1908572 - Turn on WebCodecs pref in desktop beta and release

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Audio/Video: Web Codecs, enhancement, P1)

Description

[C.M.Chang[:chunmin]]

We should turn on WebCodecs pref in beta and release and let it ride the train once it's ready.

Comment 1

[C.M.Chang[:chunmin]]

Attachment: Bug 1908572 - Enable WebCodecs in Firefox Desktop

Comment 2

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/a6e24033e69f
Enable WebCodecs in Firefox Desktop r=media-playback-reviewers,padenot

Comment 3

[pstanciu]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a6e24033e69f

Comment 4

[Donal Meehan [:dmeehan]]

:chunmin could you consider nominating this for a release note? (Process info)
We could include it in the nightly release notes.

Comment 5

[C.M.Chang[:chunmin]]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: The "webcodecs" feature allows media and web-conferencing websites, like Zoom, to use Firefox's internal media codecs to decode, encode, and process their media data flexibly and efficiently with their customized needs.
[Affects Firefox for Android]: Disabled on Android for now
[Suggested wording]: WebCodecs is a powerful API that allows websites like Zoom to process media data using Firefox's built-in encoders and decoders. This capability enables these websites to integrate their custom media processing pipelines directly with the browser’s native functionalities. By doing so, they can achieve the desired visual effects for web conferencing without downloading additional custom media codecs, thus saving both time and bandwidth.
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]:

• internal document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IjUSvi5WPKHfUxG_uwqykqNnmZUYyLN4Tu2t0NoSpgU/edit
• explainer: https://github.com/w3c/webcodecs/blob/main/explainer.md

Comment 6

[C.M.Chang[:chunmin]]

Comment on attachment 9417507 [details]
Bug 1908572 - Enable WebCodecs in Firefox Desktop

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: webcodec would be disabled
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: Yes
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: Yes
• Needs manual test from QE?: No
• If yes, steps to reproduce:
• List of other uplifts needed: Bug 1910668
• Risk to taking this patch: Low
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): This feature has been tested for a while in Nightly and is aimed to ship in Firefox 130. The feature is behind a pref and can be easily disabled if needed.
• String changes made/needed:
• Is Android affected?: No

Comment 7

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

Comment on attachment 9417507 [details]
Bug 1908572 - Enable WebCodecs in Firefox Desktop

Approved for 130 beta 5, thanks.

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/98cd453d97c8

Comment 9

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

Enabled the Web Codecs API on desktop platforms, allowing low-level access to audio and video encoders and decoders.

1: https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/WebCodecs_APINote added to our beta release notes with this wording:

Enabled the Web Codecs API on desktop platforms, allowing low-level access to audio and video encoders and decoders.

I am keeping the release note request flag open until we have it added to our final release notes.

Comment 10

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

Paul, this uplift is causing mochitest failures (see Bug 1912282), if we can't fix them for beta 5 we will have to back the feature out.

Comment 11

[C.M.Chang[:chunmin]]

VideoEncoder, VideoDecoder, AudioEncoder, AudioDecoder, and VideoFrame are enabled on all the desktop platforms: Windows, MacOS, and Linux. However, right now the MDN shows they are either Linux-only in Nightly or not-supported:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/VideoEncoder#browser_compatibility

WebCodecs is enabled in FF 130, so now its supported in both Nightly and Beta, and soon in release.

Comment 12

[Hamish Willee]

FYI, I've just picked this up for FF131 docs because it has FF131 release label and the dev-doc-needed keyword. We missed this in FF130 because it did not have the keyword or the release number when we did our sweep of items, and because when browser-compat-data did their testing it had not been upgraded.
Upshot, we really need the keyword added if you expect docs but we might have missed this anyway. I'm happy to be tagged if you release stuff mid-release-cyclke, or even better, add a content issue on MDN.

You can track docs for work for this in https://github.com/mdn/content/issues/35695 (work done, reviews in progress)