I followed the 42.3 guide (Multimedia Sticky for 42.3) for installing the needed codecs, including the YaST trick of switching system packages to the pacman repo - but I noticed that the .ymp installer in that sticky thread wants to switch things (such as ffmpeg) back to opensuse (from packman). This may be a bug, since YaST “switch to packman repository” seems to have worked.
Possibly not a bug; possibly a feature …
It depends on the repository priority assigned to the Packman repository: if the Packman repository has a higher priority (a lower repository priority numerical value – less than ‘99’) than the openSUSE repositories then, the packages in the Packman repository will be chosen rather than the packages in the openSUSE repositories …
But, this is in general not a good idea because, the packages in the Packman repository do not always “fit” to what’s going on in the openSUSE distribution world and, AFAIK, the packages in the Packman repository may not have been passed by openSUSE’s OpenQA process …
Therefore, it’s normally a good idea to give the Packman repository a lower priority (higher numerical “priority” value) than the openSUSE repositories and then, carefully, pick which packages need to installed from Packman, install them and then, lock them, to prevent the zypper update process replacing them with openSUSE versions …
- You’ll then have to carefully, manually, track all the openSUSE and Packman patches and updates to decide when the packages you’ve installed from the Packman repository need either a patch or an update …
Thanks for the explanation. Computer OS’s are complex! 
pick which packages need to installed from Packman, install them and then, lock them, to prevent the zypper update process replacing them with openSUSE versions …
That will not be done because zypper up will not do any Vendor change by default…
Also zypper dup in Tumbleweed has by default:
zypper dup --no-allow-vendor-change
So it has no need to lock packages against switching from Packman to another Repo for Leap or Tumbleweed…
And I prefer the packages from Packman over the packages from openSUSE so I have a higher priority (lower number) for Packman. So the priority is only working for new installed packages or if they have dependencies to installed packages.
FYI by default the widevinecdm cdm plugin in firefox needed for streaming DRM is disabled to get DRM working you need to enable it from Prefferences -> General
under Digital Rights management content check the Play DRM content box
Firefox will download a binary blob from mozilla and you’ll get another plugin which can handle DRM streaming sites
I’m not sure why widevinecdm cdm is not build by opensuse afaik it’s a google open source project and is available for both Chromium and Firefox based plugins
I’m only being super careful – yes, yes, if you’re only using the Zypper CLI command to apply the distribution upgrade changes then, OK – no risk, no fun …
On the other hand, if you’re on Leap and using the Package Manager and/or YaST then, if you’re not careful, things may happen …
- It seems that, PattiMichelle is on Leap 42.3 and therefore, the Tumbleweed Zypper CLI route may, or may not, be relevant …
Yast is also using libzypp…
What I have said is also for Yast.
FWIW, I’ve been switching to packman from yast software manager since oS 13.x in maybe four or five machines, up to LAP 15 in two machines, and AFAIR never had a problem that could be caused by packman packages breaking something.
IME packman has always been rock solid.