viewing a video on blogsite

[#1]

An internet acuaintance, is having problems viewing ( actually.... not viewing) a video I put on my blogsite.   the video is in MP4 format, and I have had no reports of anyone else having problems viewing it, or previous videos I have put on there..

He tells me the gets the message   " You need to install and add-on to view the content"...  he is using Firefox, and he says he can view "most" videos on You Tube... ( not that he goes there often )... he is not computer savvy, and it is difficult to get him to understand simple instructions..  ( like where to put the mouse cursor and right click type )..

despite this, he does try !.. ( yeah I know .... he is very trying ! ! )..

 So,.... my question is... what "add-on" would he need to download/install to make sure he can view the video ?

[#2]

@shutter - He needs to install a third party decoder to do this which will either be the H.264 video codec and or the AAC or MP3 audio codec. Also note that depending on how you encoded the MP4 it may not run on low end hardware.

[#3]

ok... thanks for that info... will see if I can source something for him and send him linky and instructions via email..

cheers

[#4]

@shutter - Before you ask him to install stuff it would make sense to determine what he needs to install, if his FF (and his PC) is up to date I see no reason as to why it shouldn't play the video. If you can (be bothered) create an MP3 and an AAC file and a low profile MP4 file and ask him to check each one to see where the issue is.

As an aside if you're using the HTML5 <video> element you can include a WebM <source> as well a MP4 <source>