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Proposals/Done/HTML5 media player

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< Proposals‎ | Done(Redirected from Developer Area/Specifications in Development/Done/HTML5 media player)

Introduction

This feature will replace the current flash player in Mahara by an open source HTML5 media player.

A comparison of HTML5 players

Criteria to choose

  • Open source - is it a GPLv3 or compatible?
  • Easy to use - is it easy to use it, does it have an intuitive interface to control?
  • Accessibility - does it support keyboard control, subtitles, multiple language?
  • Multiple mobile platforms support - does player also work on iOS and Android?
  • Consistency among browsers, platforms - does player look the same in different browsers, handheld devices?
  • Theme/skin - does it support theme/skin?
  • Audio ready - can it play audio files?
  • Multiple media support - can it play different media file types?
  • Flash fallback - does it also work with old flash media?
  • Documentation - can we easily integrate it into mahara?
  • Plugins/extension support - can we use or develop community plugins easily?
  • Streaming media support - can player handle RTMP, Apple HLS, Adobe HDS, Microsoft HSS? (bonus)
  • Helpful community - how easily can we get help from its community? (bonus)
  • Performance - size, load time, ...(bonus)
  • Can the player display subtitles / transcripts (bonus)

HTML5 player options

Here is a list of HTML5 player options which support fully or partially the above features. We give 5 points for a full supported feature and 1 for non-supported. For bonus feature we only give 1 point if supported.

Player Open source Easy to use Accessibility Mobile Consistency Theme/skin Audio Multiple media Flash fallback Documentation Plugins Streaming Community Performance Total Note
Native HTML5 4 3 4 5 1 5 4 1 5 1 3 1 1 38
Flowplayer HTML5 GPL v3 5 5 5 5 4 1 5 5 5 1 1 1 0 43 Flowplayer logo
Video.JS Apache 2 4 4 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 1 1 1 50 No extra JS library
Projekktor GPL v3 5 4 4 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 4 1 0 52 Issues on iOS and Android
MediaElement.js MIT 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 0 0 54 Flash fall-forward
OSM player MIT 5 4 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 4 0 0 44 Issues on iOS
LeanBack player GPL v3 5 5 4 5 4 5 4 4 4 4 3 0 0 47 non-commercial usage
Kaltura player toolkit AGPL v3 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 5 1 1 56

Useful links

Decision

We decided to implemnt VideoJS because it is the most accessible option out-of-the-box without the user needing to change settings and provides all the functionality we require.