JW Player for Flash Version 5

The JW Player for Flash is the Internet’s most popular and flexible media player. It supports playback of any format the Adobe Flash Player can handle, as well as HTTP and RTMP streaming and various XML playlist formats. A wide range of settings (flashvars) can be set, and an extensive javascript API is available. The player's skinning functionality allows you to completely customize its look, and the plugin architecture allows you to easily extend the player with features such as sharing, analytics and ad serving.

Version 5 marks the first time the JW Player can be built entirely using free and open-source software.

Documentation

General

Read these pages if you want to get started with the JW Player:

• All flashvars for customizing the layout, behaviour and files to load.
• All file formats, streaming types and XML feeds you can play.
• Video streaming and CDN support.
• Crossdomain security restrictions and solutions.
• Compiling the player using the free, cross-platform Flex SDK.
• An overview of the player's software architecture.
• Read the release notes to see what's new in each version of the player.

If you want to learn about embedding the player (or another Flash movie) on a website, the swfobject wiki is the place to go.

API

These pages are for javascript and actionscript developers that want to interact with the player:

• API Calls for javascript and actionscript.
• All events that are broadcast by the player.

Check out the plugins section (below) if you want to modify the player itself. Using plugins is preferred over building a custom player.

Skinning

These pages are for designers that want to create custom skins for the player:

• A skinning guide provides all the information you'll need to start creating your skin.
• A sample PNG skin demonstrates the 5 player's ability to skin the player using PNGs (or jpegs or gifs).
• SWF skins which were created for the JW4 player will still work in JW5.

A couple of high-quality SWF skins (including .fla and fonts) are available as free download in the source browser.

Plugins

• In the addons section of our public site, many plugins can be found for use with the JW Player.

The following pages are for ActionScript developers who wish to extend the player's functionality:

• Building Plugins is a guide which demonstrates how to design and write an ActionScript JW Player plugin.
• The compilation tutorial explains how you can compile the source code of these plugins yourself.
• Download our Plugins SDK. It contains a copy of the testing page and some plugin templates.

Source code

The source code of the player can be obtained through the source code browser (click the zip link at the bottom). Full changelogs for each version can be found here.

The player can be checked out using Subversion:

svn co http://developer.longtailvideo.com/svn/tags/mediaplayer-5.0

For the latest 5.x source, check out from is location:

svn co http://developer.longtailvideo.com/svn/trunk/fl5

If you don't have a Subversion client, check out Tortoise (Windows) or SC Plugin (Mac OS X).

SDKs

We provide a number of SDKs for developers who want to extend the player's functionality in different ways:

• Plugins SDK - Allows ActionScript developers to build plugins for the JW Player. Includes build tools, sample plugins and a testing platform.
  • Version 5 (download | Player5PluginsBuilding)
  • Version 4 (download | Player4PluginsBuilding)
• MediaProvider SDK - Provides tools for building and testing externally loaded Media Providers for JW Player 5.
  • (download | documentation)
• Skinning SDK - Provides skin designers with PDF and Illustrator templates, along with a testing platform for Player 5 Skins.
  • (download | documentation)
• AdComponent SDK - This SDK allows developers to build extensions to LongTail Video's AdSolution. (Please contact us before you begin writing your AdComponent).
  • (download | documentation)