The shared libraries required are not included by default.  You need to build ffmpeg.
 Here are instructions for building for windows that can be used as a reference to
get the shared libraries from linux:

http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/deps/third_party/ffmpeg/README.chromium?revision=16648&view=markup&pathrev=16648

After that, put the resulting libavcodec-52.so libavformat-52.so and libavutil-50.so
into the same directory as your chrome executable.

I'm running the chromium-daily on amd64

In /usr/lib/chromium-browser, it looks like the libav*.so files are there.

It plays Ogg great!

But mp4 is suck balls.  For example www.youtube.com/html5 just stares at you.

(http://www.youtube.com/html5 doesn't play for me either in firefox 3.5 fwiw.)

Hi all!

FYI I have Chromium on Linux (daily Ubuntu PPA) working with following codecs:

Theora
Vorbis
FLAC
MPEG-4 AAC
MPEG-4 AVC (h.264)

http://www.youtube.com/html5 works.

You would need to compile/install ffmpeg as instructed below but with this configure 
flags:

./configure     --disable-ffmpeg --disable-ffplay --disable-ffserver            \
                --enable-shared --disable-static --disable-debug                \
                --enable-pthreads --disable-network --disable-encoders          \
                --disable-decoders --disable-hwaccels --disable-muxers          \
                --disable-demuxers --disable-parsers --disable-bsfs             \
                --disable-protocols --disable-devices --disable-filters         \
                --enable-decoder=theora --enable-decoder=vorbis                 \
                --enable-demuxer=ogg                                            \
                --enable-decoder=flac --enable-demuxer=flac                     \
                --enable-decoder=h264 --enable-decoder=aac                      \
                --enable-demuxer=h264 --enable-demuxer=aac                      \
                --enable-demuxer=m4v --enable-demuxer=mov                       \
                --enable-parser=h264 --enable-parser=aac                        \
                --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree                                   \
                --enable-runtime-cpudetect                                      \
                --prefix=./chromium-ffmpeg

Enjoy the new web!

ps: If you need help drop me a line.
2d_ps: Google please include FLAC as default in both Chromium and Chrome in all 
platforms!

Running on an x86_64 platform, I added this to the configure parameters:
  --enable-cross-compile --arch=i386 --extra-cflags=-m32 --extra-ldflags=-m32

Then:
make
make install
cd chromium-ffmpeg
sudo rm /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libsws*
sudo rm /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libav*
sudo cp libav* libsws* /usr/lib/chromium-browser/

Opened up http://www.youtube.com/html5 and it played!

Except no sound.  I got this mysterious error on my console:

ALSA lib ../../../src/pcm/pcm.c:7228:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured

Darn.  64-bit alsa doesn't like 32-bit ffmpeg?  But 32-bit flash on firefox sings 
perfectly ...

Or maybe there's some ffmpeg options to make play nicely with ALSA or Pulse Audio or 
Intel HDA ...

Just curious though, have you folks considered using gstreamer for this task?

@415fox:

I have the same ALSA sound problems on x86 EeePC so it's not an x86-64 only problem. 
It seems the problem is related to misuse of ALSA pcm_*_delay funcions with 
Pulseaudio, could you try bypass Pulseaudio with this in your /etc/asound.conf:

pcm.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm {
                type hw
                card 0
        }
}

ctl.!default {
        type plug
        slave.pcm {
                type hw
                card 0
        }
}

Seems like the original report is a user configuration issue.  Closing.

@nekohayo: gstreamer is viable in Win and Mac environments too?

IMO ffmpeg was the correct choice, some people often criticize Google for not using 
liboggplay or libtheora for decoding Theora streams but IMHO Google do the right 
thing allowing us to have more codec support via ffmpeg. One very nice thing about 
ffmpeg is that it supports VDPAU/VA-API video acceleration and decoding APIs although 
I have not tested yet but it could (in theory) accelerate h.264 decoding in supported 
Nvidia/ATI/Intel cards.

If I find some time will check and report back if Chromium accelerates h.264 video 
decoding via VA-API/VDPAU in my Nvidia desktop. Sadly Theora is not supported neither 
in VA-API nor VDPAU ... yet.

From my limited knowledge, yes, gstreamer runs on both win and mac too. I've seen
gstreamer apps like rhythmbox, banshee, pitivi, work there, IIRC.

I heard that the VDPAUsomething was coming to gstreamer (if not already implemented
as we speak), but take this with a grain of salt, I don't know much of gstreamer
(just a user). Afaik it can even plug into ffmpeg and whatnot. 

If interested, it could be worth asking on #gstreamer on irc.freenode.net. 

But then again I was just wondering if the chromium devs chose ffmpeg over gstreamer
for a particular reason.

The reason was largely simplicity.  Gstreamer is a pretty large framework, and like
you were indicating, we might end up dispatching back into ffmpeg anyways.

Wait!  Nothing's actually been resolved here.

I'll send an e-mail to Fabien Tassin, the owner of the chromium-daily PPA on 
launchpad.

415fox, maybe I misunderstood...it sounds like when people build the ffmpeg binaries,
the video tag appears and plays video.  Am I wrong?

In your particular case, alsa likes to spit error messages when the audio buffer
underuns.  The good news is that it means the audio device got opened up.  The bad
news is that the buffer is underrunning. :)  Maybe try it again with a local video
source?

As for the PPA archives, those are not officially supported by us so talking to
Fabien is probably best.

yes, you misunderstood. The problem is that official build of Google Chrome on 64-bit 
hardy doesn't play video. The other comments were trying to help makers of official 
distribution :)

My Ubuntu builds are following the flags found here:
http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/deps/third_party/ffmpeg/README.chromium

I'm all for including more codecs, but I also don't want to diverge too much from the
official builds.

I remember a discussion with Mozilla regarding the codecs they ship in Firefox, they
wanted a list of *open* codecs common to all 3 major platforms. So a page created by
someone on Mac, also works on Linux and Windows, and vice versa. That's why they
chose Theora and Vorbis and not quicktime or wmv. The idea is to prevent the web from
splitting once again.

What is the position of Chrome on this?

mahaniok, oops...my bad.

The good news is that the official build should be getting binaries soon.  I
submitted the fixes that are supposed to get everything built for the release binary.
 Hopefully it'll be included in the next release.

I'll leave this set as fixed since there shouldn't be any more dev work to do.

So will the continuous dev builds be getting video support soon? :)

There are four different bugs here crossing streams: one related to 64-bit, one 
related to the ubuntu ppa, one related to buffer underruns, ???

Rather than clarifying it here, if there is still a specific bug that is affecting 
you, could you file another one with all the relevant details?  I've read this bug's 
comments three times now and still can't figure out what's going on.  :)

I have checked on 3.0.194.3 (Official Build 20926), and this bug is still there - 
video doesn't play. definitely not fixed, should be reopened.

Works with Google Chrome 3.0.195.1 here. (It should go out in a bit) Both videos you
pointed to work, except when you close the page, it crashes. Time to file another bug. :)

I filed  issue 17486  for the problem mentioned in comment 22.

Now, on 4.0.220.1 (Official Build 27713), www.youtube.com/html5 says "You must have an 
HTML5 capable browser."

works for me

I concur with mahaniok.

The video controls show up (play, volume, HD button, etc.), but the video does not 
display, and it says "You must have an HTML5 capable browser."

I am using Chrome 4.0.220.1 (Official Build 27713) on Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.3 (Lenny).

I tried it in Firefox 3.5, and it didn't work (no video). I know it has worked in 
past versions of Chrome, so this appears to be a regression. Could this be a problem 
with the website?

P.S. I am aware that the video controls are not part of the actual video element, but 
I mentioned it for thoroughness.

thanks for the report!

mahaniok, pcxunlimited, juhpetersen:are you running 32-bit or 64-bit?

64 bit

I am also running 64-bit.

I see a trend!!!

We have a similar bug filed and in progress #23152

I'll copy over some information -- feel free to star the issue if you're interested in 
updates

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=23152 for easy click though :)

for xxample on this page 
http://open.bbc.co.uk/rad/demos/html5/rdtv/episode2/index.html
video always restart on 00:50 seconds and I can't see normal video ((
Ubuntu 9.10 amd64

thanks for the report leolikua, sounds like you're experiencing  bug 30709 

let's move the discussion over there as that's the active bug tracking this issue

Here I am on ubuntu 9.10 32-bits live-cd, with chromium 
4.0.303.0~svn20100121r36724-0ubuntu1~ucd1~karmic from chromium-daily ppa

It does play youtube with flash, but with html5 it says "Your browser does not 
currently recognize any of the video formats available."

I think chromium-daily maintainers should build another version of ffmpeg, with the 
right flags, and make chromium depends on it.

I think so because this ppa seems to be a great beta-testing playground for 
chromium. It's hard having many non-technical testers of this html5 feature if they 
need to recompile ffmpeg.. ^^

I am the "chromium-daily maintainer". It's not about rebuilding ffmpeg, it's about mime-type advertisement 
hardcoded at build-time based on the branding. See  bug 21318  &
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~chromium-team/chromium-browser/chromium-browser.head/revision/435
Next build will carry this patch, until 21318 is fixed properly.

Oh, I see. Thank you very much!

sounds great to me too! thanks!

 Issue 37002  has been merged into this issue.

This issue has been closed for some time. No one will pay attention to new comments.
If you are seeing this bug or have new data, please click New Issue to start a new bug.