Heads up: late strings for Firefox "Decoder Doctor" to be uplifted to Aurora 47

[Chris Peterson]

hi all, the "Decoder Doctor" (bug 1180108) is a new Firefox feature to
notify users when they can't play an HTML5 video because they are
missing a codec. The Decoder Doctor will pop up a notification bar with
a "Learn more" button that opens a SUMO page with instructions on how to
install the codecs:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-video-audio-problems-firefox-windows

The Decoder Doctor strings landed in the Nightly 48 changeset linked
below. We plan to uplift the Decoder Doctor and strings to Aurora 47
because some video sites are inaccessible to Firefox users.

Unlike Chrome or Edge, Firefox does not ship H.264 or AAC codecs. We
instead rely on the operating system's codecs. However, some Windows
versions do not include Microsoft's codecs, which are available as a
free download, if you know where to look. About 15% of Vista users and
1% of Windows 7–10 users are missing these codecs. These are typically
the Windows "N" and "KN" editions for European countries and Korea,
respectively, so European languages and Korean translations of the
strings are the most urgent.

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/0df02c629e77

decoder.noCodecs.message = To play video, you may need to install
Microsoft’s Media Feature Pack.

decoder.noCodecsXP.message = To play video, you may need to enable
Adobe’s Primetime Content Decryption Module.

decoder.noCodecsLinux.message = To play video, you may need to install
the required video codecs.

decoder.noHWAcceleration.message = To improve video quality, you may
need to install Microsoft’s Media Feature Pack.


thanks!
chris

[Axel Hecht]

Hi,

these strings have now landed, are available for you to translate on hg,
pootle, and pontoon.

They're all in browser.properties.

It'd be great if you could get to them by the 24th, so we can get them
into the 47 release.

These strings are likely going to be user-facing in Japan and Germany, fwiw.

We're taking this string freeze break because there are external
timelines. The details are sadly non-public, but if you're under NDA,
watch the townhall from Tuesday. That's good to watch anyway, but in the
last few minutes, cbeard shares some background. Like anything around
DRM, we're not landing this because we're enthusiastic about it.

Axel

[Chris Peterson]

We announced last week [1] that we're adding support for Google's
Widevine CDM (DRM), so it's no longer an NDA issue.

Unlike Adobe's Primetime CDM, Widevine does not include an AAC codec.
And unlike Chrome, Firefox depends on the operating system's H.264 and
AAC codecs instead of bundling our own. That means Windows Firefox users
who don't have Microsoft's AAC codec can't play the audio tracks for
Widevine videos.

As I noted below in my earlier email, at least 1% of Windows users will
be affected, primarily users in Europe and Korea where Microsoft
distributes the Windows "N" and "KN" editions [2]. The "Decoder Doctor"
will notify those users that they are missing Microsoft's codecs and how
to install them [3].

Many video streaming services (such as Amazon Video, Canal+, and the
BBC) use Widevine for Chrome and the Silverlight NPAPI plugin for
Firefox. We're fast-tracking Widevine (and thus the "Decoder Doctor") to
Aurora 47 so these services can drop Silverlight and move to HTML5 video
(using Widevine) sooner.


thanks,
chris

[1]
https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2016/04/08/mozilla-to-test-widevine-cdm-in-firefox-nightly/
[2] http://www.cnet.com/news/windows-7-n-the-n-editions-explained/
[3]
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-video-audio-problems-firefox-windows

[Chris Peterson]

On 4/14/16 3:39 PM, Sebastian Hengst wrote:
> Sorry for the need for a follow-up.
>
> Can we this UI without a Windows XP / Vista N/KN?

Yes. This is going to get complicated, so please bear with me. :-)

Windows XP does not include H.264 or AAC codecs. Microsoft does not
provide a "Media Feature Pack", but Firefox can use Adobe's Primetime
CDM (which is designed for encrypted DRM content) to decode unencrypted
H.264 and AAC. So the "Decoder Doctor" has an XP-specific message if the
user has disabled the Adobe CDM:

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/0df02c629e77#l1.16

Microsoft distributes N/KN editions for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.
AFAIK, there is no N/KN edition for Vista, but some versions of Vista
are still missing codecs (about 15%). Microsoft does not provide a
"Media Feature Pack" for Vista, but it does offer the Vista codecs in a
similar download called the "Vista Platform Update Supplement".

The "Decoder Doctor" will soon be implemented on Linux, but the Linux
message won't have a link to SUMO instructions because of many
complicated configuration and codec issues on Linux.


> Thanks
> Sebastian

>> _______________________________________________
>> dev-l10n mailing list
>> dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-l10n
>

[Chris Peterson]

On 4/14/16 3:37 PM, Sebastian Hengst wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the strings are like this:

> decoder.noCodecs.message = To play video, you may need to install
> Microsoft’s Media Feature Pack.

> decoder.noHWAcceleration.message = To improve video quality, you may
> need to install Microsoft’s Media Feature Pack.
>

> 1. Is there a reason why "may need" gets used? This sends a message
> "The video might not play, install X, we have no idea if it's
> necessary or will fix the issue." For a translation which sets well
> defined expectations, I'd prefer to translate it like "Video does not
> play. To fix the issue, install X."

Good question. We debated this wording. While we know that a particular
video might require a codec available in the Media Feature Pack, we
don't know for certain that installing the Media Feature Pack will fix
the video. The user might have other configuration problems, such as a
buggy GPU driver. (In the future, we might expland the "Decoder Doctor"
to check whether new GPU driver versions are available.)

Also, the site might ask to play an H.264 video that causes Firefox to
show the Media Feature Pack message, but in the meantime, the site might
fall back to Flash or VP9 video. So the video still might play, even
though we displayed a warning. In this case, showing the warning is
still a good idea. Microsoft's codecs in the Media Feature Pack can use
GPU video decoding, which can offer better playback performance and
lower power usage than VP9. It also helps us reduce the use of Flash.


> 2. These strings seem to be shown in context to videos which fail to
> play. German distinguishes if video is singular or plural. I have
> chosen to use singular, but for single page video apps like news
> sites, a plural form would be welcome. The alternative would have been
> to drop the context and speak about playing video in general.

Singular sounds like a good choice because the message is triggered by a
video in the current page, not video in general. Hopefully, sites with
multiple videos playing on the same page are uncommon.. :-) If a news
site has multiple videos on one page, they will most likely all
experience the same problem (though Firefox will only show one info bar).

> Thanks
> Sebastian
>
>
> Am 14.04.2016 um 23:22 schrieb Chris Peterson:

[Henri Sivonen]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:50 PM, Axel Hecht <l1...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> These strings are likely going to be user-facing in Japan and Germany, fwiw.

Also particularly in South Korea, since Windows KN exists specifically
due to South Korean concerns.

--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@hsivonen.fi
https://hsivonen.fi/

[Henri Sivonen]

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 12:22 AM, Chris Peterson <cpet...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> We're
> fast-tracking Widevine (and thus the "Decoder Doctor") to Aurora 47 so these
> services can drop Silverlight and move to HTML5 video (using Widevine)
> sooner.

The strings for Widevine, which, as noted above, is about to be
uplifted to 47, have landed. The new strings are gmp_privacy_info and
widevine_description, both in plugins.properties. (In the value for
the latter, the lack of a comma between "Google" and "Inc." is not a
typo; see e.g. https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/ .)

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Looks like another change landed in Aurora a few minutes ago
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/bfffe574ce0c3b0e14df12b7ec20bdfebc7f2409

Francesco

[Fjoerfoks]

Is this also needed before the 24th?

Wim

2016-04-21 6:28 GMT+02:00 Francesco Lodolo [:flod] <fl...@lodolo.net>:

> Looks like another change landed in Aurora a few minutes ago
>
> https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/bfffe574ce0c3b0e14df12b7ec20bdfebc7f2409
>
> Francesco
>

[Chris Peterson]

This string change is not a high priority, though it would be nice to
fix before the 24th, of course. :-)

It is a new string label ("Privacy Information") for a link buried in
the description of Google's Widevine DRM CDM in the about:addons page >
Plugins tab > Widevine 'More' page > "Privacy Information" link.

The link points to Google's privacy policy:

https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/


chris