1022091 - [Roku] Feature request: allow casting from local files

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Screencasting, enhancement, P5)

Description

[SMC]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140606030206

Steps to reproduce:

Tried to play local .mp4 (h.264/aac) file (navigate directly to the file from the URL bar). File plays on local device.
Select the "casting" icon, select the Roku device
Roku device begins loading, then complains “Media Error: the media format is unknown or unsupported. Code(-5)”
Go to test video at http://people.mozilla.org/~mfinkle/casting/test.html
Select "casting" icon.
Video works
Download the same video
navigate to this confirmed-good video on the local storage
Select "casting icon"
Roku begins loading then complains  “Media Error: the media format is unknown or unsupported. Code(-5)”

(This is a Roku X2500, if that is relevant)


Actual results:

Attempts to play valid .mp4 (h.264/aac) from local storage work within the browser but fail when screencasting to the roku app


Expected results:

The same video files that screencast when loaded from a <video> tag should also play from locally-saved locations.

Comment 1

[Flaviu Cos]

I think this bug is invalid because 'casting' means that the video you are trying to play is streamed from a server. That means that the casting will only work with an URL, and it will not work from a local file.
Am I right?

Comment 2

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

This wasn't a use case we originally intended to support, but it is something we could support. Nominating for triage so we can discuss.

Comment 3

[SMC]

Pardon the ignorant question: Where would the triage discussion take place (freenode?), and is it open to the public (I'd like to participate)? 

Just a couple of points though from my own perspective:
"file://(path)" IS a URL, isn't it? I have not yet tested ftp:// URLs, but from the two comments I would suspect that would not work either. This seems not only limiting but inconsistent to me (the data stream being "casted" would be the same no matter the source, wouldn't it?)

It also seems odd to me that users would not be intended to "cast" their OWN videos, but only *other peoples'* videos (as long as they aren't youtube, though I assume that's just an MSE issue not related to this feature). I suppose a user could set up an instance of MediaGoblin or similar project for the purpose of self-hosting.

(If "triage" is an internal Mozilla discussion, those are the points I'd want to bring up.)

Comment 4

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

Video casting involves two separate devices: A phone (or tablet) and a Dongle. Given that video casting involves passing a URL from the phone to the dongle, I have some questions:

If the video is on the dongle, how would the phone be able to get access to it so it could be displayed in a webpage on the phone? Then a person could "cast" the video to the dongle.

If the video is on the phone, how could the dongle get access to the video file on the phone?

Comment 5

[SMC]

It seems perhaps I've entirely misunderstood this feature - you're saying "casting" does nothing but send a "hey, TV device,connect to this URL and play this file" signal and not the actual media to be played (making this feature more or less a built-in "figure out the direct URL of the media from the page and send it to the Roku box" and nothing much more?)

(If that's the case, I can see my expectation would be more of a "present a simple web server to a roku box for media-casting from the source device" thing, which would be more "feature request" than bug report obviously.)

Comment 6

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to SMC from comment #5)
> It seems perhaps I've entirely misunderstood this feature - you're saying
> "casting" does nothing but send a "hey, TV device,connect to this URL and
> play this file" signal and not the actual media to be played (making this
> feature more or less a built-in "figure out the direct URL of the media from
> the page and send it to the Roku box" and nothing much more?)
This is correct

> (If that's the case, I can see my expectation would be more of a "present a
> simple web server to a roku box for media-casting from the source device"
> thing, which would be more "feature request" than bug report obviously.)
This is also correct

Comment 7

[SMC]

Wow...disappointing (in the concept of "casting" in general, not this particular implementation), but at least I learned something.

I updated the description appropriately.

Comment 8

[Brad Lassey [:blassey] (use needinfo?)]

filter on [mass-p5]

Comment 9

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.