945483 - HTML video playback for NeuLion video player [NFL, NHL, NBA, MLS, UFCtv, Premier League, etc.]

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect)

Description

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

NeuLion video player has HTML video playback support. It does not detect Firefox's HTML video support. 

I am able to view the videos in Firefox desktop and Firefox for Android using an iPad user agent. 

Their customers include the following Channels/Sports

http://www.neulion.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30000&ATCLID=206146360
http://www.neulion.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30000&ATCLID=206118178
http://www.neulion.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30000&ATCLID=206115423

Comment 1

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

links to a file with a M3U8 extension, and passed 'audio/x-mpegurl' to canPlayType()

Comment 2

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

(The report says it was possible to view videos by spoofing as iPad - that would be a surprise as ther is no sniffing AFAIK, and I saw no difference when spoofing a Desktop build as iPad.)

Comment 3

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

I think we're done with the analysis here, so I'll remove the [mentor] tag again. Now, the real problem is what to do about it..

Comment 4

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Kevin,

Could you provide more details with a site where it is happening and/or testable?
Could you test again the iPad UA and the page where you tested this, with which browser. :)

Comment 5

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Video linked off the home pages of NFL, NHL, NBA, MLS as I recall.

Comment 6

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Kevin,

Sorry I was not clear enough
1. Do you have the URLs of the Web page where this issue occurs?
2. Could you test again the iPad UA and the page where you tested this, with which browser? 

:) As we can't reproduce, we might close it.

Comment 7

[Kevin Brosnan [Ex-Mozilla]]

Looks like video is only available on the desktop site. Maybe that was the default when I filed this. So go to one of the home pages, scroll to the bottom select full site. Select one of the links with a video icon.

For a specific example
1. nhl.com
2. view full site at the bottom
3. select any link with a blue video icon 
3a. the nhl video/shows area might work as well

eg. http://www.nhl.com/ice/blogpost.htm?id=29345&navid=nhl:topheads

Comment 8

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

Ok let's try to dig a bit more.
The desktop site is not a concern for the mobile site.

This page is for mobile devices (Firefox Android for example)
http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=719137
It has a video. When setting an iOS UA, we receive a player which is not flash.

(I removed most of the markup to keep what is interesting us)
<div class="videoPlayer" 
     id="ipVidCont" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" 
     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <div id="playerBox12345">
    <div id="nhlplayerContainer12345">
      <video id="nhlplayer12345"></video>
    </div>
    <div id="controlBar12345">
      <table></table>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

There are a few scripts loaded from neulion, including:
http://e1.cdnl3.neulion.com/nhlvc/player/videocenter/player/scripts/videocenter.js?v=20140514
http://e1.cdnl3.neulion.com/nhlvc/player/videocenter/player/scripts/nhlvc.js?v=20140403

in videocenter.js, isMobile is defined by the screen size.
   isMobile = (container.offsetWidth < 480);

and there's a bit of UA sniffing here still in videocenter.js, if not ipad or iphone (which will fail on ipod btw), the site tries to initiate flash.

		var ua = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
		if(ua.indexOf("ipad")!=-1 || ua.indexOf("iphone")!=-1)
		{
			if(nlConfigs.noHTML5)
			{
				if(nlConfigs.unsupportedCallback!=null)
					nlConfigs.unsupportedCallback();
			}
			else
			{
				nlIsHTML5 = true;
				setTimeout("VideoCenter.nlInitFlashCheck()",100);
			}
		}
		else
		{
			VideoCenter.nlLoadScript(NL_LOC_RESOURCE+"scripts/swfobject.js");
			setTimeout("VideoCenter.nlInitFlashCheck()",100);
		}

Comment 9

[Hallvord R. M. Steen [:hallvors]]

Test passes, site fixed.

Comment 10

[Karl Dubost💡 :karlcow]

this fixed on NHL site.