Creating a Consistent Branded Interface When Using JW Player
Attendees at the recent Streaming Media West conference got detailed instruction in using the JW Player video player thanks to Streaming Media contributor Robert Reinhardt. As part of his session, Reinhardt showed how to create a custom branded skin with JW Player, and also explained why that's important.
"Skinning is probably the one reason why you're not going to use a fully free player like YouTube. I mean, you do have control. YouTube does have a chromeless API. You can customize a player like YouTube—the same with Vimeo—but skinning is pretty important," Reinhardt said. "It establishes the brand. It establishes consistency. I'm not a UX expert. I have UX guys on my team who are more fully conversant with UX best practices, but I think everyone—it doesn't matter what your trade is—understands that consistency with experience is pretty important."
When it comes to smartphone playback, however, creating a branded video player isn't always possible.
"It's still something that can be out of our control regardless of what player solution we use when we're talking about mobile browsers, because browsers are browsers. Smartphone browsers are particularly annoying in that a lot of them still when you hit play on a video they just take over the whole screen and you're going to see the native controls that that operating system is going to display," Reinhardt explained.
The only option in that case is to create native video apps, which can be a pricey way to go.
For much more on building an enhanced video player with JW player, watch the video below and download Reinhardt's presentation.
HOW TO: Building Enhanced Video With JW Player
Great video experiences are more than simple playback of video— they’re the result of a combination of user experience factors that provide additional information and enhanced metadata to the viewer. Using JW Player as a canvas, you learn how to build a video playback experience that includes everything from poster frames to navigation markers (chapters) to scrub bar thumbnails to playlists and more. We also explore enhanced streaming options provided by Wowza Streaming Engine for adaptive bitrate delivery and live streaming.
Robert Reinhardt, CTO - videoRx
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