About the JW Player
What is the JW Player?
The JW Player is an open-source embeddable media player for web sites, supporting many commonly-used audio and video formats. The player is easy to configure, customize and extend.
Major Features:
- Support for both Flash and HTML5, allowing the player to be embedded across multiple devices
- An easy-to-use skinning model, giving publishers the ability to customize the player's look and feel
- A flexible JavaScript API, providing an interface for developers to create rich interactions with the player
- Support for Flash and JavaScript Plugins, allowing for deeper player customizations
- Support for streaming video protocols RTMP and HTTP pseudo-streaming
For more information on player features, see the Configuration Options document.
Supported Platforms
The JW Player can be embedded into a web page either as a Flash application, or as a JavaScript application using the HTML5 <video> tag. This allows it to be supported across many different platforms and browsers:
| Browsers | Flash | HTML5 |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Yes | Yes |
| Firefox | Yes | 3.5+ |
| Internet Explorer | Yes | 9.0+ |
| Opera | Yes | Yes |
| Safari | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | ||
| iPhone / iPad | No | Yes |
| Android | 2.2+ | 2.1+ |
For information on how to embed the player and configure which modes it will run in, see the Supported Player Embed Methods reference guide.
Supported Audio and Video Formats
The JW Player can play all video and audio formats supported by Flash, including:
- FLV / F4V
- H.264 / MP4
- MP3
- AAC
In HTML5 mode, the player can play any video format supported by the browsers themselves. If the browser cannot play a particular file, the player will attempt to fall back into Flash mode to play it.
See Supported Video and Audio Formats for a full list of supported formats.
Skins
The player's default look-and-feel can be altered by using a skin. JW Player skins are built using simple image files (PNG, JPG or GIF), and can be easily edited and altered. A number of skins are available for download in our AddOns library.
For an in-depth look at the player's skinning model, see the Using JW Player Skins guide. For a complete skinning reference, see Building Skins.
Plugins
The JW Player also allows you to extend the functionality of the player using Flash and JavaScript plugins. These plugins are hosted by LongTail Video, and can added into a player simply by setting a few configuration options. A full list of available plugins is available in our AddOns library.
Developers who wish to start building plugins should see the Building Flash Plugins and Building JavaScript Plugins documents.