> Honestly, I can't believe it that here it is 2023(!!), and there still exist sites that can't figure out reliable cross-browser video playback.
Ah! I was telling myself the same thing last month (how is it possible in 2023 that things which seemed solved _years_ ago, actually still do not work?), when I was trying to watch some recording of a sport event. The site proposed several players (generally 3).
3 different computers (Linux_A, Windows_A, Windows_B).
Linux_A with browser_A: only player_A worked OK.
Windows_A with browser_B: player_A some days worked, some days didn't; player_B and player_C worked OK.
Windows_B with browser_B: player_A gave audio but no video; player_B stuttered; player_C didn't work ==> no success with this OS+browser combination
Windows_B with browser_C: only player_C worked OK;
We can note that among those combinations, we had two systems with the same OS and the same browser, and yet the behaviour was completely different.
> These sites should just give up, provide the URL to the raw video file, and let users play them back in whatever way works for them.
In general, I agree I'd also rather _not_ have web players.
However, in the specific case I am talking about, the videos were more or less 6 hours long, so I'd rather not download the whole high resolution stuff (and likely see the process fail), but be able to skip parts and/or watch/download a few parts in lower resolution and other ones in high resolution.
These sites should just give up, provide the URL to the raw video file, and let users play them back in whatever way works for them.