Update – New Video Player

I have spent some time recently updating the site with a new player, which in turn gave me an opportunity to make a few other minor improvements.

Before I installed this new player, I was using three different types of players to achieve the functionality I wanted out of each application, but this is less than ideal. Now with this new player I’ve purchased and set up, there is only one type of player across the whole of the site, simplifying everything for me, and hopefully providing a better experience for everybody. Here it is:

Changes / Improvements

• You get the actual media player initially, but it still doesn’t pre-load the video. Before, I had to load an image that, when clicked, would use jquery to delete that markup and insert the markup for the video player. It didn’t even work across every device the right way, but it was the only way to not pre-load the video when one opened the page, and no one (especially on a phone) wants to download a movie before they know they are going to watch it.
• Better and consistent performance. This player is leaner than all the other three I had on here, so it should perform better. Every player will work the same.
• You can skip ahead to parts of a video that haven’t been loaded yet. It was was annoying to me that you had to wait for a video to download a specific part before you could skip to it.
• More sorting options on the Video Playlist page. The last player had an internal shuffle command that this one doesn’t. So I wrote my own sorting into it, and you now have the option to sort them by title, year, or randomly.
• The Video Playlist Page player had an annoying bug that made the video controls fade in and out constantly while watching in full screen. This one doesn’t do that.
• You can have more than one on a page. Try starting one and then starting the other.
• Doesn’t use iframes, so the full screen is working properly on the single video pages.
• Surely other minor improvements exist.