quick-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/openh264.adoc

= OpenH264
Caleb McKee
:revnumber: unknown
:revdate: 2021-06-04
:category: Applications
:tags: How-to Multimedia 

[abstract]
This page contains information on the Cisco 
https://www.openh264.org/[OpenH264] codec.


== Background


Cisco provides an OpenH264 codec (as a source and a binary), which is
their of implementation H.264 codec, and they cover all licensing fees
for all parties using their binary. This codec allows you to use H.264
in WebRTC with gstreamer and Firefox. It does *not* enable generic H.264
playback, only WebRTC (see link:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1057646[Mozilla bug 1057646]).

The code source is available at https://github.com/cisco/openh264 under
a BSD license. The binary is released under this agreement from Cisco:
https://www.openh264.org/BINARY_LICENSE.txt

Upstream Firefox versions download and install the OpenH264 plugin by
default automatically. Due to it's binary nature, Fedora disables this
automatic download.

== Installation from fedora-cisco-openh264 repository

A `fedora-cisco-openh264` repository is distributed since Fedora 24 by
default (if you have at least `fedora-repos-24-0.5` package or newer).
It contains OpenH264 binary link:Non-distributable-rpms[built inside the
Fedora infrastructure], but distributed by Cisco, so that the all
licensing fees are still covered by them. This repository also contains
OpenH264 plugins for gstreamer and Firefox. It is disabled by default.
In order to install OpenH264, you first need to enable it:

....
$ sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled fedora-cisco-openh264
....

and then install the plugins:

....
$ sudo dnf install gstreamer1-plugin-openh264 mozilla-openh264
....

Afterwards you need open Firefox, go to menu -> Add-ons -> Plugins and
enable OpenH264 plugin.

You can do a simple test whether your H.264 works in RTC on
https://mozilla.github.io/webrtc-landing/pc_test.html[this page] (check
_Require H.264 video_).

== Manual install of binary

* View and agree to the https://www.openh264.org/BINARY_LICENSE.txt
* Download the appropriate binary for your system here:
  https://github.com/cisco/openh264/releases

Example installation for version 1.1:

....
wget http://ciscobinary.openh264.org/openh264-linux64-v1.1-Firefox33.zip +
mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/firefox/<yourprofile>/gmp-gmpopenh264/1.1/ +
cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/<yourprofile>/gmp-gmpopenh264/1.1/ +
unzip ~/openh264-linux64-v1.1-Firefox33.zip
....

== Firefox config changes

Type about:config into the Firefox address/URL field and accept the warning.

* From the Search field type in 264 and a handful of options will
  appear. Give the following Preference Names a value of true by
  double-clicking on false:

....
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.autoupdate
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.enabled
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.provider.enabled
media.peerconnection.video.h264_enabled
....

* Restart Firefox
* After restarting, the following string in about:config will change to
  the current version that has been installed from the web:
  
....
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version
....

See a typo, something missing or out of date, or anything else which can be
improved? Edit this document at https://pagure.io/fedora-docs/quick-docs.