Adobe has released a new freeware flash video player (http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaplayback/), as a free hosted service. Not free video hosting, but, the player is hosted and there is an online configurator.

This should compete with semi-freeware such as JWPlayer and FloPlayer. Although these players are free for personal use, commercial license is not free.

Apparently (haven't found any TOS), Flash Media Player is free for all (?)

Also, through Open Source Media Framework, an open-source version of the same player, called Strobe Media Playback (http://www.osmf.org/strobe_mediaplayback.html), is available for download. It has some more advanced features, and could run inside the firewall as needed.

These players promise ease of use, integration with CDNs via plugins, and perhaps most importantly; up-to-date code that will handle those pesky F4V files that seem to throw errors with other freeware players. Dare we hope for better documentation and support?

I tried it out recently, Seth, and was delighted at how simple it is. I've had no success trying to write my own embed code for Flash videos I have on the web - I mean the YouTube style embed code, not what Flash writes to HTML when you publish a swf. I could get the screen to appear but not the player. This service allows me to easily embed a flv on a client's web page and host the file myself.

David

David, thanks for that. I need to do some testing myself soon - I teach a streaming course where JWPlayer has been our most frequently used flash player, but I think this is gonna' knock it off the roost.


...I've had no success trying to write my own embed code for Flash videos I have on the web - I mean the YouTube style embed code, not what Flash writes to HTML when you publish a swf. I could get the screen to appear but not the player...
Sounds like an issue where the swf (which contains the player controls) couldn't be found. Flash can be twitchy when it comes to security, domains, and directory structures - usually that means the simple approach is to put flvs and swfs in the same folder of the webserver.

Which illustrates my major complaint about the freeware players - documentation is difficult for me to manage, as most of it is in unmoderated user forums, where I have no idea whether the contributor is credible, whether their solution applies equally to the player version I'm using, etc, etc.

I've kept the player and video swfs and the video.flv in the same folder as a matter of course so there seems to be more going on than that. But having dissected a half dozen or more examples, including YouTube and the like embed code I haven't found the flaw. Thanks to this applet I don't have to!

David

PS I mentioned a SaaS site for adding interactivity to video in a recent post in this area. Earlier today I cleaned up a version I had posted to my blog. The blog required me to downsize the original to fit the width available. The original dimensions are available at www.netvideomaker.com/wideo.htm I'm quite taken by this add-on because of what engagement it offers viewers.

I've been using SlideshowPro on both my own websites and the school's web site with great results. I can't say enough about how the backend media manager called, Director, makes photo, video, and mp3 file management so easy. I do a ton of video here, both long and short form and have a number of players installed throughout our web site from 480x270, 640x360 to 960x540. I love that SlideshowPro's players are totally configurable and offer a range of features like Ken Burns effect. They have also recently created players that mimic native players when viewed by iPhones or iPads.

The most important feature they offer is great support. I can't say enough for this end to end solution that is less than $100 for both a player and media management solution.

You can see one the installations of a 640x360 player here:

Southridge School: Athletics » Photo and Video Gallery (http://www.southridge.bc.ca/athletics/southridge_showcase_640x360/index.aspx)