Replicant

Update: I tried both Lucid and Lightening browsers, same exact problem. Firefox crashes immediately after launching.

I went here https://html5test.com/ using the default browser; under Video it says that codec detection is "buggy", and none of the listed codecs are present.

My guess is that the problem I am experiencing (described in my original post) is due to combined lack of flash support plus lack of codecs needed for html5 video. I understand that some codecs are proprietary, but a tablet that cannot reliably display web content is not very useful. It would be nice to at least load all the free codecs (x264, Ogg Theora), but I do not know Replicant's (or Android's for that matter) ins and outs well enough to figure out how to do this. I searched high and low for codec packs to no avail. Also, gnash does not seem to be available for android yet.

Is having no video playback within the browser inevitable for Replicant users at this point?

Update: I tried both Lucid and Lightening browsers, same exact problem. Firefox crashes immediately after launching.

Lucid and Lightening just using the same rendering engine (WebView) as the standard browser, so there should be no difference.
Why Firefox isn't working is discussed already here:
- http://redmine.replicant.us/boards/39/topics/8007
- http://redmine.replicant.us/issues/705

My guess is that the problem I am experiencing (described in my original post) is due to combined lack of flash support plus lack of codecs needed for html5 video. I understand that some codecs are proprietary, but a tablet that cannot reliably display web content is not very useful. It would be nice to at least load all the free codecs (x264, Ogg Theora), but I do not know Replicant's (or Android's for that matter) ins and outs well enough to figure out how to do this. I searched high and low for codec packs to no avail. Also, gnash does not seem to be available for android yet.

That's open to dispute. Personally I don't need Flash (which is proprietary by the way) or x264 (which is proprietary, too: [http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Pages/PatentList.aspx]).
Not least, because Flash is absolutely insecure; two big vulnerabilities only this year:
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb15-02.html (fixed since v16.0.0.296 [Win/Mac] & 11.2.202.440 [Linux])
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsa15-02.html (unfixed at the moment [2nd February 2015])

Is having no video playback within the browser inevitable for Replicant users at this point?

This point(s) is/are on the Tasks list already: http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/Tasks

The only (not recommended!) workaround for now is, to manually install the proprietary OpenGL ES BLOBs, and using Firefox (or other newer browser alternatives). If you want to do this, just have a look at here: http://code.paulk.fr/article16/missing-proprietary-firmwares-in-android-systems

Hope that helps.

Thank you, My Self. Wow, there were several proprietary files listed in dllud's mini-howto. I think I'd rather not have video playback for now than compromise that much. It's good to know Replicant is working on this. I'll be waiting for it.

I'm not working on it, it needs to be done, that's different. It is really not any priority for now, so I wouldn't hold my breather if I were you ;)

There is an status-update:
https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/92/slides/slides-92-netvc-0.pdf
of the permissive FOSS licensed video codec daala:
https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/daala/demo1.shtml

Probably sometimes we, (and so Replicant, too) will finally have a state of the art video codec...

The problem is not really the lack of codec, it's that no one is working to fix the graphics side on Replicant.
VLC is performing quite well on Replicant these days btw, close to decoding 720p in an acceptable way.

Cool, thanks for that hint.
So (over this workaround) we're finally able to view... aehm...*cough* educational videos...*cough*... like the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNigWsJN4A
on Replicant シ

I never understood why people would want to watch videos on such small screens anyways…

A more serious reason could be, if you have kids around you and have to wait hours and hours in the waiting room of a hospital, for example. (By the way, if you have active kids you probably have to sit there every few days/weeks). Then you possibly would be lucky about that feature, even if the screen has the size of a stamp... Time goes by much faster, if the bored kids could be partially "entertained" by Walt Disney™ or stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat
Completely hypothetical, of course シ

I still that video playback is still unavailable in the browser as it is a lower priority development.

I installed VLC, which works fine for videos stored on the device itrself, but cannot find a way to set this as the default player for the Replicant (Android) browser, even though it is set as the default player on the device. Does anyone know how to set the default media player for the browser?

As a test, I also tried installing the proprietary files listed in dllud's mini-howto, but that did not help, so I removed them.