Open Video Player (OVP)

Hi folks,

A new version of OVP for Silverlight is now available! This release was much awaited for the smooth streaming plugin. Here is a summary of what’s new in this release:

General:

- SmoothStreamingPlugin

- Releasing source of the smooth streaming plugin, which is based on SMF, that essentially wraps Microsoft’s SSME

- Providing a zipped version of the MSSmoothStreaminPlugin.xap plugin with instructions on how to download SSME and create the OVP plugin. Detailed notes are available in the ‘BuildingOVP.txt’ file.

- Configuration Tool

- Cleaned-up and updated the ‘index.html’ of the web project to allow selecting between different media plugins

- Added support for selecting between multiple audio tracks when available in a smooth stream’s manifest file

Bug Fixes:

- Removed property of type ‘MediaElement’ from the OpenVideoPlayerControl class, since, ActiveMediaPlugin property replaces it

- Fixed issue with PlayReady streams, where after playback has ended, clicking on play button would not resume playback

- On playback stop, play button is now being shown on main video area to allow re-play of current media

Download the binaries and source here.

As always if you have questions, feedback, and comments, please use our forums to let us know!

- The OVP Team

Hi folks,

The Open Video Player family of industry best practice video player projects continues to grow as we add our newest member, OVP for HTML5 <video>. This project provides a simple JavaScript library to accelerate the development of HTML5 <video> experiences using a “strategy” approach. Here is a summary of the features of this first release:

Intelligent player technology selection
- OVP for HTML5 <video> selects the right player technology based on browser/device capabilities AND the specific media type

Player technology “Strategy” approach
- Programmatically set the page “strategy” for preferred player technology selection (HTML5 <video> or Adobe Flash)

Standardized user interface across player technologies
- Use CSS/JavaScript for common interface controls across player technologies (HTML5 <video> or Adobe Flash)

Simple JavaScript programmatic interface

Use HTML5 <video> or JavaScript/<div>
- OVP for HTML5 <video> can “adopt” existing <video> tags or can be targetted to a <div>

Native mRSS Playlist support
- Display mRSS feed based playlists with a native UI control

Customizable player controls using CSS
- Create custom themes and modify the controls using standard CSS & Javascript

Uses industry standard jQuery
- Leverages non-collision instance of jQuery for DOM management & UI effects

Check out our live example page at: http://openvideoplayer.sourceforge.net/html5video/

Download the source and examples here.

As always if you have questions, feedback, and comments, please use our forums to let us know!

Hi folks,

The Open Video Player family of industry best practice video player projects continues to grow as we add our newest member, OVP for iOS Apps. This project provides Objective-C libraries to accelerate the development of video driven iOS applications for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Here is a summary of the features of this first release:

- Modular design using iPhone/iPad statically linked libraries
- Architected for ease of use and integration simplicity
- Extends standard player framework (OVPMediaPlayerController library contains the class by the same name), featuring a unified API across iPhone SDKs (providing backward compatibility support for newer SDK features in older OS application builds) for features such as: multi-clip/queued media and UI overlay support
- Comes with a fully functional demo application, OVPPreview, which demonstrates the ease of integration with the OVP libraries
- The OVPPreview app features playlist layout of RSS/Atom feeds, UI overlays in iPhone SDK 3.0-3.1.x and 3.2/4.0, and comes with the hooks to support advanced Akamai services such as Akamai Media Analytics.

Download the binaries and source here.

As always if you have questions, feedback, and comments, please use our forums to let us know!

- The OVP Team

Hi folks,

A new version of OVP for Silverlight is now available! It has been a while since we have published a new build but we have been working hard on a number of important enhancements & features. Here is a summary of the new features available:

- In addition to the existing OVP plugin model, OVP for Silverlight 2.3 now also supports the Silverlight Media Framework v2.0 plugin model
        > IMediaPlugin (both live and adaptive), ILogWriterPlugin, IUIPlugin and IGenericPlugin
        > Uses MEF to load SMF plugins
        > Support for multiple SMF media plugins such as MediaElement, Smooth Streaming Media Element, etc. and ability to select appropriate media plugin based on type of media source

- Support for Smooth Streaming Media Element
        > Provides playback of both Live and VOD smooth/adaptive streams
        > Ability to start at live position or beginning of live stream        

- Support for both Silverlight 4 (using Visual Studio 2010) and Silverlight 3 (using Visual Studio 2008)

- Player overlay logs are now implemented as a SMF plugin

- Ability to control different log levels via initParams

These new features and many other items & bug fixes are available as part of this new release.

Download the binaries and source here. 

As always if you have questions, feedback, and comments, please use our forums to let us know!

- The OVP Team

Hello OVP for Flash fans,

A new version of OVP for Adobe Flash is now available.

This release includes the following changes:
1. MultiPlayer fix : In VideoController.as, removed extraneous call to connect() that was causing a double-video to be rendered for _model.TYPE_AMD_ONDEMAND content.
2. OVP Core : In AkamaiConnection, modified subscribeRequiredForLiveStreams() to only return true for FMS versions < 3.5
3. OVP Core : In AkamaiDynamicNetStream, modified resetAllLiveTimers() function to allow for timers not established if subscribe was not required.
4. VAST plugin improved to pause the host player before requesting and parsing the VAST document. This fixes the problem of the main video playing for a few seconds before it is paused for a pre-roll ad.
5. Bug fixes:
2867429 - In Model.as (MultiPlayer), removed unescape() wraps from embed and link flashvars.

- The OVP Team

Hello OVP for Flash fans,

A new version of OVP for Adobe Flash is now available!  Here is a summary of the release:

1. A new plug-in architecture is introduced in this release. The Akamai MultiPlayer implements the IOvpPlayer interface and plug-ins are specified by flashvars in the containing html. Take a look at the html file called AkamaiMultiPlayerExample_WITH_AD_PREROLL.html.

2. There are 3 new plugins in this release:
AdPlayer.swf - this plugin implements an IVPAID interface and knows how to play a video ad. This SWF implements a JavaScript bridge and can be controlled from either JavaScript or ActionScript.
VASTHandler.swf - this plugin implements the IAB VAST standard for specifying an ad experience.
MainSail.swf - this plugin implements the Akamai pre-standard called MAST (Media Abstract Sequencing Template) representing the “when” and “where” of the ad experience.

3. There are two new Flex samples showing the new Ad plugins, The Flex Builder project is called flex-advertising and can be found in the /trunk/flash/samples/flex-advertising folder.  There is also a Flash sample in /trunk/flash/samples/flash/akamai/CS4advertisingSampleRSS.

4. There is a new OvpClientProxy class in the org.openvideoplayer.net package and the client property on the OvpNetStream class has changed. See the client “setter” in OvpNetStream.as, or the ASDocs for more info.

5. The Akamai MultiPlayer has been modified:

• to properly use hardware scaling in fullscreen mode.
• a new flashvar has been added to disable the fullscreen button (enableFullscreen parameter).
• to resize video based on video.videoWidth and video.videoHeight if no metadata present.
• to accept a starting image placeholder.
• to implement the IOvpPlayer interface.

6. Modified CS4sampleLive.fla to show how to correctly supply auth params.

7. Modified Flex samples to show how to correctly supply auth params. Removed all mentions of connection auth from the AkamaiSampleLive.mxml Flex project.

8. New blinkx integration (blinkx.com) sample can be found in /trunk/flash/samples/flash/OVP_Blinkx_API.

9. There is now a Flex Builder project for the core code.  Simply import the project found in /trunk/flash/core into Flex Builder to build the core SWC.

10. Bug fixes:
2837857 - rtmpe connection url fails for servers which enforce rtmpe
2819734 - OvpConnection.call is broken
2819730 - OvpConnection doesn’t dispatch FCSUBSCRIBE event
2819315 - AkamaiNetStream FCSubscribe should stop on close()
2805149 - In Flash multiplayer, with autostart=false, seek & play fail
2784483 - Disable fullscreen button for MultiPlayer
2779896 - Multi-player v2 - video scaling when metadata not present

To see these features in action, check out the samples page on the project site.  For more information about implementing these features, check out the documentation page on the project site which is also included with the code library.

As always if you have questions, feedback, and comments, please use our forums to let us know!

- The OVP Team