New in JW FLV Player 4.5

The 4.5 player introduces 23 bugfixes, enhancements and new features. The highlights are:

• Addition of a displaytitle flashvar. It allows you to display the 'title' of a video in the middle of the display, before a video starts.
• Enhancement of HTTP streaming progress in the controlbar. The downloaded and played portions will now neatly align (no more gaps) and are more accurate.
• Addition of a debug flashvar, which can send debug statements to the browser, to a plugin (like Firebug for Firefox) and to Arthropod. Plugin developers can print their own debug statements, which can then be used at run time.
• Fix for compatibility with RTMP 302 redirect from the Wowza server (thanks to Richard Lanham for the fix!). This mechanism can be used to implement load balancing at the RTMP level (no XML files needed).
• Enhancements to the look of the player: the shade line below the controlbar is now gone and the backdrop of display buttons is now stronger and square.
• Support for both the Edgecast and VDO-X CDNs.

However, the biggest new feature of the 4.5 player is without doubt the dock.

The Dock

JW 4.5 introduces a new level of flexibility for plugins in the form of our so-called dock. The dock houses and organizes buttons that link to plugin features such as HD switching or closed captions. It not that dissimilar from the dock MAC known from OS X. Other video services such as Hulu and Vimeo offer a similar solution, making docking functionality an emerging best practice. Here is an example of the dock in action, with HD and sharing features:

The dock will automatically fade out when a video plays and fade in again when a user moves his mouse over the player. The flashvars for this setup are listed below. Note that the dock is shown just by setting the dock=true flashvar. Also note that the dock will use the color flashvars for rollovers, if they are set.

file=bunny.mp4&image=bunny.jpg&dock=true&plugins=hd,sharing&hd.file=../../testing/files/bunny.m4v&sharing.link=http://www.bigbuckbunny.com&lightcolor=5588CC&frontcolor=000000&backcolor=FFFFFF

The following plugins currently support the dock:

• audiodescription
• captions
• hd
• sharing

More plugins will follow. If you are a plugin developer, please download our updated plugin development SDK, which now contains a plugin template that leverages the dock.

If you haven't already, download the 4.5 player now!