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Blog Archives: December 2010

BitsontheRun.com Makes the Move to LongTailVideo.com

by LongTail Video on 2010-12-21 15:20

In early 2010, we officially merged with our longtime partner, Bits on the Run. Bits on the Run has gradually moved its content over to longtailvideo.com, assuming a larger presence on our site. We are pleased to announce that Bits on the Run has officially migrated the remaining bitsontherun.com content to longtailvideo.com. Bits Users will notice that they are redirected to LongTail Video's website automatically. All information previously accessed on www.bitsontherun.com is now available on www.longtailvideo.com.

To help ease this transition, below lists where you will find the various Bits on the Run content:

Thank you for your patience during this transition. We are excited to officially merge our content and look forward to further integrating our products. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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JW Player 5.4 for Flash and HTML5 Released

by Zachary Ozer on 2010-12-13 16:29

We are pleased to announce the official release of JW Player 5.4. Version 5.4 supports both Flash and HTML5, and is an improved version of the recent JW Player 5.3 for Flash and HTML5 release. The 5.3 release was a big step forward for the JW Player, introducing a built in embed mechanism, HTML5 support, and a new JavaScript API. Our overarching goal with 5.3 was to make it easier for publishers to distribute their content to all devices and for developers to build amazing products that work seamlessly across all platforms.

What's New in 5.4?

With the 5.4 Release, we've been working hard to improve player performance, stability, and most importantly, making content accessible on even more devices. To achieve our goal of maximum compatibility, in 5.4, we've added a download mode for the player. In practice, this works by detecting if a viewer has either Flash or HTML5 playback capabilities on their device/browser, and then providing a download link if neither is available. This means that viewers using devices like the BlackBerry, Symbian handsets, or older Android builds will still be able to view the content.

We've also enhanced the embedder's ability to detect which mode of the player provides the best experience for viewers. Publishers still have the ability to specify which mode of the player they prefer their viewers to use, but in the event that the default mode is unable to play back the video, we'll check the other listed modes to see if they're able to playback the video. For example, if you've set HTML5 mode as your default and you're trying to play MP4 or WebM in Firefox, the player will now fail over to Flash and play the MP4.

There are several other enhancements and small bug fixes which are listed on our developer site.

The highlights include:

  • Support for Apple .M3U8 playlists for HTML5
  • Stretching mode configuration is honored in HTML5 mode
  • The JW Embedder and HTML5 mode are now compatabile with the most popular JavaScript libraries, including MooTools and Prototype
  • The JW Embedder now allows wmode configuration for Flash mode
  • Seek calls are now queued if the player is not playing when they are made

Download the JW Player 5.4

You can download the JW Player 5.4 for Flash and HTML5 here. As always, we would love to hear your feedback on the release. Just post your comments directly to this blog.

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Using the JW Embedder to Embed Your Player

by Ethan Feldman on 2010-12-03 13:37

Prior to the JW 5.3 release, the most common methods used to embed the JW Player on your website were object/embed code and swfobejct (1.5 or 2.X). With the release of JW 5.3, we also introduced our own embed method, the JW Embedder, referenced as jwplayer.js. We recommend the JW Embedder when you’re looking to achieve the following:

  • Seamless failover between the Flash and HTML5 players.
  • Automatic integration with the JavaScript API.

This blog post is going to cover how to use the JW Embedder. Note that if you are familiar with the swfobject 2.X embed method, you will notice some similarities.

Let's get started...

Here is a basic player setup using jwplayer.js:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jwplayer.js"></script>
<div id="thePlayer"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
    jwplayer("thePlayer").setup({
        flashplayer: "player.swf",
        file: "file.mp4",
        height: "270",
        width: "380"
    });
</script>

Now Let's break this down, line by line:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jwplayer.js"</script>
This line should point to the location of jwplayer.js on your server. If you do not include this line, or you are pointing to the jwplayer.js file incorrectly, the JW Embed method will not work.

<div id=" thePlayer"></div>
Next, you have a div tag, with an id of thePlayer. This is a basic html tag, with an ID where you specify the ID in your actual embed of the player itself. This div will be completely replaced by the player.

<script type="text/javascript">
Next line represents the actual player embed itself, enclosed in a script tag.

  • jwplayer("thePlayer").setup({
    The first line within the enclosed script tag sets up the JW Player embed, with the ID named "thePlayer" (You'll recall that we named our <div> with an id of thePlayer. Thus, the player will set itself up there. Again, this div will be completely replaced by the player.

  • flashplayer: "player.swf"
    The second line within the enclosed script tag specifies where the jwplayer swf file exists on your server (i.e. the player itself). This .swf is needed to play flash files (.flv), as well as for Flash failback.

  • file: "file.mp4"
    The third line points to the location of the actual video file that you want to play within your player, i.e. the location on your server where the video file is saved.

  • height: "270",

  • width: "380" The final parameters set the height, and the width of the player. You will notice that the last line does not have a comma after it, and this is because it is the last attribute used in the embed. If you have any additional variables to add, such as plugins, or autostart, etc, you would add a comma to this line, and continue adding variables until you are finished.

});
Closes the setup variables you’ve defined.

</script>
Finally, the entire embed is closed out with an ending tag.

I hope this blog post helped explain how to embed the 5.3 player using the new jwplayer.js embedding mechanism. Happy embedding!

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