The Open Standard Media (OSM) Player is an open source  media player that  you can use on your websites free of charge. It allows you to dynamically deliver any type of web media, including HTML5, YouTube, Vimeo, and Flash.  Built by Alethia,  Inc. and offered by Media Front, it is a nice alternative to flash-only players like JW player and FlowPlayer.  Additionally, if you use the Drupal CMS, they offer a full media management plugin that integrates the OSM  Player without writing any code.

Features

• Dynamic HTML5 content delivery
• Audio and Video support with the most popular media formats
• Automatic Flash fallback for non-standard media
• Easily themable using the incredible ThemeRoller system
• Seamless Vimeo and YouTube integration
• Playlist support
• Player to Player communication.

Demo and download the player at the Media Front website

Have you used the OSM Player for any of your web projects?  If so, please post about your experience  in the commentns

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• HTML 5 Video: Are We There Yet? Let me start by saying that the HTML 5 video...

Let me start by saying that the HTML 5 video tag is one of the most over-hyped and  misunderstood buzzwords to hit the intertubes in a long time.

Is it a potentially game-changing technology? For sure.

Does it signal the end of flash? I don’t think so.

Do you need to quickly redesign your video-heavy website?  Hold on!

But the real question for HTML 5 Video in 2010 is “Are we there yet?”  and the answer is “Not quite.”

The idea of being able to embed video on websites without plugins has set the web a buzz with outrageous claims of Flash’s demise, true streaming without special server software, and other misconceptions. The truth is  that a lack of widespread  browser support for video codecs and the fact that Internet Explorer doesn’t even support the video tag at all means the technology has a long way to go before it is mainstream.  Don’t get me wrong, seeing that awesome Jilion Sublime Video player demo (http://jilion.com/sublime/video) gets me excited about it too.  Even big sites like Hulu, YouTube and Vimeo have introduced new HTML5-based video players.  Part of the excitement is that Flash has dominated the online video player market for a long time without much competition.  The latest generation of mobile video devices  like the iPad and iPhone, that do not support Flash, has left content providers scrambling to find compatible methods for delivery.

The facts about the HTML5 video tag

For anyone who is not familiar with the HTML5 video tag, it is a new HTML tag being introduced to the HTML5 specification as a way to embed videos in web pages without the end user needing any additional plugins.   Web developers can use JavaScript to control the player and add interactive features like playlists.

Both progressive download (known as HTTP streaming) and real-time streaming protocols are supported by HTML5 video.  One really cool feature is that it will allow the user to seek to parts of a HTTP streaming video that have not yet downloaded.  Currently, with Flash-based players, you can only seek when the video is being served from a real-time streaming server.  While this new feature will enhance existing HTTP streaming implementations, it will not be a replacement for real-time streaming servers which allow the content provider to protect videos from  being downloaded and other advanced features.

One area where HTML5 video shines is as a website fall back player for Apple and other devices and the multiple frame sizes and data rates they support.  For website visitors on desktop browsers,  you can offer them a high quality FLV or H.264/.mp4 video in a Flash based player.  If Flash or JavaScript is not supported you can provide a HTML 5 video tag as a fall back player. The tag allows you to specify multiple source files that the browser will step through until it finds one it can play.  This means you can setup a 1280×720 high quality H.264/.mp4 video for iPad as the first one, a 640×360 for iPhones as the second and a default 320×240 for older devices  as the final.  Depending on which devices you want to support, you can add additional options as necessary.

Current limitations

At this time, the HTML5 spec is still being developed and browser manufacturers can’t seem  to agree on a single video codec for native video support.  This means if you want to use the HTML5 video tag, you will need to (re)encode your video to multiple formats to support the different browsers.  Safari, Apple  devices and Android support certain variations of H.264/.mp4 video.  Firefox, Opera, and Chrome support a open source codec called Ogg Theora Video.  One downside to the Ogg Theora video codec is since it is relatively new and still under development,  the quality does not compare to H.264 and there is  no hardware decoding support.   Hopefully, with it’s recent purchase of On2 (creators of the high quality VP6 FLV codec), Google will step in and provide a high quality codec that all browser manufacturers will support.

To make matters worse, Internet Explorer does not yet support the HTML5 video tag.  This will be a deal-breaker for many developers or at least require workarounds if they want to start implementing HTML5 based video players today.

Will  it replace Flash?

I don’t think HTML5 will replace Flash any more than DHTML and AJAX replaced Flash.  Flash is a mature technology with wide adoption and a huge feature set.  It is an established platform for creating rich user experiences and used for much more than just a video player.  If anything, once the HTML5 video tag is widely supported, it will offer video content providers an additional way to enable video on their sites.

Final Thoughts

Until more headway is made with regards to codec and feature support, use of the HTML5 video tag should not be  used as the sole means of providing video playback on production websites. Also, I would be hesitant to reencode a large  number video assets since the codec may change in the near future.   Content providers with video heavy web sites should keep a close eye on the progress and may want start using  the HTML5 video tag to enable device users to view their content.

Lately I have seen lots of tutorials instructing web developers on how to provide a HTML5 video tag based player that defaults to a Flash player  if not supported.  I think  this is a bad idea and should probably be used the other way around.  I would rather my Firefox users be presented with a high profile H.264 video as opposed to a mediocre Ogg Theora video.

Due to the complexity of getting started with HTML5 video players including setting up advanced features, encoding multiple videos for different browsers and providing fall back solutions for unsupported browsers,  many users who simply want to add video to their sites may be better off using a single H.264/.mp4 video played in a Flash-based player like the JW Player or Flowplayer which will work in virtually any desktop browser.

Having native browser support for video and a decent alternative to using Flash-based video players  is long overdue.  I can’t wait until the kinks are worked out and HTML5 video can fulfill its destiny.

In a follow up post I plan to show you how you can use the HTML5 video tag on your websites to enable video for Apple’s iPad, iPhone and other devices.  Until then, make sure you check out the resources below to learn more.

Additional Resources

HTML5 video tag basics

<video id=”videoid” poster=”posterframe.jpg” controls=”controls” >

<source src=”video.mp4″ type=”video/mp4″ width=”480″ height=”270″ />  <!–H.264 for Safari, Chrome, Apple Devices–>

<source src=”video.ogg” type=”video/ogg”  width=”480″ height=”270″/>  <!– Ogg Theora for Firefox 3 and Opera –>

<p>This video  not supported in your browser.</p>

</video>

Player creation tutorials, tips & tricks

http://www.html5video.org/kaltura-html5/

http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/html5-video-fallbacks-markup/

http://henriksjokvist.net/archive/2009/2/using-the-html5-video-tag-with-a-flash-fallback

Encoding guides for currently supported formats

http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html

Further reading

http://www.html5video.org/

http://newteevee.com/2010/04/12/google-to-open-source-vp8-for-html5-video/

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the-html-5-video-codec-debate.ars

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3828901

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• Open Source HTML5 Media Player with Playlists The Open Standard Media (OSM) Player is an open source  media...

MediaCore is a  free open source video CMS and podcast platform that you can install on your own server.   With a slick, web 2.0-ish look and  feel, the UI is well polished and the application supports all the features you would expect including browsing, search, video and  audio upload, comments and moderation, tags and more.  Not only can you upload videos, but MediaCore also supports YouTube videos as well.  For audio and video syndication, you can have unlimited  episodes with both Feedburner RSS and iTunes support.

My only real complaint  is that it is programmed  in Python (as opposed to PHP which powers WordPress and many other open source software) which may turn away less technical users and those on shared hosting accounts without Python support.  With that said, this is by far one of the best designed open source applications I have seen and a great tool to syndicate video on the web.

If you produce audio or video show for the web or need  a easy way to showcase  videos for  your company website or intranet, you should check out MediaCore today.

Learn more, view a demo and download MediaCore at: http://getmediacore.com/

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• JW FLV Media Player – Website Media Player With Plugin Support Jeroen Wijering’s JW FLV Player is one of the most...
• SUPER Open Source Video Encoder & Player The Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer (SUPER) is the...

Jeroen Wijering’s JW FLV Player is one of the most versatile website media players available. You can easily embed it into your website to display any media format supported by the Adobe Flash Player. Now at version 4, the JW FLV Player has been in active development for many years and has an active forum & user community.

One of the biggest drawbacks of most website media players is the lack of support for content management systems, blogging platforms and other 3rd party applications. This is where the JW FLV Player shines with multiple plugins available to easily use the player in your WordPress blog, Drupal/Joomla website and many more applications.

Below is a demo of the player using it’s default skins. I was able to embed this player into the post using only one line of code!

Features

• Works with FLV, MP4, MP3, AAC, JPG, PNG and GIF
• Supports RTMP and HTTP (Lighttpd) streaming, RSS, XSPF and ASX playlists
• Version 4 has fully skinning support and a skin library
• Uses FlashVars for configuration
• JavaScript API for interactivity with your website applications
• Full documentation and easy to follow tutorials
• Active community and Wiki
• Plugins available for easy integration with a wide variety of CMS, blog, and other systems.

The JW FLV Player is a free download for non-commericial use (Creative Commons license) and commercial licenses are available starting from 20 euros.

WebVideoTechniques is a big fan of the JW FLV Player and we use it for all of the videos on this website. We like it so much that we have given it a full 5 Star rating. If you are currently using different player or looking for a player for your next project, look no further than the JW FLV Player.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Learn more & downlad the JW FLV Player at http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player

While you’re there be sure to checkout Jeroen’s other projects including the JW WMV Player (based on Silverlight), the JW Image Rotator and Longtail Video, a innovative way to monetize your online video projects. In the future we hope to look at these other projects in greater detail.

If you currently use the JW FLV Player or have any questions, be sure to post your feedback in the comments!

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• MediaCore Free Video Content Management System MediaCore is a  free open source video CMS and podcast...
• SUPER Open Source Video Encoder & Player The Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer (SUPER) is the...

The Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer (SUPER) is the Swiss Army knife of video transcoders. It can encode and decode virtually any media file and offers a plethora of options for encoding web videos. Although similar to MPEG Streamclip, SUPER seems to be more stable, advanced, and user friendly and does not rely on the QuickTime player for codec support.

Features

• Encode to/from FLV, H.264, MP4, MP2, WMV, AVI, MOV, DIVX, XVID, MP3, OGG and many more
• Advanced encoding settings and advanced H.264 options
• Integrated player and stream downloader
• Batch encoding
• Media file analyzer – View all codec and meta data for any audio or video file

Here is a screenshot (click for larger image):

Here is a sample FLV (480×272 30fps @ 1600kbps – 1.7 MB file) file that I encoded with SUPER of some free stock footage from OpenFootage.Net

Here is the same file as a MPEG 4 (H.264 480×272 30fps @ 1600kbps – 1.5 MB file)

At the same data rate, H.264 MPEG4 will look better than the FLV codec that SUPER uses. Fortunately, once Flash Player 9 is widely used we will be able to use H.264 in Flash as well.

I have encoded a few videos with SUPER and so far I am impressed with what you can get from this free tool. If you need to encode videos for your own website or need to compress your files before uploading to YouTube in order to stay under the 100MB limit, be sure to check SUPER out.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Learn more & download at: http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

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• Flowplayer: Open Source Flash Video Player For Your Website Adding Flash Video to a website without using a service...
• MPEG Streamclip v1.1 – Free H.264 Encoding Software for Windows & Mac Squared 5 has released one of the few free solutions...

Adding Flash Video to a website without using a service like Vimeo or YouTube can be challenging if you are not a Flash Action Script expert. Maybe you have a intranet or paid content site and you need to host the video files on your own server and want to display the files in a custom player that matches the look of your site.

Enter the Flowplayer, a free (GPL License) highly customizable Flash Video player jam packed with all the features you might need for you progressive or streaming video website.

Features:

• Works with progressive or streaming
• Basic colors can be altered and fully skinnable
• Playlist support
• Fullscreen mode
• Embed links
• Tons of features that can be configured using simple JavaScript
• Active development with full documentation and user community

Here is a demo using the default dark skin playing a clip I encoded (downloaded from OpenFootage.net)

View the demo

If you plan to use the Flowplayer for a commercial site, licenses are available starting at $75. The primary difference between the free and licensed versions is that in the free version you have to provide a link to the Flowplayer site and the Flowplayer logo is displayed over the video in fullscreen mode.

I did have trouble getting the Flowplayer to work with WordPress on IE7. Also, I really wish they would drop the huge watermark on fullscreen mode in the free version.

At this time I still recommend the JW FLV Media player if you are using WordPress or other CMS or since they offer lots of plug-ins to make it simple to embed videos in blog posts and do not show any watermarks in the free version.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Learn more & download @ http://flowplayer.org/

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• Sorenson Squeeze 5 Released Squeeze 5 Pro is the latest release of Sorenson Media’s...
• SUPER Open Source Video Encoder & Player The Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer (SUPER) is the...

Squared 5 has released one of the few free solutions for encoding H.264 QuickTime MOV files that includes a graphical user interface. Since it uses the QuickTime 7 Player’s rendering engine, you must have the free player installed. A side benefit to this is that it will allow you export to the same codecs as the $30 QuickTime Pro, as well as AVI, DV and MPEG4.

With MPEG Streamclip you get what you pay for… The interface leaves much to be desired and a degree in video engineering is required to navigate the advanced output options presented.
If you are on a really tight budget and don’t mind learning some new tricks, MPEG Streamclip will work in a pinch for transcoding to and from a variety of formats.

One feature that makes MPEG Streamclip stand out is the ability to input a variety of formats that even professional-level encoding software will not support. You can input the following file types: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3 and more!

Hopefully they will continue to develop and improve this software to make it more user friendly for non-expert web video enthusiasts.

What’s Cool: It’s free, outputs h.264 QuickTime MOVs, offers many advanced encoding options not available in other low cost compression software, supports many input formats

Drawbacks: Cryptic interface, no user manual, confusing encoding options, no default encoding presets

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Learn More & Download: http://www.squared5.com/

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• SUPER Open Source Video Encoder & Player The Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer (SUPER) is the...
• Flowplayer: Open Source Flash Video Player For Your Website Adding Flash Video to a website without using a service...