Open Media File In External Player

Question

Is there a way to make a browser open video links in an external player? Similar to how mailto links are handled.

Specifically, I'd like to be able to link to an mp4 file but open an external player specified by the user. Thanks!

Answer 1

Just link to it.

Keep in mind that sometimes that "external player" though is the browser itself, and there's nothing you can/should do about this, if you want to go the "pure" route.

For some players, you could use an M3U file. So, just a text file formatted like this:

#EXTM3U
https://example.com/your-video.mp4

Use application/mpegurl for the content type.