Use the QuickTime plugin to play audio and video

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quicktime_logo.png The QuickTime application from Apple, Inc. includes a browser plugin lets you play many types of online media through your Firefox browser. QuickTime is part of the Mac operating system and is available for download on Windows. This article explains how to check that the QuickTime plugin is installed and working.

Note: QuickTime is not available for the Linux platform, but Mplayer is a popular Linux media player that can play back QuickTime media. In order to use Mplayer to play QuickTime stream in Firefox, you must install two programs named gnome-mplayer and gecko-mediaplayer. Your Linux distribution may have these packages readily available to install.

Checking for QuickTime

To see if QuickTime is installed and working,To see if the QuickTime browser plugin is working, visit one of these pages and try to play one of the QuickTime videos:

If the QuickTime video plays, the QuickTime plugin is installed and enabled.

Note: To complete the test on a Windows system, you may need to enable some features of Firefox to communicate through your Windows Firewall. To enable these features, click Unblock when prompted by Firefox.

Installing QuickTime

To install QuickTime (or to update to the latest version):

  1. Go to the Apple QuickTime download webpage.
  2. Download the QuickTime installer file to your computer.
  3. When the download completes, close Firefox.
  4. Find the file you downloaded and double-click it to start the QuickTime installation.

QuickTime comes pre-installed on Mac.

Enabling and disabling the browser plugin

When QuickTime is installed, QuickTime's browser plugin is enabled by default and should work in Firefox. You can disable and enable the browser plugin in the Firefox Add-ons Manager.
If the browser plugin is disabled, embedded QuickTime content such as the QuickTime videos on the pages linked above will not play, even though QuickTime is installed.
  1. Click the menu button Fx89menuButton, click Add-ons and themes and select Plugins.
  2. In the list of plugins, select QuickTime Plug-in.
    • If you want to disable the plugin, click the Disable button.
    • If you want to re-enable the plugin, click the Enable button.

Troubleshooting

When you have QuickTime installed, many types of media files that you download in Firefox will open automatically in the QuickTime plugin. If you want to change this behavior, you can select a different download action in your Firefox settings, such as saving the file or opening it in another application. For more information, see Manage file types and download actions in Firefox.

Embedded media

Note: On Windows 7 and Windows Vista, you can only change the file types that are associated with QuickTime Player. The MIME types that are handled by the browser plugin are enabled by default for all supported types and cannot be reconfigured.

On Windows XP and below, you can select the types of content you want the QuickTime plugin to handle, since some MIME types are not enabled by default. If you hare having problems with embedded content in a webpage, you can configure the QuickTime browser plugin forspecific types of embedded content.

  1. Open the QuickTime Player.
  2. At the top of the QuickTime window, select the Edit menu, select Preferences, and then select QuickTime Preferences.... The QuickTime Preferences window appears.
  3. In the QuickTime Preferences window, select the Browser tab, and then click MIME Settings.... The MIME Types window opens.
  4. In the MIME Types window, you can specify the media formats you want QuickTime to play in Firefox. These settings apply only to online files; they do not apply to files opened through your operating system.


win-quicktimemimesettings.png

Suggested MIME Types

On Windows XP and below, you can configure the QuickTime browser plugin to change the MIME types that are associated with the QuickTime browser plugin. It is suggested that you select the following content types in your QuickTime MIME settings:

Audio

  • AIFF audio
  • uLaw/AU audio
  • MIDI
  • WAVE audio


MPEG

  • MPEG media
  • MPEG audio
  • MPEG-4 media


MP3

  • MP3 audio
Note: The following does not apply to Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard", which does not include any configurable QuickTime Player MIME settings.

  1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences.... The System Preferences window appears.
  2. In the System Preferences window, click QuickTime , select the Advanced tab, and then click MIME Settings.... The MIME Types window opens.

    mac-quicktimemimesettings.png
  3. In the MIME Types window, you can specify the media formats you want QuickTime to play in Firefox.

Uninstalling QuickTime

For information about uninstalling QuickTime from your Windows PC, see the Apple support site.




Based on information from Quicktime (mozillaZine KB)