This laptop cannot run Flash video on the BBC website

Question

On this Vista laptop, I try to watch video of the Japan earthquake on the BBC website. But each video just shows a momentary red swirl, and then stays black.
I have the identical problem on FF4.0RC, and there I can also run it in 'Safe Mode', with all addons disabled. With or without addons, it behaves the same as 3.6.15; no video.
However, on the W7 laptop beside the Vista one, everything is fine, and the video runs in all three combinations there.
The Vista laptop will show Flash video from YouTube perfectly OK, so it seems to be something to do with how the BBC site presents video.
However, as the W7 laptop has no problems with the BBC site, it seems to be some configuration issue on the Vista laptop, rather than a general Firefox or BBC problem, or indeed, anything to do with my broadband set-up. (I'm guessing it's more subtle that just Vista vs. W7 here, as there are many other differences between the two laptops).
I have watched video on the BBC site in the past, but that was a few Firefoxes ago. I also note the BBC videos will not run in IE8 on this laptop at the moment, though they are fine on the W7 laptop in IE9 (though I don't think the 9 has anything to do with it)
Has anyone any suggestions as to what might be stopping the Vista laptop from showing the BBC videos?

Answer 1

BBC iPlayer relies on Adobe Air. AIR 1.5.3 is the last version of AIR that supports Mac PowerPC and Windows 2000. AIR applications that require AIR 2 or later cannot be installed or used on a Macintosh PowerPC or a computer running the Windows 2000 operating system.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/853/cpsid_85304.html
I am in the same boat. I cannot watch flash videos on the BBC website or on BBC iPlayer, although all other flash videos (YouTube for example) are fine.
For reasons that passeth all understanding, they work with the PPC version of Firefox, called TenFourFoxG5.app, once you have anabled plug-ins, as it does not natively support Flash.
You can download TenFourFoxG5 from here:
http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/
Now for the intersting bit: TenFourFox, like Firefox, does not support most plug-ins. Unless you are prone to headaches (in which case don't) you can read about that here:
http://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/wiki/PluginsNoLongerSupported
But there is a workaround!
Open TenFourFox and type in the address bar: about:config (no spaces) and click return. This gives you a warning that it might harm the application. Ignore that and click on 'I'll be careful, I promise' and you get the config file that you can edit - with great care.
Look/search (scroll down) for: tenfourfox.plugins.enabled
Set it to true. (Double click it to toggle it)
Now close TenFourFox, open it again, and Flash will now work, as it now uses the plug-ins that Safari has stored.
I am using Flash 10.1.102.64 in TenFourFox and it works just fine.