Playing WebM Video
WebM video files play directly in your web browser using a new technology called HTML5. No plug-ins are required, but you must install a web browser that supports WebM files. See the instructions below in “How to Play WebM Videos.”
What’s Great About WebM
- Very high quality video
- Great video playback performance, even on older computers
- 100% free and open to everyone
- Supported on popular video sites like YouTube
How to Play WebM Video
Playing on YouTube
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Go to www.youtube.com/html5 and enroll in the YouTube HTML5 experiment. Note that this sets a cookie with a relatively short expiration, so you may need to re-enroll in the future.
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Download and install a supported browser (listed below). For the most popular videos on YouTube, Google Chrome users will be served the WebM format by default.
To explicitly request WebM-format videos, perform the following additional steps:
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Search for a video by keyword. For example, trailers.
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When your search results are returned, add &webm=1 to the end of the URL and hit Enter to resubmit. The results returned by this modified search will favor WebM results even if you’re not using Chrome.
Playing in Windows Media Player
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For Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7, install the WebM Media Foundation Components. Though the components refer to Internet Explorer 9, installing them will add system-wide WebM support in applications that use Media Foundation.
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For earlier versions of Windows Media Player, follow the instructions for installing the WebM DirectShow filters. As indicated, be sure to also install the Vorbis audio filters.
Supported Web Browsers
- Mozilla Firefox 4 and later
- Opera 10.60 and later
- Google Chrome 6 and later
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and later (requires WebM MF components)
Other Media Players and Components
Getting Help
Ask and answer questions on the webm-discuss list.