Viewer Requirements

Wistia medias work pretty much everywhere on the web, but if you want to double check this is the right place to look!

Wistia Media Viewing Requirements

As you begin to add Wistia-hosted media to your marketing materials, you might wonder, “What does someone need to watch Wistia medias?” No worries, we’ve got you covered.

Our Player

This is the Wistia video player:

And here are the video controls:

This is the Wistia audio player:

And here are the audio controls:

If you can watch this media — hurrah! Your computer and browser are in great shape to view Wistia medias. If not, check out our supported browsers section below.

No worries about which operating system your viewers are using - Wistia is friendly with almost every OS on every planet we are aware of, including Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. Wistia medias also play smoothly on mobile devices and tablets. As long as you’re viewing the content in a supported browser, you’re all set.

It’s important to note, there are some nuances when it comes to Windows. Check those out below.

Browsers Supported

Tip

It’s important to keep your browser as up to date as possible. Wistia works hard to support a ton of browser iterations, but sometimes changes outside of our control (security issues, playback support) force us to stop supporting certain browsers unexpectedly.

There are two different ways we support browsers in Wistia: playback and in-app (within your account) support.

Supported Browsers (Playback)

Alert

As of December 31st, 2020 Adobe has officially stopped supporting Flash Player. Wistia does not support playback using Flash.

Wistia medias will work on any browser that supports HTML5 (for videos specifically, HTML5 will be in the form of MP4 video with an h.264). Wistia (and most of the internet, really) defaults to HTML5 in most cases.

For media playback we work with all of the major browsers and versions of Internet Explorer (as far back as IE8), Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Alert

If you’re using IE11, you won’t see the option to adjust playback speed. This is because IE11 isn’t able to consistently support a change in playback speed. If a user were to change the playback speed, and then play or pause the media, it would reset to a playback speed of 1.

Note About Windows Support

There’s some nuance to what and how we support different Windows browsers and environments, so we want to be as clear as possible. Microsoft has abandoned support for the following:

As of 2014, they have stopped supporting Windows XP.
They have also decided to abandon support for IE.
Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 in 2020.

Alert

We have ended support for IE11. This means that IE11 won’t receive any new features or updates when it comes to playback, but basic playback should still work as expected.

Alert

If you are running into issues with Wistia playback and are using Windows 7, you can trying using Firefox or updating Chrome. However, this isn’t guaranteed to resolve it. The best options would be to try upgrading to the newest W7 release or a newer Windows altogether.

Supported Browsers (Using Your Wistia Account)

Your Wistia account will work in the latest version of most major browsers. These include:

Google Chrome (which auto-updates)
Safari
Firefox (which auto-updates)
Microsoft Edge

Mobile OS Support

Most mobile devices only support HTML5 playback, which is Wistia’s default for mobile. This includes Android phones and tablets (4.1 and up), and iOS devices like iPhones and iPads.

Just so we say it: we have found the most consistent support on all iOS devices, and Android devices running version 2.2 or later.

If you’re still one of the lost souls using a Blackberry (just kidding, we love you 😘 ), Blackberry does support HTML5 media playback. Wistia medias should work great in this environment, but let us know if you’re seeing something different.

Keep in mind that a mobile device will generally force video playback through its native player. Make sure to familiarize yourself with how controls work on mobile.

Internet Connection Speed

The minimum viable connection speed to stream Wistia media reliably is about 768 kilobits per second (equal to .768 megabits per second). We recommend a connection speed of at least 5 megabits per second for an optimal experience with HD capability.

For more information on how to prepare your media for the best performance and details on how Wistia optimizes the playback experience for each viewer, be sure to review the Optimal Export Settings guide. It’s quite helpful!