How can we make video experience in Firefox better for you?

[ania]

Hi! 

My name is Ania - I'm a part of the Firefox Desktop Product team, and I'm excited to start a conversation with Firefox Community on Mozilla Connect. 

Our team's recent work focused on some exciting updates to the video experience and Picture-in-Picture, and we want to take it even further - with your help. 

We would love to hear what can make your experience with watching videos (in tabs and PiP) and live streams in Firefox better and more fun. No idea is too big or small, and we are as open to discussing big "blue sky" ideas as we are to introducing new handy keyboard shortcuts. 

I will be checking this thread multiple times a day, and I'm looking forward to your feedback!

[penda]

Some improved support for mp4, I sometimes have display issues (blank).

Bottom video displays as black on Firefox, top platys no issues.

Checked using VLC (where the video plays). Perhaps a frame-rate issue as that's the only difference I can note other than resolution.

Nightly99

[KERR]

Some small suggestions:

• Improve the "buffering" overlay which obscures loading video - Edge is much better in this regard. FF example below:

• Add a border for the PiP window - it's sometimes hard to see where the edges are!
• Make the built-in HTML5 video controls a bit easier to click - they're tiny!
  
• Make the PiP function more discoverable - I'm sure many people don't know it exists, and on TikTok for example, it doesn't seem to show up for me
• Allow us to change the aspect ratio for PiP - edge case perhaps - but vertical videos (which often have the bars on the sides just waste space:
  
  

Thanks!

[ania]

Hi Kerr,

Thank you for your feedback; these are all great suggestions!

PiP discoverability - this is on our radar, although it's not easy to strike a balance between good discoverability and annoying users.

Re HTML 5 video controls and buffering overlay - thank you, this is helpful feedback. We hope to have time to give the video widget some TLC this year, and it's valuable to know what works and what doesn't.

[Spider-Man]

I don't know what changed in this months Firefox Nightly updates, but never before has it been freezing up excessively while watching videos on say youtube for example.  Prior it was working no problem. Now? It freezes up at least 4-5 times a day regardless of how many tabs I have open. My system hasn't changed, is fully up to date and is a very powerful system.  so... I think Nightly's recent updates have broken something.  just trying to navigate at times causes the browser to freeze with nothing able to be done to fix so sometimes it has to be forced closed.  Seems to indicate GPU interface problems. 

EDIT 3.7.22

I switched up GPU's from Intel to Nvidia and this so far has seemed to stop the freezing.  This would seem to indicate that one of the updates to Firefox Nightly basically has broken Intel GPU functionality & stability as it was working flawlessly for years prior to this.  Definitely thinking an Intel GPU compatibility problem with latest Nightly updates.  

EDIT 3.8.22 Turns out I spoke to soon.  Switching GPU's only helped a little temporarily.  The freezing is still ongoing.  unbelievable. it's not even just when watching videos but just regular browsing!  man this is annoying.  How do you break the browser that badly after years of it working fine?!  unbelievable.  Now I gotta switch to another one. Great job Mozilla.  🤦‍

EDIT 3.11.22  The latest update to Firefox Developer Edition has rendered Firefox DE useless. It is now crashing and/or freezing even worse than Nightly Edition continues to do so.  The last update was I believe this week and has completely broken Firefox DE.  Sad.  I can't even use it now.  I don't even want to update Firefox regular edition now as it is the last browser standing from this flawed "update" that seems to be making all mozilla browsers completely useless.

[alexdelorenzo]

YouTube might be pushing codecs to your system that doesn't have hardware decoding ability on your hardware. Are you on Windows, macOS or Linux?

[Spider-Man]

windows 11 pro. fully up to date. all other browsers working perfect like normal.  Nightly was working perfectly up until a couple weeks ago. Now it freezes up and crashes CONSTANTLY. The only thing that has changed is Nightly.    Something has been broken in the latest updates.  The other firefox browsers I use prove this and I never changed or added anything to Nightly.  I've restarted, kept it up to date. and it's still doing it.  What was done to firefox nightly within the last few weeks in how it handles basic video platforms? that should be the question.  My system is a gaming laptop, fully up to date and functioning fine in every other regard. 

[ania]

Hi Spider-Man,

There is a problem with video freezing that Media team is actively working to resolve right now - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1757971

Does the description seem to be in line with the issue you're experiencing? If not, can I please  ask you to file a Bugzilla report, so we can start investigating the issue?

[Spider-Man]

It would seem to be yes.  I think just regular normal use on youtube and occasionally other sites will trigger some kind of freeze up.  I've tried every solution I can think of and nothing works.  I'll try to report something on it. 

[xUxSxExR]

Please add some basic VLC functions, like speed control to it. Also a headphone-option, to play only audio would be great.

[ania]

Hi xUxSxExR,

Thank you for your feedback! The speed control in Picture-in-Picture is likely not on our radar this year, unfortunately. I understand the convenience, but it is a somewhat heavy lift, and would require site-specific adapters. 

Can you please elaborate on the headphone option - is it for video in general or for Picture-in-Picture? Do I understand correctly that you want to be able to play only audio to avoid loading the video track?

Thank you!

[shanen]

Actually came across this thread trying to find something about the recent removal of the "refresh" icon. 

I guess that reflects a bug in your search engine? Or just more evidence of how little Firefox actually cares about what the users want? Every day it seems like Firefox is trying to make it harder to stay with Firefox.

But I still prefer to focus on the financial model side. Would I donate for a better "video experience"? Probably not, but if enough people want to, then that's fine with me.

Would I donate to remove the refresh icon. Absolutely not. Actually, it is extremely annoying and I am trying to imagine what y'all were thinking of. (Or hide it? And yes, I do know about the <F5> and <CTRL><R> options.)

There are lots of features I might donate to support. Too bad I can't find them and even worse that Firefox doesn't offer anything approaching a mechanism to help direct my donations towards the features I'd like to support. Y'all keep guessing what I want. Sometimes you guess badly, but most of the time you guess worse than that.

(Like the current not "signed in" status, eh? Why would I care if you don't care? (So it got erased, but I had a copy in the clipboard. As user experiences go, that is not good.))

[shanen]

Too much to hope for a pointer to the correct place, eh?

Oh well. One point of clarification. The problem has been coming and going for a while, but right now it is only affecting one of my Windows 10 computers. I use several machines for various purposes, but it's especially intrusive when it's affecting the one I use most.

Back to the struggle to use Firefox. I can't imagine how it could get bad enough to get me to consider Edge, but I do use various other less Edgy browsers for various purposes... At some point the hassles of using Firefox are going to be too much to put up with.

[shanen]

Yet another interface problem to go with the search problems of this website... It keeps sending me notification emails about comments in this thread--but none of them are related to my problem or my message. However the "Hi shanen" salutation confused me again and I started searching for a relevant reply that doesn't exist.

In conclusion, I'm not feeling motivated to do more searches, less motivated to follow up on the independent idea I submitted earlier and even less motivated than that to submit any more ideas. Yeah, I'm hoping for Firefox to survive, but at this point it doesn't seem realistic to hope for it's success. (I think it's the bad economic model, which was the focus of that submitted idea that I now regard as dead.)

[shanen]

Where, oh where, is the unsubscribe option? The subscribe option is prominently visible everywhere, but...

[dasnapper]

Hi Ania,

I'm a longtime Firefox user, and have some feedback:

- I was interested to see how version 98 would react during my regular use, and noticed the download window is problematic for me. I often have several downloads happening at once or quite often, and the download window staying present blocks my view. Is there a way of hiding or disabling it?

- it's a great idea to have a mute button in a tab when videos are running, but the hotspot for muting audio can be a bit difficult to click on

Thanks for listening, and I'm back to seeing out the new version works out 🙂

regards,

David

[ania]

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your feedback!

One way to remove the download window is to right-click on the toolbar, choose the Customize Toolbar and remove the download button from the toolbar completely.

[N4AOF]

Totally unacceptable "Throw out the baby with the bath water" solution! 

The original download indicator (which also served as the button to open the same window that now pops up constantly) was useful.   As you should be seeing by now -- with several users complaining in just this thread alone -- this unsolicited change was outrageously bad.  Someone needs to get 98.01 out here quickly.

[sfin]

On Android the video doesn't always show up properly in full screen. The video with be shifted down and to the right so part of the video isn't visible.

Actual video:

 what I see in full screen:

 

[ania]

Hi sfin,

Thank you for your feedback! Do you mind logging the issue, so that Firefox Android team can get a report? This thread is about video on desktop, and I won't be able to help with the issue you're experiencing.

[ania]

Hi N4AOF,

Thank you for your feedback, I'll make sure to pass it along to the team that works on Downloads (this thread happens to be about video experience on Firefox).

[gunner]

How about a slimmed-down version?  Firefox has become a slow obese pig of a software package - like it's trying to be an operating system over the top of an operating system. Ya know, basic browser, basic functions, so it doesn't 3-4 minutes to start up after "yet another update", or take 30 seconds to "unpack itself" from memory just to close?

[knightoflight]

Picture-in-Picture no longer works with YoutTube TV.  It still works with regular YouTube.  This is Firefox on Windows 10.  Can this be fixed?

Thank you.

[kleinph]

It would be nice to have the actual video controls that the website is using rendered in the PiP window.

[ania]

Additional PiP video controls is the closest enhancement on our radar👍

[brochard]

With Youtube Vanced getting closed, the only alternative is the browser. So it would be nice to be able to have access to more necessary addons to make it a similar experience on mobile :
- Sponsorblock
- Return Youtube Dislike
- Youtube Non Stop

Also making it easier to have the video playing while the phone is off, better control (previous/next video)...

[ania]

Thank you, brochard, I'll make sure to pass the feedback to the mobile add-on team.

[ania]

I wanted to thank everyone for a great discussion - it's been great to receive community feedback and get a better understanding of pain points you experience with video.

@T9 @KERR I wanted to specifically thank you for your generosity in providing feedback and explaining how you use Picture-in-Picture and video player in Firefox - this will inform the way we design updated video playback controls, improve discoverability, tooltips, and buffering UI.

The whole team is looking forward to working on an update, and while I cannot share any specific plans/timelines at this point, I feel that your feedback will allow me to make a better case when advocating for this work.

Cheers,

Ania

[Jon]

Hey all,

Thanks so much for participating in such a productive discussion about improving the video experience in Firefox. It was great seeing so many valuable insights shared both ways! We are closing out this discussion, but want to encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and ideas about this particular topic (and more, of course) in new posts—just be sure to use the necessary labels and tags, so your posts are easily searched for and discovered by our teams.

Also, we are excited to announce that more of these discussions hosted by Mozilla employees are headed to the Mozilla Connect community next week...and we plan to have this be an ongoing series moving forward. 

Stay tuned 😃

-The Community Team