Posts Tagged ‘html5’

Unified API: Flash and HTML5, in beautiful harmony

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

In ancient times, a.k.a. about a month ago, Wistia's Player API (and all associated documentation) basically controlled the Flash side of the player, without really allowing much control on the HTML5 side. Since we're all about making sure your video plays right everywhere -- including the mobile devices where HTML5 video is a necessity -- this could not go on forever. So we're happy to announce our new Unified Player API, which just works, regardless of whether your audience is viewing your video in Flash or HTML5.

The new Player API places a new layer of abstraction on top of the player, creating a true Wistia API that eliminates the annoying little details that used to catch people up (for instance, you couldn't instantaneously issue commands to the Javascript API, you had to wait for it to initiate). With the new API:

  • No more polling the video! The unified API supports video events like play/pause/ended/timechange on both Flash and HTML5.
  • You don't have to worry about what's going on under the hood, just tell the player what to do and we'll take care of the rest!

We're excited to have a Unified Flash/HTML5 interface and we think it'll make everyone's lives a whole lot easier. To learn more, read the new Player API documentation. Combined with our recent new customizable player, Matador,  and SuperEmbeds that make customization even easier, you have more control over your videos than ever.

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Posted in Product Updates | 1 Comment »

Smooth Playback: Flash vs. HTML5

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

Smooth Playback is a webcomic about web video.

Smooth Playback

With business video on the web, one of the most important priorities is deliverability--you want the majority of people (in fact, more than the majority of people) to be able to view your video without having to take any action beyond pressing "play." The two main web technologies for playing video are Flash (which has been around for a while now) and HTML5 (which is pretty new).

Flash is a proprietary browser plug-in, built by Adobe. It was one of the first to make video on the web work, and Flash is shipped with almost all browsers (Safari on Macs now being the exception), on almost all laptops and desktops. The Flash plug-in handles all decoding of a video.

HTML5 has been the subject of plenty of buzz, especially with its super simple <video> embed code that's unprecedentedly pretty and concise. The schism in the web video industry was deepened when the iPhone came out; it did not support Flash at all, but instead exclusively supported HTML5.

With HTML5 video, decoding decisions are made at the browser level. Most Mac laptops don’t ship with Flash. For this reason, it’s a good idea to offer at least a Flash and HTML5 option for viewing web video, to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Furthermore, you want to make accessing the video seamless: users of one technology shouldn't have to click an extra link just to view the version of the video that's supported by their device.

Things do get more complicated than just the dichotomy between Flash and HTML5, at the encoding level, but the simple recommendation here is to keep in mind that there is no one thing that always works. Later on, Smooth Playback will cover more specifics on codecs and the internals of a particular video.

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Posted in Managing Video | No Comments »

Announcing the Slimlist

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

The Slimlist is a lightweight, fully customizable video playlist that’s incredibly easy to use.

Loading playlist ...

To try this larger click here.

The Slimlist is special in a couple of ways. For one, it’s not built in Flash -- it’s built completely in JavaScript and supports HTML5 video. This means that out-of-the-box the Slimlist will automatically work in all desktop browsers and on the iPhone and iPad.

To keep things simple, slimlists are generated out of the same interface you’re already used to, Wistia projects. Each Slimlist is automatically updated as you reorganize your project. Once you embed a slimtlist you can re-order videos, add sections, or replace content that isn’t performing well. The changes will only need to be made within your account. There’s no maze of technology you need to jump through for each little change. Just set it and forget it.

To start things off, we created two high quality themes for the Slimlist.

But you can also create and host your own themes.  Because the Slimlist is not a Flash playlist you don’t need to be an ActionScript developer to customize it. You (or your web developer) can use CSS and JavaScript to make the playlist look and behave exactly how you like. Learn how to customize the Slimlist.

Want to learn more? You can try out the Slimlist right now!

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Posted in Product Updates | 2 Comments »

Video Analytics for the iPad

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Today, we're elated to announce that not only will Wistia videos play on an iPad (and an iPhone and any other HTML5 compatible devices), but their playback will be tracked in the exact same way we track Flash video -- viewer-by-viewer, second-by-second.

This does not mean that you'll simply know whether or not someone is watching on an iPad, we're capturing Video Heatmaps for each and every iPad and iPhone viewer. You'll be able to tell who's interested based on how much they watch, and gauge how your content is performing for your audience. Have an iPad (or iPhone) on hand and want to give our tracking a whirl? Head to our tracking demo and play with the tracking in realtime.

iPad and iPhone support is available on every plan except the Solo. If you're an existing customer, contact us at support@wistia.com to have iPad and iPhone support enabled for your account.

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Posted in Product Updates | 14 Comments »