Hello, friends. In this short post, you will learn how to install OpenH264 on Fedora 33. You will find this post especially useful if you use your web browser a lot to play video files from the Internet.
What is OpenH264 and why is it necessary?
The technical advantages of the H.264 codec were a strong advantage over Open Source alternatives such as VP8, used in the WebM container. The main problem was licensing and cost because you had to pay to use MPEG LA. So, In order to play many streaming videos, you need the H.264 codec. However, due to licensing restrictions, H.264 is not open source like Firefox.
On the other hand, Cisco has taken their H.264 implementation and open-sourced it under BSD license terms. Development and maintenance will be overseen by a board from the industry and the open-source community.
OpenH264 has been launched in collaboration with Cisco and Mozilla. This plugin comes with Firefox but not always in its latest version.
In addition to this, it is possible to install other plugins to be used with Gstreamer in desktop projects.
So, let’s go.
Install OpenH264 on Fedora from the Cisco repository
The first thing to know is that Fedora through the fedora-repos package includes an OpenH264 binary that is licensed by Cisco. However, it is possible to add the repository of it, to obtain a better integration with the system and to obtain other necessary packages.
So, add the repository in question:
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled fedora-cisco-openh264
The command will not generate any output on the screen. After that, install the necessary plugins.
sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugin-openh264 mozilla-openh264
This command installs not only the Firefox plugin but also the Gstreamer plugin needed for various projects.
Afterward, you need to open Firefox, go to menu → Add-ons → Plugins, and enable the OpenH264 plugin.
Now it is necessary to make some changes in Firefox.
To do this, open it, and in the address bar type about:config
From the Search field type in 264 and a handful of options will appear. Give the following Preference Names a value of true by double-clicking on false:
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdate media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled media.gmp-gmpopenh264.provider.enabled media.peerconnection.video.h264_enabled
Finally, restart Firefox.
Conclusion
Having our Firefox and Fedora ready to play content over the Internet is never too much to get the most out of both. With this small and simple tutorial, it is possible to do it quickly.
