HTML Media Frameworks and Tools - HTML5 Media - page 145

Video Players
There's a wealth of video players you can download, ready to use. Some are created as plug-
ins that you can pop into your environment. Others are libraries you need to install and set
up for use in your pages. Some provide custom controls to play the video, while others also
render subtitle or caption files associated with the video.
In Chapter , I covered two video players that also render subtitle files: Playr and the Leanback
Player. Both players work with SRT, as well as WebVTT files. You can download Playr
at http://www.delphiki.com/html5/playr/ , and Leanback Player at http://dev.mennerich.name/
showroom/html5_video/ . The Leanback Player also has WordPress and Joomla plug-ins.
VideoJS is a sophisticated and polished player that can be used as a standalone player—or as a
WordPress, Drupal, or jQuery Plug-in; an Umbraco Utility; or a Joomla Extension. It's 100%
skinnable using CSS, and includes predefined skins that enable the player to emulate well-
known video environments, such as YouTube. It, like most of the players, also provides full-
screen video support. Not to leave any HTML5 video stone uncovered, VideoJS also supports
subtitles (SRT only). You can access the primary VideoJS web site at http://videojs.com/ .
Another subtitle-supporting video player is jMediaElement, a solid video player that also has
excellent keyboard support. You can access the player at http://www.protofunc.com/jme/ . Un-
like most other subtitle-rendering players, though, jMediaElement doesn't support the track
element, and only supports SRT files.
The Kaltura HTML5 Media Library provides a clean, cross-browser-friendly interface to the
HTML5 video element. It's also skinnable, and has been built to be easily extended. Kaltura
is built in jQuery and the jQuery UI. Both the Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive
have chosen the Kaltura HTML5 Video Player for playing videos in their own pages. Read
more about and download the Kaltura HTML5 Media library at http://html5video.org/ .
Projekktor is an HTML5 video player that allows you to add images and ads to the video dur-
ing playback. It also provides a way to incorporate an audio player and one cover image, as
well as creating and working with playlists (rather than just a single audio or video file). Dis-
cover more about Projekktor at http://www.projekktor.com/ .
NOTE
If you don't like the video players I've featured, check out a page featuring 19 different HTML5
video players, put together by Philip Bräunlich, at http://praegnanz.de/html5video/index.php .