Firefox Picture-in-Picture(blog.mozilla.org)
blog.mozilla.org
Firefox Picture-in-Picture
https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/firefox-picture-in-picture-mode/
159 comments
If you're interested in seeing it getting implemented, you can check out Mike Conley's YouTube channel. He regularly streams Firefox development and he's the main force behind PiP in Firefox. I believe the first episode where it's mentioned is #165 [0] but it spans over many of them.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_5zwg9Ucoc
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_5zwg9Ucoc
Here’s a Mozilla blog post from Mike Conley and Emanuela Damiani about implementing PiP in Firefox:
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/01/how-we-built-picture-in-pi...
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/01/how-we-built-picture-in-pi...
It is a little clunky and could use a good deal of polish. For example, you can only PiP one video, and controls remain in the tab with the video frame. PiP only gives you play/pause, no scrubbing or anything from the embedded player. The always on top is a feature for some, but can be a hindrance, too. That behavior should be a toggle for the user so they can use their tools how they like.
These are a few of the reasons I've continued to use the "Open With" extension with mpv. ([right-click]->Open With->mpv) This provides full playback control, lets me toggle stay-on-top, etc. Firefox's PiP is a nice thought but just isn't right for me as currently implemented.
Sorry, which extension is this? The only one I was able to find named "Open With" is pretty clearly not what you were referring to.
I prefer this one as it is potentially more secure than some of the other ones
https://github.com/grmat/play-with
https://github.com/grmat/play-with
This is the one I currently use: https://github.com/darktrojan/openwith Perhaps play-with is a better choice.
MPV is a player. https://mpv.io/
Oh, I know all about MPV. Invoking it cleanly from within Firefox is the part I was asking about (and which has been answered :)
That's what I do as well, and it's fantastic. Bonus functionality: Get MPV to always open on the second screen fullscreen (if you have one) and have it be always-on-top, small and on the bottom right corner when non-fullscreen, so you can just press Esc on the full-screen mpv window and get a PiP-like window.
samesame
also;
* rank up the cache settings in mpv to prebuffer the whole vid
* see the ytdl-format setting in mpv.conf to select a codec that your machine can decode in hardware for enhanced power efficiancy (lower fanspeed)
also;
* rank up the cache settings in mpv to prebuffer the whole vid
* see the ytdl-format setting in mpv.conf to select a codec that your machine can decode in hardware for enhanced power efficiancy (lower fanspeed)
if you like vim like keybindings courtesy of tridactyl
bind V hint -W ! mpv to show a letter or letters adjacent to all links and open the one chosen in mpv. Normally most pages have few enough links visible that hints are either 1 or 2 characters. This means instead of picking up the mouse you can hit 3 keys.
bind V hint -W ! mpv to show a letter or letters adjacent to all links and open the one chosen in mpv. Normally most pages have few enough links visible that hints are either 1 or 2 characters. This means instead of picking up the mouse you can hit 3 keys.
You can get most pages down to 1 character if you craft your own custom selector, e.g. https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/dc8919e7e65d5dfa...
For the record we don't recommend piping straight to `!` as a malicious (and fairly Tridactyl specific) site could use it to execute whatever it wanted. We have a default bind for open in mpv that sanitises things - https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/dc8919e7e65d5dfa... using https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/dc8919e7e65d5dfa...
For the record we don't recommend piping straight to `!` as a malicious (and fairly Tridactyl specific) site could use it to execute whatever it wanted. We have a default bind for open in mpv that sanitises things - https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/dc8919e7e65d5dfa... using https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/dc8919e7e65d5dfa...
Thanks. A question occurs to me shouldn't such sanitation be its own step in order to be generalized to anything that the user wants to run?
if it's not always on top, why break it out of the browser window at all? maybe i just haven't used it enough for your request to become apparent to me, but it seems counter intuitive on first thought.
I really like Firefox PIP, but it's not perfect yet. I have missed the "timeline" so it would be easy to jump back if I wanted to re-watch the last bit. But I have noticed now that if the PIP window is active the arrow keys works for that which is great and it's also possible change volume with up/down arrow. So what a most miss now is that the PIP window remember its size and position from last time. Right now (on youtube) different resolutions gives different window sizes.
I wish I could get subtitle support on Netflix. Their app doesn't allow you to resize when its as always on top. PiP allows me to position it where and how I want, but lacks subtitles :(
IIRC there was a firefox extention that popped out anything into a browser window with a simple header. You'd have a quarter inch of header, but it would be like a poor mans PiP and you'd end up with more controls at your disposal than the native firefox solution.
It works better than the native support on OSX. A lot of videos I watch on Safari don't show the PIP button but work fine on Firefox.
In Safari, you can right-click the speaker icon in the tab or address bar, and there's a PIP option in the menu.
Not as accessible as Firefox for sure.
Not as accessible as Firefox for sure.
The actual pip window in firefox is not native and as such 1) doesn't support spaces that well 2) does not support minimizing 3) looks worse
A long time ago, I wrote the PIP feature for browsers on the very first version of Android based Smart TVs (Phillips TVs). It used Mozilla's Gecko NPAPI plugin ( their version of WebKit) and built on top of Opera, the only one at the time that would support funnelling broadcast TV data at the time.
It was pretty challenging, but still way more easier than trying to build with Safari, chrome. I always wondered why this feature never really became mainstream until now.
Same. It's great.
Is anyone else annoyed that Mozilla chose to spam them with an ad for this new feature via the email address they received when creating the Firefox sync account? Is this really such an important thing that warrants sending an unsolicited message to every Firefox user's inbox?
Yes, the footer says "You're receiving this email because .. is subscribed to Firefox Account Tips." and indeed I can now see that setting in my Firefox account. I'm sure that checkbox popped up sometime after I created the account and was conveniently set to "true" by default.
Yes, the footer says "You're receiving this email because .. is subscribed to Firefox Account Tips." and indeed I can now see that setting in my Firefox account. I'm sure that checkbox popped up sometime after I created the account and was conveniently set to "true" by default.
Things like this make it hard to take Firefox’ stand on privacy seriously. They keep making “mistakes” like this all the time unapologetically.
I marked the email as spam because that’s what it is.
I marked the email as spam because that’s what it is.
> I'm sure that checkbox popped up sometime after I created the account and was conveniently set to "true" by default.
Someone got paid to sell you out and cashed their check on your privacy. I wonder if they have a gdpr contact and what it would look like if you forwarded this and told them you did not consent to it.
Someone got paid to sell you out and cashed their check on your privacy. I wonder if they have a gdpr contact and what it would look like if you forwarded this and told them you did not consent to it.
GDPR doesn't handle sending marketing mails and even in the EU it is entirely fine to send those by default as long as they directly related to your product ("assumed consent of consumer" is the key word here). Firefox does offer a complete opt-out last I checked that works entirely fine (never received a mail after unsubscribing to marketing mails)
The horror
Email is a dumpster fire. I run my own mail server and I don’t have any spam filtering. My inbox is full of spam and “helpful tips” and other garbage. Because of this I rarely read my email.
I would set up spam filtering but I don’t trust SpamAssasin to actually be useful rather than just another headache, because last time I was on a system where it was in use it routinely marked non-spam things as spam while simultaneously letting through a whole lot of spam. Admittedly this was years ago.
I did find Paul Graham’s essay on spam filtering inspiring and thought about doing something like that for myself. But although I have a huge corpus of spam, I don’t have a whole lot of non-spam because I don’t receive a lot of non-spam.
Spam is also annoying and uninspiring to do anything about because it is just yet another of the billions of problems that we have that were caused by other people being inconsiderate dicks :(
It currently feels like almost all problems that I could work on should not have existed in the first place and are only there because of us all being the way that we are.
I would set up spam filtering but I don’t trust SpamAssasin to actually be useful rather than just another headache, because last time I was on a system where it was in use it routinely marked non-spam things as spam while simultaneously letting through a whole lot of spam. Admittedly this was years ago.
I did find Paul Graham’s essay on spam filtering inspiring and thought about doing something like that for myself. But although I have a huge corpus of spam, I don’t have a whole lot of non-spam because I don’t receive a lot of non-spam.
Spam is also annoying and uninspiring to do anything about because it is just yet another of the billions of problems that we have that were caused by other people being inconsiderate dicks :(
It currently feels like almost all problems that I could work on should not have existed in the first place and are only there because of us all being the way that we are.
There's also conveniently a new category whenever they want to make sure everyone has to be bothered by the newest junk. Or a very slight rename of an existing one, but hey, that means they get to ignore the previous setting.
To me, such sleazy tactics are simply a deep admission of failure.
To me, such sleazy tactics are simply a deep admission of failure.
I love PiP and it's def great in WFH situation where I can just have YouTube videos playing on the side.
If anyone from Mozilla is reading this, one thing I wish Firefox did was to allow us to make it sticky to the corner like Safari does on MacOS.
I think just throwing the PiP window to a corner and expecting it to be there is subtle difference but makes the overall experience much simpler. I don't having to decide where exactly to position the video and keep moving it little by little. Also, if I push the Safari PiP video against the edge of the screen, it simply collapses. That's helpful when the video is blocking something I care about and I need to quickly hide it. Again, simpler experience than allowing free form movement for my workflow.
If anyone from Mozilla is reading this, one thing I wish Firefox did was to allow us to make it sticky to the corner like Safari does on MacOS.
I think just throwing the PiP window to a corner and expecting it to be there is subtle difference but makes the overall experience much simpler. I don't having to decide where exactly to position the video and keep moving it little by little. Also, if I push the Safari PiP video against the edge of the screen, it simply collapses. That's helpful when the video is blocking something I care about and I need to quickly hide it. Again, simpler experience than allowing free form movement for my workflow.
Yeah, sadly Firefox doesn't use the native PiP implementation :(
I'm really surprised to see how many people appreciate this feature. I've tried to use it many times but I've found that when I'm watching a video I either want to give it my full(screen) attention (movie, entertainment) or have it in the background entirely (music, news, podcast.)
I've personally not found a use for it and end up closing it after about 5-10 minutes.
Obviously there's a wide spectrum of possible uses and different people have different "focus" tastes. I've found Firefox's PIP particularly useful in watching videos while grinding in certain types of MMOs. So long as the MMOs support "Borderless Window Fullscreen" rather than "pure" fullscreen, Firefox's PIP shows up right on top. I just recently upgraded to an ultra-widescreen so I've got plenty of horizontal space to play with. In a previous dual monitor setup I might have just had the game on one screen and the show on the other. This PIP gives me a bit more flexibility than that, especially I discover which games sing in the "2k" fullscreen. Some of these MMOs I didn't realize quite how cramped they felt in 1080p until I got to extend them to ultra-wide.
I like more than thought I would. I can keep going through tabs without losing the video.
The problem for me is it doesn’t have controls past pause and play. If I want to back the video up or skip it forward I need to go figure out which tab it’s coming from, and I can’t remember if I have to unpop to get controls. Windows 10, ymmv.
The problem for me is it doesn’t have controls past pause and play. If I want to back the video up or skip it forward I need to go figure out which tab it’s coming from, and I can’t remember if I have to unpop to get controls. Windows 10, ymmv.
This also annoys me. Even just allowing arrow keys to seek back and forth would be enough for now.
That can be enabled with media.videocontrols.picture-in-picture.keyboard-controls.enabled toggle in about:config.
Woah that's perfect, thank you!
Also, the controls have changed: a single click doesn't pause the window as it normally does. Why change?? :/
i use it when i'm watching a youtube or other video that has interesting parts, but also lots of fluff. PiP lets me do other things and mostly ignore the fluff
Mozilla Tech Blog from January on implementing it: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2020/01/how-we-built-picture-in-pi... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22283386)
Wait this is not new is it ? Ive beenm using it for the past 6 months at least...
The linked article was posted on January 6th, 2020. For some reason many people received an email about it today. Must have just been a soft rollout and now they are starting to actually publicize the feature?
Yeah, I've been able to use it for months (FF on Mac)... Was it rolled out to certain computers for testing before?
Same here. FF on Mac. I’ve been using it since lockdown began in the UK in March. It’s been really handy to keep BBC News in the corner of the screen when the Government was doing daily briefings.
Firefox on Ubuntu here, also for months at least - don't remember when exactly though.
PiP is a cool feature but I've recently found another way to "stream" video from the web which is now pretty much my default: For a lot of sites you can either curl or youtube-dl the video to a file and thanks to the way encodings and container formats work you can just play the file back using your favorite media player while the download is still in progress. You can't seek past the download head unfortunately but the playback you get is much more pleasant (and for some reason also faster?) than say, on YouTube.
I use it directly from VLC when I need to boost up the sound a few db beyond the original threshold
Wait, VLC has a youtube-dl integration?
No.. VLC can play most streaming formats & protocols from network sources. Open VLC, press Ctrl+N and paste the URL.
mpv does, if that's what you're looking for.
Oh that's nice! I was actually already using mpv for playback but I never noticed this feature. The only disadvantage this has over my stitched together setup is that I don't get to keep the video afterwards but it fixes a lot of pain points.
I mean, if you want to keep the video afterwards, you can just download it and then play it.
Which also has the advantage that playback will always be smooth. That's almost always true of playing directly from a youtube URL, but I have had occasional issues. Most notably that leaving a straight-from-youtube video paused long enough will get it into a state you can't resume from.
Which also has the advantage that playback will always be smooth. That's almost always true of playing directly from a youtube URL, but I have had occasional issues. Most notably that leaving a straight-from-youtube video paused long enough will get it into a state you can't resume from.
Yeah, that's one of my biggest peeves with the YT player as well.
I often watch talks or similar kinds of (long) videos in the bg some of which I might wish to keep that's why I like being able to download and view at the same time. But downloading a second time during quite hours is probably also fine.
I often watch talks or similar kinds of (long) videos in the bg some of which I might wish to keep that's why I like being able to download and view at the same time. But downloading a second time during quite hours is probably also fine.
There are a couple of sites that auto-started video and when you scrolled down, automatically did picture-in-picture. In fact I think Facebook even experimented with it for a while. The problem with those implementations was that the user had no control over which videos, nor the ability to prevent them from displaying. It took a heavy amount of NoScript isolation to prevent it from happening. I always thought it would be useful if someone would write something that put the user back in control.
I wish it worked by using the regular web fullscreen API to pop out. Instead of going fullscreen it would just spawn a chromeless window that I can position anywhere I want and control using my regular window manager controls. As an advantage this would give sites full control over the content including having the full video (or other content) controls instead of just play which is what Firefox PiP gives you.
I completely agree - I use i3 and was interested to see that this just pops up a floating window over all of my others.
When reading the feature my thought was that it would be a floating window _within_ the browser window - which I think I would have preferred.
When reading the feature my thought was that it would be a floating window _within_ the browser window - which I think I would have preferred.
I disagree with that. The browser already does too much "window management" already. I like that it pops out a separate window that I can do with what I please rather than being limited to whatever window management functionality they decide to add to their internal "window".
Possibly - but in my case the windows was just floating on top of all of my other windows, and whilst I could move and resize it, I could not move it like other windows.
So popping out a new firefox window that operates like a normal window would be great, but the current solution seems like the worst of both worlds.
Also on an unrelated note, seeing your username we used to work together - hope all is going well :)
So popping out a new firefox window that operates like a normal window would be great, but the current solution seems like the worst of both worlds.
Also on an unrelated note, seeing your username we used to work together - hope all is going well :)
Ah, that is weird. The window behaved fairly normally for me. (I'm on Linux Wayland)
Do you happen to use sway? (Or maybe just Wayland in general does it..)
I'm using a tiled window manager on X and was rather confused by other comments here, before realizing my window manager must be giving me unintended control over the video popup. I just get a floating window that's fully draggable and resizable identically to other windows.
I'm using a tiled window manager on X and was rather confused by other comments here, before realizing my window manager must be giving me unintended control over the video popup. I just get a floating window that's fully draggable and resizable identically to other windows.
I'm using Gnome actually. I have found that Wayland tends to keep some apps in check so maybe the less options that Wayland provides to clients is helping me here.
I've been using this a lot lately for YouTube videos so I can watch a video and keep web surfing. Works great, though the PiP doesn't have all the controls (e.g. volume and seek).
The amount of video/audio player clients in general that don't have a seek function is, quite frankly, astonishing to me.
Even the youtube shortcuts don't work (J/L for long seek and left/right for short seek)
This seems like a massive feature that I can't believe hasn't been baked into Chrome yet. I know Safari has an implementation but it always feels limited and of course cannot be used on Windows or Linux.
I need to put this through its paces, but it may vault Firefox back into the role of my default browser.
I need to put this through its paces, but it may vault Firefox back into the role of my default browser.
While it is truly a nice feature, it is hardly the main reason why should anyone concerned with the future of the web use Firefox as default browser.
Actually, this is the main reason why I had Opera installed on three computers for three years. All uninstalled now.
Chrome has this as well. However it's kinda hidden (in that you need to trigger it from JavaScript / need an extension to trigger it for you).
Chrome has it for about two years now, since ver. 70. On a Youtube video right-click twice and click "Picture in picture".
I don't seem to have a "Picture in picture" option in the context menu on an arbitrary YouTube video on Chrome 84 beta on macOS.
But there is a PiP button in the "hamburger with musical note" menu in the toolbar.
It seems Google has an optional PiP Chrome extension as well. It looks like it just makes the button more visible.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picture-in-picture...
But there is a PiP button in the "hamburger with musical note" menu in the toolbar.
It seems Google has an optional PiP Chrome extension as well. It looks like it just makes the button more visible.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/picture-in-picture...
First, right-click on a YouTube video.
You'll see their custom menu appear first.
Now, right click next to their menu (while still somewhere on the video frame.)
You should then see the browser contextual menu with 'Picture-in-picture' in the list of options.
You should then see the browser contextual menu with 'Picture-in-picture' in the list of options.
I've been using this since it was launched and I constantly forget that I need to keep the browser tab open for PIP to work. Doh. Would be cool if the PiP window was another instance of the native window with its zero-decor.
This is normally a window manager feature, why put it in browser where it's limited to browser tabs?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean about browser tabs.
This pops the video outside of the browser's chrome, so you can drag it wherever you want.
They implemented it in Firefox because Firefox is the one detecting and playing the video? MacOS already has a similar feature, but AFAIK it only works in Safari.
They implemented it in Firefox because Firefox is the one detecting and playing the video? MacOS already has a similar feature, but AFAIK it only works in Safari.
I mean it's limited to content managed by the browser, whereas the native WM way works for all apps.
I guess I don't know enough about how WMs work. :(
I'm curious how the WM could detect that the a portion of a window is playing video, and break that out into it's own movable window?
I'm not sure how you do that without the browser managing that.
I'm curious how the WM could detect that the a portion of a window is playing video, and break that out into it's own movable window?
I'm not sure how you do that without the browser managing that.
But you don't want it to be limited to plain video players - videoconferencing apps, games, and various real-time data displays etc are good fits to pip too. You are able to pipify any window without the app having to explicitly support it.
I think the main point of this feature is that it breaks the video out from a window in the existing page.
I can then interact with that video separately from the page. I can scroll around on the page, I can open other links. It decouples the video from the page.
There's lots of ways to open new chromeless window, or set a window always-on-top. That totally makes sense to be in a wm, but that's not all this is doing, right?
I can then interact with that video separately from the page. I can scroll around on the page, I can open other links. It decouples the video from the page.
There's lots of ways to open new chromeless window, or set a window always-on-top. That totally makes sense to be in a wm, but that's not all this is doing, right?
It can't. (on some platforms, the video ends up on a compositor subsurface, but so can many other portions of an app so trying to make a PiP feature out of that would probably not work well)
Right. It should send the stream to the system video player. If you then want no window decorations or whatever you go to the video player app developers.
This pops out the <video> element, so it works on 100% of websites with one. You can use tools like youtube-dl to extract/convert a lot of websites' video to a playlist compatible with external players, but it will never have as complete coverage.
or use https://mpv.io/ which will use ytdl internally to 'just play the fkn vid from the url' kthxby
The PIP video is independent of the browser window that contained the video -- it can be moved around the desktop and resized with no window decorations and also stays on top of all other windows in the desktop env.
It is still pretty dependent on that browser tab. Accidentally close that tab, there goes your video. You also lose controls like scrubbing, and can only PiP one video at a time.
If you don’t like window decorations (and I don’t blame you) just run a wm with no window decorations (like cwm.)
there's a lot of firefox users that don't want to switch to a new window manager (or operating system) just for the sake of being able to pop a video out of the window it came from.
This makes sense on one hand, but could also be used to justify all kinds of of non browser features that would make both WMs and FF worse off in the long run.
In this case, I think "limited to" means available with, not rendered inside of.
But can't be used for other apps like video players or videoconferencing apps.
I've tried it, it's awesome. The things I'm missing in that new window are progress bar and volume control. Or at least I haven't seen a way to make them visible.
Opera has had this feature for years and features more playback controls than FF. It seems many features start on Opera then get "invented" in other browsers afterwards.
ozaark(1)
You're right that it has been in Opera for years. Specifically it was introduced back in 2016. But Maxthon had it first, introducing it in 2010. Snaps or webpage screenshoting as well (2010), which was later put in Opera (2017) and recently on Firefox.
What's new here? I've been under the impression this existed for a while. Does it finally provide the standard video controls?
Have other hardcore anti-autoplay users noticed some autoplay getting through as of the last update? I've had it at the highest possible settings for a long time and nothing ever got through, now something is different. It not all the time, but often enough that it bugs me.
This is brilliant! I've been looking for a replacement for Helium on Windows and this seems to be it!
I've been using it with their Dev Edition and it works very nicely for me. On a Mac, it blends in with the design language, and works on just about any video, even video that's been DRM'd to hell and back (Netflix, Hulu, etc).
While I really like this functionality, I can't seem to find any way to change the area the picture shows up. I do not want it in the bottom right, because I get OS messages there (maybe that's how they implemented it and why it's there?), and I suspect either they will be covered up or cover up the picture (a problem I often have with some apps in that location when I get messages). Just being able to change which corner it was in (like many PIP televisions allow) would be amazingly useful.
I've been using this in Chrome for Mac in YouTube for a while. It is in Safari too. Just have to double right click a YouTube video to get the browser menu instead of the YouTube one.
«Toddler duty» is a fantastic marketing approach to the feature! (While I usually deprecate using videos to entertain toddlers and kids, using it to have them close to you looks… good I guess)
Doesn't Chrome do this too? If you click the music button in the toolbar, you can pop out a video to an always-on-top window that you can watch overtop of other apps.
I like having a floating YouTube video on my desktop while I work so much that I knocked up this simple solution a few years ago:
http://www.jaruzel.com/apps/youtube/
(Select 'View (New Window)')
It suits me, and gets used lots. I've never bothered to look, but I reckon there's probably a Chrome extension that also does the same.
http://www.jaruzel.com/apps/youtube/
(Select 'View (New Window)')
It suits me, and gets used lots. I've never bothered to look, but I reckon there's probably a Chrome extension that also does the same.
PiP is such a useful feature. Even though I use a window manager, I like the fact that I can just take whatever video is playing out from my current tab and move it over to my programming workspace and follow a tutorial or something. No need to create a new window. When I'm done, I can put it right back to the original tab on the original workspace with a single click. Especially useful with floating mode enabled.
I really love this feature and I hope that it receives more love and polish in the future. It's unfortunately unusable with foreign language videos as the subtitles don't pop out with the video. Not sure if this is due to the lack of such an API, or if the major video providers (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) simply haven't implemented it.
My other wishlist feature is to have rewind/forward controls natively in the PIP window.
My other wishlist feature is to have rewind/forward controls natively in the PIP window.
Unless the captions are burned in, currently you cannot have the captions show up in the PiP video due to the API restrictions.
It's mentioned in the proposal doc here: https://www.w3.org/TR/picture-in-picture/#security-considera...
Thank you. I was trying to find information on this, but all I found was this bugzilla post: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1551058
This is a great feature and I love Firefox and what Mozilla stands for, but I have recently switched to Edge because of how hard my CPU is hit when I watch YouTube videos in Firefox. I understand that this is not entirely within the control of Mozilla and the Firefox team, but it became such an issue on my current machine, which is admittedly quite old, that I felt forced to make the switch.
I'm sure this works great but I've been using MPV/youtube-dl for a while now and I don't think this will cause me to switch.
I use this feature on a daily basis, in fact it's running right now. I have a few UI issues with it, the resize border is much too hard to hit, it would be nice to be able to click the video to pause, and I would like to see a progress bar and mute buttons. That said it has already been a "game changer" for how I view video every day.
I've been enjoying this for a while on the beta channel, however subs/captions are very noticeably absent. Unsure if it's all <tracks> or just those not using the built-in api for display. Needless to say custom caption implementations are extremely common due to the discrepancies in display between browsers.
For Chromium-based browsers (I used it in Brave but it should work with all of them), create a new bookmark and set this as the URL:
javascript:document.querySelector('video').requestPictureInPicture()
It works on YouTube, Twitch, HBO Now, Netflix, probably others too. I keep it in my Bookmarks Bar for quick access, I hope others here will find it useful!
javascript:document.querySelector('video').requestPictureInPicture()
It works on YouTube, Twitch, HBO Now, Netflix, probably others too. I keep it in my Bookmarks Bar for quick access, I hope others here will find it useful!
This is great. Will it work with Netflix videos in the browser? The always on top is a nice feature for this kind of thing
Yes! It works with any video tag. I just tried it with Netflix, it works like a charm!
It does work with Netflix. Unfortunately you won't get any subtitles.
Opera has been doing this for years...
I want a "fullscreen to second screen" option for it (also without allways on top than)
I use double-click for fullscreen, but yeah, it will go on top.
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It may be a nice feature, but for me Firefox's implementation seems to be a bit too intrusive, because as a developer I can't disable it and it is always visible as a browser-styled overlay.
Not all video elements are for stand-alone consumption. For example, there are "hero" videos in landing pages, enterprise solutions requiring smart overlays, or imagine a component in an online video editor.
Firefox also have no plans to support the Picutre-in-picture web API: https://www.w3.org/TR/picture-in-picture/.
See, for example, this bugzilla issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1611831
Not all video elements are for stand-alone consumption. For example, there are "hero" videos in landing pages, enterprise solutions requiring smart overlays, or imagine a component in an online video editor.
Firefox also have no plans to support the Picutre-in-picture web API: https://www.w3.org/TR/picture-in-picture/.
See, for example, this bugzilla issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1611831
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I love PiP but I wish it worked for multiple videos simultaneously on desktop.
I just snap off the tabs and hang them on 4th and 5th monitors... then I forget having them and the vehicle is already past Max Q.
That sounds potentially interesting. Do you have a specific use case in mind?
yeh! I like watching rocket launches from multiple camera angles!
And i watch a lot of simracing with multiple streamers streaming the same race.
And i watch a lot of simracing with multiple streamers streaming the same race.
VLC
The only thing is its easy to forget which tab it came from.
I put it on top and then on all desktops and change desktops with it.
Sometimes I come back and close some tab and it happens to be the parent of the video I'm watching.
I put it on top and then on all desktops and change desktops with it.
Sometimes I come back and close some tab and it happens to be the parent of the video I'm watching.
FYI, General purpose "PiP" tool for windows.
https://github.com/LorenzCK/OnTopReplica
https://github.com/LorenzCK/OnTopReplica
This should be more of a desktop feature. I'd like to play video wallpaper on gnome/wayland for example. I think this is as much on the desktop devs as the browser devs, if not moreso.
PiP is so functional and I've been using it for sometime now.
This would be great for PiPing a general webpage rather than just a video. Instead of tearing-off a tab, resizing its window and pinning it always-on-top to use as a reference.
YouTube charges for this “feature”. How will that go over?
They do? As in, paying will expose a control on their player to enter PiP in supported platforms?
Note: other than FF, you can also trigger PiP (edit: on Safari) on a YouTube video by double-right-clicking on the video element OR long pressing on the speaker icon on the tab/address bar.
Note: other than FF, you can also trigger PiP (edit: on Safari) on a YouTube video by double-right-clicking on the video element OR long pressing on the speaker icon on the tab/address bar.
> YouTube video by double-right-clicking on the video element OR long pressing on the speaker icon on the tab/address bar.
I've been using pipifier for this - especially for Netflix, didn't know about this until now - thanks
I've been using pipifier for this - especially for Netflix, didn't know about this until now - thanks
> other than FF, you can also trigger PiP on a YouTube video by double-right-clicking on the video element OR long pressing on the speaker icon on the tab/address bar.
Neither of these worked for me. Chrome 83 on Win 10.
Neither of these worked for me. Chrome 83 on Win 10.
Oops - sorry! I forgot to include the important bit about Safari on macOS. Updated my comment.
YouTube app on Android supported this some time ago. If you were playing a video and then wanted to go to some other app, a small floating window appeared with that video playing.
It was then locked away behind YouTube Premium, and now YouTube (non-premium) occasionally bugs you to pay for the premium when you try switching to another app so that you can continue playback.
It was then locked away behind YouTube Premium, and now YouTube (non-premium) occasionally bugs you to pay for the premium when you try switching to another app so that you can continue playback.
More info on this? I think that may only be for mobile apps. Does PiP even work on mobile browsers?
PiP currently works in Safari on iPad, and will also work in Safari on iPhone starting with iOS 14.
Not sure if it's possible to get a browser-based YouTube video to go PiP on iOS Safari.
Not sure if it's possible to get a browser-based YouTube video to go PiP on iOS Safari.
PiP works on Firefox (and likely Chrome, haven't tested) for Android.
iOS just announced PiP support, but formerly on iPad had PIP. A quick google shows that PiP does work for Safari on iPad.
First, right-click on a YouTube video. You'll see their custom menu appear first. Now, right click next to their menu (while still somewhere on the video frame.)
You should then see the browser contextual menu with 'Picture-in-picture' in the list of options.
You should then see the browser contextual menu with 'Picture-in-picture' in the list of options.
Must admit I've noticed the blue Picture-in-Picture but never thought to click on it. Didn't at all occur to me what it did.
It's too bad that YouTube subtitles still show up in the main YT page and is not present in the PiP modal.
This is a technical restriction with PIP not allowing for elements to be drawn in the PiP modal (or more specifically; HTMLVideoElement is the only thing that can be PiPed currently)
FF is getting better, and it seems Chrome has started to frequently lock up in some of my devices...
If we are going to destroy our brains we might as do it well!
I am glad it can be disabled globally easily. YMMV
PiP made Firefox complete!
This is a nice feature.
> play alongside while you go about your business on
> other tabs or do things outside of Firefox.
Do we need to watch video while we go about our business? You better finish your business or the video. Which leaves me thinking: this is kind of bloat.
> play alongside while you go about your business on
> other tabs or do things outside of Firefox.
Do we need to watch video while we go about our business? You better finish your business or the video. Which leaves me thinking: this is kind of bloat.
It doesn't feel like bloat to me. It makes my experience better.
> Do we need to watch video while we go about our business? You better finish your business or the video.
Yes, and don't tell me how to do my work.
Yes, and don't tell me how to do my work.
I use it while watching overwatch league games in the browser because it allows me to resize the popped-out video arbitrarily, instead of the site's embedded youtube player options of either tiny-window-in-browser or full-screen sizes (there is no theater mode in the embedded player for some reason).