an open web media project
WebM Components for IE9 (Preview)

WebM Media Foundation Components for Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (Preview release)

Adding WebM support to Internet Explorer 9 just got a lot easier.

This preview release of our WebM Microsoft Media Foundation components enables WebM support in Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Contents

Requirements

  • Windows 7 or Vista

  • Internet Explorer 9

  • Depending on your security settings, you may need administrator privileges to install software on your system.

Installation

  • Visit the WebM for IE9 download page.

  • Click the blue Download button and follow the prompts.

  • Once installed, the WebM components will automatically check for updates and install them.

Known Issues

  • Note that this is pre-release software and may exhibit some instability.

  • On machines with certain video card drivers, hardware video rendering causes the CPU to spike to 100% and video playback to freeze. This issue affects H.264 video playback as well as WebM. On these machines, IE9 will fall back to software rendering mode, resulting in slower video performance. Microsoft is investigating this issue.

  • On some machines running Sophos Antivirus the video stops downloading data about 20 seconds into the video and playback stops. Microsoft is investigating this issue with Sophos.

Additional Benefits

  • The components also enable WebM playback on Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7, since it also uses Media Foundation technology.

Uninstallation

  • Control Panel > Uninstall a Program > WebM Media Foundation Components

Frequent Questions

Why do I need these components to play WebM in IE9?

Microsoft does not ship IE9 with WebM codecs built in, so the codecs must be installed in Windows separately. We worked closely with Microsoft to seamlessly integrate WebM with IE9, providing a great HTML5 user experience. seamless integration of our components with IE9. For more background, see Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch's blog post on the subject.

What is the benefit of playing videos in WebM?

WebM was built for the web. By testing hundreds of thousands of videos with widely varying characteristics, we found that the VP8 video codec delivers high-quality video while efficiently adapting to varying processing and bandwidth conditions across a broad range of devices. Also, the relative simplicity of VP8 (the video codec in WebM) makes it easy to integrate into existing environments and requires comparatively little manual tuning in the encoder to produce high-quality results.

Where can I watch WebM videos?

YouTube is supporting WebM in addition to its existing formats as part of its HTML5 experiment. For instructions, see our Users page.

When will the components be available in more languages?

The components have no user interfaces. However, we are working to translate the installer and web pages into more languages.

Will you have components or plug-ins for older versions of IE?

No. Older versions of IE do not support HTML5 video functionality.

My videos are locking up during playback. Is it because of the WebM components?

There are known graphics driver issues in IE9. For more information, see the Known Issues section above. These issues are not isolated to WebM but affect all supported video formats in the browser. Microsoft has told us they are working to fix these issues and push updates to affected users via Windows Update.

Where can I get more help on the components?

Please report any problems or questions on the webm-discuss mailing list / Google Group.

What are these components? Are they browser plug-ins?

The components are installed directly in Windows, not IE9. They are system-level software libraries built using Microsoft Media Foundation (MF), a digital media platform in Windows 7 and Vista. Because the components are installed in Windows, the components can render WebM in other applications that support MF, such as Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7.