A New Module is Born

Q: What do you get when you cross the Flowplayer module, the YouTube module, and HTML5 compatibility?  A: the new Media Player module!  We recently added a new module to the v2.2.0 pre-release code line called the Media Player module.  It is designed to display Audio (mp3) and Video (mp4, webm, ogv, flv, or f4v) files, and YouTube links in an HTML5 compliant manner (Flash player is not always required).  This is done by using the MediaElement.js library instead of Flowplayer and also using HTML5 audio/video tags.

Q: Are there any new features besides HTML5 support?  A: not really.  Basically we take advantage of MediaElement.js to 'play' a variety of media types.  E.g., a YouTube video now only requires a simple link instead of having to 'drill down' and get the 'embed code.'.  

Q: What are the advantages of this new module?  A: the biggest change is the new player does NOT require 'Flash' support, which is an endangered species when it comes to browsers, so much that it has never been seen in the iOS world!  Secondly, there will be one module which is able to display media from a variety of sources, both local to the server and foreign (YouTube).

Q: Will we have to say goodbye to the Flowplayer and YouTube modules?  A: Sadly, yes...but not right away.  We will make optional upgrade scripts available to convert existing Flowlayer and YoutTube modules.  Eventually, those two modules will be fully deprecated (after a few stable versions) and the upgrade scripts will no longer become optional.

All-in-all, we think you'll appreciate the new HTML5 support and the 'one stop' shopping for media handling.