet explorer and people using firefox?
The users who are using mac are under 10 out of 23.000 so i cant take a sample from them the majority 99.9% are windows users and they are the ones who are complaining but i dont know which can and which cant use the player. I believe that some dont click on the small bar that pops up on the top of IE to allow the player to run.

Thanks you.

This post has been edited by Conoco: Oct 9 2010, 05:29 PM

[wgabrie]

I think, maybe, that Windows versions distributed in Europe might not have Windows Media Player installed by default because of all the anti-trust lawsuits brought against Microsoft.

However, about the object tag, here is a site you should see: How to Embed Windows Media Files, and also another page, How to embed Windows Media Player in HTML document

[jake7363]

I am not sure about the object being the difference, but at the very least, the tag should be:

<embed> [parms] </embed>
not
<embed [parms]>

[pandy]

Oh yes, we have Media Player in Europe. There is no point in trying to call up a certain player though. That's a user option. You can't know what plugin I choose to use for different media formats.

What is the format of the video you try to play? Can you show us a sample site so we can have go at it? We need the video to play with.