637142 - Pop ups and overlayed text on youtube is greyscale AA antialiased

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(External Software Affecting Firefox Graveyard :: Flash (Adobe), defect)

Description

[orangezilla]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b13pre) Gecko/20110226 Firefox/4.0b13pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:2.0b13pre) Gecko/20110226 Firefox/4.0b13pre

All pop up boxes, i.e. Mute, time, resolution, Pop out, Expand, Full Screen and the text overlaying the video at the end is greyscale antialiased on youtube.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Go to a video on http://www.youtube.com 
2. Hover over pop up boxes i.e. Pop out, Expand, Full Screen on the lower right of the video window, take a screenshot, the text is greyscale antialiased.
3. Load Opera 11, repeats steps 1 & 2, text is sub pixel anti aliased.
Actual Results:  
All text overlaying youtube videos is greyscale antialiased with hardware aceleration off or on, plugin container off or on.

Expected Results:  
All text overlaying youtube videos should be sub pixel antialiased.

This also affects Chrome/Iron 9, and Internet Explorer 9 in IE9 standards mode. IE9 in compatibility mode and Opera 11 render the text correctly.

Comment 1

[orangezilla]

Attachment: Comparison of end of youtube video beta5pre 2708 (top) vs 2808 (bottom)

This has been broken in Firefox 4 ever since the hardware acceleration option
was added in 5pre between 27th-28th August, see screenshot attached

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=e1d55bbd1d1d&tochange=6e3f6d18c124

Comment 2

[orangezilla]

OK, just tested Iron(Chrome) 8 and Safari 5.0.3 and these don't have the issue. Could this be WebGL related as WebGL has just been enabled on Iron/Chrome 9 and I am pretty sure it is not yet on Safari or Opera 11? 

http://download.cnet.com/8301-20_4-10476611-10084490.html

If that is something to do with it, I'm not sure why just disabling hardware acceleration on FF4 does not get rid of the issue?

Comment 3

[orangezilla]

Seems like disabling hardware acceleration is not fixing this on FF because WebGL is not being disabled when it should be

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636906#c5

Comment 4

[orangezilla]

Setting webgl.disabled pref to false does stop webgl tests working but doesn't seem to fix this unless there is still some other remnant of webgl code running somewhere interfering with the youtube text antialiasing. It must be something to do with hardware acceleration code given subpixel AA works with the beta5pre 2708 build, the nightly before the hardware acceleration tick box was added?

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/webgl

Comment 5

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

I don't think webgl has anything to do with this.

Comment 6

[orangezilla]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I don't think webgl has anything to do with this.
OK, FWIW the latest (small) flash update hasn't changed things, still no sub pixel AA in FF4, IE9, or Chrome 9 on youtube

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/979060-adobe%c2%ae-flash-player-10215232-released/

the changelog in post 4 I think is just for the first release of 10.2
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/890/cpsid_89050.html

interestingly it says 

"== Sub-pixel text rendering ==
Improved readability of text in Flash Player, especially for complex  character-based languages.  "

obviously not for youtube

Comment 7

[kitchin]

So Bug 636906 might fix it in the next nightly.

Comment 8

[orangezilla]

(In reply to comment #7)
> So Bug 636906 might fix it in the next nightly.
Unfortunately not, I am pretty sure it has something to do with hardware acceleration, maybe not the WebGL code itself, but other changes to the code that were made to allow acceleration to be used.

Comment 9

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Is the text in question being rendered by us or by Flash? It sounds like it's Flash text. Right-clicking on it should tell you by the kind of context menu that pops up.

Comment 10

[orangezilla]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Is the text in question being rendered by us or by Flash? It sounds like it's
> Flash text. Right-clicking on it should tell you by the kind of context menu
> that pops up.
Yes it is flash text, and I think it is probably a flash or youtube problem given the same thing is happening on IE9 and Chrome 9, maybe this should be tech evangelism?

Comment 11

[[Baboo]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Is the text in question being rendered by us or by Flash?

By Flash. The question is what triggers it being rendered this way in this case (note that in other cases like http://www.adobe.com/swf/software/flash/about/flashAbout_info_small.swf subpixel AA works) and why not on Opera which uses the same plugin.

Comment 12

[orangezilla]

(In reply to comment #11)
> (In reply to comment #9)
> > Is the text in question being rendered by us or by Flash?
> 
> By Flash. The question is what triggers it being rendered this way in this case
> (note that in other cases like
> http://www.adobe.com/swf/software/flash/about/flashAbout_info_small.swf
> subpixel AA works) and why not on Opera which uses the same plugin.
As I said in comment 1 it was something that changed in the Firefox 4 Beta 5Pre builds between 27th-28th August, which considering that was when the hardware acceleration off/on tickbox was added in options>advanced>general it is almost certainly something to do with how the code changed to enable acceleration.

Comment 13

[Timothy Nikkel (:tnikkel)]

I wouldn't be so certain, adding the button was just a UI change. The logic for when it is on by default is separate. And besides lots of other breaking changes were landed in that time period (see bug 130078).

Comment 14

[orangezilla]

(In reply to comment #13)
> I wouldn't be so certain, adding the button was just a UI change. The logic for
> when it is on by default is separate. And besides lots of other breaking
> changes were landed in that time period (see bug 130078).
I really think it must be something to do with hardware acceleration, why would FF 3.6, IE8, Safari 5, Chrome 8 all not be affected, yet when acceleration is added in FF4/IE9/Chrome 9 it stops working? The only thing is Opera 11 has just added WebGL in 11.5 testbuilds and it still works OK, but maybe it is to do with another aspect of acceleration that IE9/FF4/Chrome 9 has (maybe hidden in about:flags) that Opera 11 does not yet have?

Comment 15

[orangezilla]

Chrome 9 added this option in about:flags (disabled by default)

GPU Accelerated Canvas 2D
Enables higher performance of canvas tags with a 2D context by rendering using Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) hardware.

Comment 16

[orangezilla]

Looks like youtube have fixed this as well as the scrolling problems, resolving.