Divx Web Player + htaccess?
Posted on: Sun, 01/20/2008 - 13:12
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Divx Web Player + htaccess?
Hello,
will there be an implementation of htaccess in the Divx Web Player? I tried it with the latest (1.4.0.233) Release but it did not work. There was only an error message that the video file is protected. So is this implementation planned? And when will be the new Beta available?
with kind regards
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The new divx web player is not working with this username and password in the source code. My videos are in .htaccess and requires that members login to watch, but now the new player does not allow videos to play. any suggestions???
The new divx web player is not working with this username and password in the source code. My videos are in .htaccess and requires that members login to watch, but now the new player does not allow videos to play. any suggestions???
The problem lies in your auth-method, you are using basic-realm authentication on your webserver, and it looks that Web Player does not get the username and password from the browser, i think VLC does read this information.
I have a very similar setup on my server, but are using a little different approach. I'm using PHP script for the user-login, and when a user logs in, the .htaccess file is re-writting with access to the IP-adresses of the users who are logged-in. Yes, if a user comes from a shared connection this will open up for all PC's from that same ip, but then again, when the last user from a specific ip logs-out, the ip is again removed from the .htaccess, it is the best solution I have found.
The solution with providing the username:password in the url is not a good solution.
-
Note to all..
Don't use Microsoft proxies at home .. :(
Note to DivX Lab' webmasters.. please provide http-headers to tell proxies not to cache.
Okay, I've set up a couple of test areas on one of my websites to demonstrate this problem. Not helped by the fact that the Divx Web Player code generator is not currently working (it gives the error message: The Video has to be in divx format. etc even with perfectly valid DivX video file that already plays with Divx Web Player!)
Here is the test - it's a bit complicated!
The predicted results assume that you have the same configuration as me: Windows XP, IE7, although I have all the other major browsers installed so I will repeat the tests with those later. My friend with a Mac is on holiday at the moment but he'll be a tester too when he gets back LOL. I think the webserver is Apache and the control panel is definitely Cpanel. Sorry that the video test file is a crazy ultraviolet one and not a lovely snake video - it was the most convenient to hand! The rest of the site has some nudity but these test areas are 'safe' LOL
1. Go to my website serpent-tv
2. Click on the word 'test' in the left hand side bar (immediately below MEMBERS). The webpage that opens up is in a directory which is not htaccess protected so the video should play fine with any version of Divx Web Player. N.B. The location of the video file is not in a protected folder either.
3. Click the Serpent TV banner at the top of the page or hit 'Back' in your browser to return to the website's home page.
4. Now click on the word 'test-htaccess' in the left hand side bar (immediately below test). This directory IS htaccess protected so enter the username divx and password test - it's important to check the box to remember this password! The video will probably NOT play with either Divx Web Player 1.4 or 1.3.1 because this copy of the video file is in a protected folder (the test-htaccess folder) and is a duplicate of the video you just saw but in a different location.
The error message with 1.3.1 will be something like 'The file could not be played' which flashes really quickly at the bottom of the player - so quickly that it's hard to remember!
The error message with 1.4 will look something like this: click here - there is quite a big problem with this error box as sometimes it won't go away when you click it, sometimes you have to drag it away from the Divx Web Player window to click it and sometimes it minimizes the whole webpage when you click it!!!
Hey PhotoBabble, I though you said it would work with Divx Web Player 1.3.1 !!!?? Okay, see the link under the Web Player labelled DIRECT LINK TO VIDEO FILE? If you right-click on this link (don't left-click) and choose 'Save Target As' a second password prompt will appear. Enter the same username and password as before and again check the box to remember this password otherwise it won't work! You don't have to download this file, cancel it when it starts, it was just to enter a password to enable you to access this type of file directly (maybe someone knows why it asks twice - extra security for video files?) Now if you refresh the whole page (e.g. hit F5) the video should play if you have Divx Web Player 1.3.1 but you will still get the same error message shown above if you are using the lastest Divx Web Player 1.4!
I think that's everything for this initial test hopefully DigitAl56K will get back to me. If anyone else has different results your feedback would be appreciated!
To find out which version of Divx Web Player you have: left-click on the main player window (to 'activate' it), then right-click and select 'About the DivX Player'. To go back from version 1.4 to 1.3.1 you would have to go to your programs menu: All Programs > DivX > DivX Web Player > Uninstall DivX Web Player - then search on Google for "DivX Web Player 1.3.1" (I don't want to annoy DivX.com by posting a direct link but I went to onlinedown.com - just ignore the links to divx.com as I assume they all point to v1.4!)
The 'DivX workaround' link below 'test-htaccess' uses whuber's clever method of assigning a username and password to the DivX Web Player which works, even with v1.4 but it's not ideal. Useful as a temporary workaround until this problem is fixed in the next update maybe??
SIXTEEN WEEKS LATER AND I'M STILL WAITING FOR A RESPONSE FROM DigitAl56K.
I set up this experiment at his request.
Having said that, I've pretty much ruled out using DivX anyway, although it's still a remote possiblility...
Any Idea?
I struggled with this problem for a few hours before accidentally finding a solution, or at least a 'workaround'.
Having had the same results as Madd using the latest version of DivX Web Player, I checked out my site from my laptop which has an older version of the player and it worked fine! The version number is 1.3.1 (search for "DivX Web Player 1.3.1" on Google - it is still available in a few places). So I unistalled the latest player (v1.4) from my main PC and installed this earlier version and it now works! Just hit 'Skip' when it prompts you to install the latest version...
I think the DivX Web Player is great and I want to use it in the htaccess protected galleries of my website, but having to tell users to uninstall the latest player and install an older version is a real pain!!!! And it makes DivX look slightly bad IMO :(
Pleeease DivX, fix this problem in the next update !!!!!!!
Following my post yesterday (above) I have read some very worrying things on this guy's blog http://soogal.wordpress.com
If he's correct, DivX has deliberately disabled some HTTP functions to prevent p2p video streaming which have probably also caused the htaccess problems.
Just as bad, if they have also removed support for Xvid decoding that would mean that even if the htaccess problem is fixed I'd have to start re-encoding my videos to DivX rather than Xvid (admittedly there isn't much difference in final quality but I did spend a whole day tweaking Xvid codec settings which now looks to have been a waste of time).
Otherwise, I can just tell my web visitors to downgrade to 1.3.1 and enjoy the benefits of htaccess and Xvid compatibility. I can see a healthy 'black market' for the 1.3.1 player springing up if DivX continues with this very disappointing course of action...
I tried playing an Xvid encoded avi with the latest (1.4.0.233) DivX Web Player release and it worked fine so I'm not sure what soogal was talking about there. It would be nice to get an assurance from DivX that they will continue to support Xvid decoding in the DivX Web Player though. After further tests I'm getting better results from DivX than Xvid in certain situations, especially flowing water which looks blocky in an Xvid encode but is smooth in my DivX video (3 passes at insane quality at 1800kbps). The results with DivX under these conditions are much better than a WMV 9 encode of double the size and 3600kbps!!!
I'm still waiting for news from DivX technical department about the support for htaccess though. Videos are large files so many people are going to need to protect them somehow to avoid excessive bandwidth charges...
We have not deliberately disabled any HTTP functions to prevent P2P video streaming. We did, however, change the file transfer library and some functions may not be fully implemented in 1.4 (for example HTTPS). If you are using .htaccess for user authentication this is not something we explicitly support, so you might have problems there. If that is the case please let me know, it's hard to track down where your problem might be because you don't provide a link that demonstrates the error.
We did not remove support for XVID. It's a bit of a shame that such accusations are flying around. Try it for yourself in any version of DivX Web Player, it ought to work just fine.
We also have a new version of Web Player that also addresses some playback problems on Vista, e.g. for users running IE7 in low integrity mode, which can trigger some misleading error messages in older versions of Web Player. If in doubt, try viewing your site in Firefox and see if that works where IE7 on Vista doesn't.
Hope this helps, feel free to write me through Labs any time :)
Sorry for the misleading suggestion that Xvid support had gone, you can see above that I have tested it myself and it works fine (I have upgraded to DivX Web Player 1.4 and downgraded back to 1.3.1 several times testing the htaccess problem so it took me a while to get round to testing Xvid avis LOL). I would have edited my previous post but I couldn't see a way to do it.
I will email you with a link to a demonstration of the htaccess problem tomorrow if I can set up a test area on one of my websites...
My error codes and messages look exactly the same as Madd's below BTW
Cheers!
.htaccess is a webserver function, so does not really have anything to do with the webplayer, can you describe your setup a little ?
I am using htaccess on my own webserver with webplayer without any problems.
Hi TommyB,
thanks for your reply. My Webserver is a normal Apache installation. I use a Directory Listing Script in combination with the Webplayer. The .htaccess files are in the main directory. I can travel through the folders and if a divx movie is found the webplayer is automatically integrated into the site. I can see the Interface of the Webplayer but when i want to start watching the video i get an error. I do not remember what errorcode it was, but it has definitly something todo with htaccess. I tried on the same configuration the VLC Plugin and it worked. When i wanted to start a video there, i had to enter the htaccess account. I would prefer to use the Divx Webplayer. Any Ideas?
Greets
/edit
I looked the error Code up.
"DivX Web Player: Download Error"
"The video cannot be reached (401 error) it appears the server is denying access to the file"
Error 401 Authorization Required. I am able to login into the main direktory with htaccess but not to play the movies.
I had the same problem and solved it like this (is not the best solution but it works!):
I created a new htaccess user for the divx player
Then I added it to the url of the divx-file in the code snippet
embed type="video/divx" src="http://user:pwd@www.domain.com/file.divx" custommode="Stage6" width="480" height="380" autoPlay="false" pluginspage="http://go.divx.com/plugin/download/"Now it works fine...
Cheers!
The new divx web player is not working with this username and password in the source code. My videos are in .htaccess and requires that members login to watch, but now the new player does not allow videos to play. any suggestions???
...but not very secure if someone looks at the page source!
Works better if page itself is in the password protected area as someone would need their own password to get there in the first place. My password management system prevents users from logging in more than a certain number of times per hour to combat password sharing and I'm not sure how it would react to the DivX Web Player having a password LOL
Good thinking though...
i dunno how you think about doin this but all i did to keep people out of the directory was to put a index page in it. As webplayer can still access the videos directly but wont allow access to the whole folder.
www.just-different.info/sample/
www.just-different.info/sample/sample.html