The JW FLV Media Player

The first player to be reviewed is the JW FLV Media Player. According to it's creator, Jeroen Wijering, this media player is now the most popular on the Internet and I don't doubt it. Built using Flash, his player is free for non-commercial use and open source (which means other developers can modify it however they wish.)

I currently use this player on my gallery page. The first advantage to the JW FLV Media Player is simply its popularity meaning finding answers to any problems you may encounter is that much easier as so many people have used it. His site provides a very nice forum area where you can post your specific questions.

From a producer standpoint, the JW FLV Media player is also very flexible in terms of what you can do with it. The types of media files it can handle is quite varied, there’s lots of flexibility: FLV, MP4 (H.264!), MP3, AAC, JPG, PNG and GIF. The ability to play H.264 encoded files is one of its very best features in my opinion.

You can easily change the look of the player, meaning its basic colors and feature layout. If you want a more drastic player makeover, its possible to “re-skin” the player without writing a single line of code. In this way it can look like anything you want but know that skinning will require you to have some Flash and graphic design skills. I just discovered that a selection of FREE skins are available for download at Jason’s related site LongTail Video as part of a contest he is running.

I only use the single-video mode but you can also set up the media player as a video Jukebox where users can select from a list of content rather than just playing one video only.

INSTALLING THE PLAYER
If you are interested in how to install and use this player on your own site, Jeroen has provided a set of “Quick Start” instructions.

OVERALL
While I find the basic look of the player to be a bit boring (even when changing colors and doing minor features adjustments) this player has so many great advantages that it should be one you seriously consider for your site. Considering the availability of free skins this concern goes away and I may be taking advantage of that myself in the near future. For those with some Flash and design skills why not re-skin the video player to exactly match your site design and submit your work to Jason’s contest? If interested you have to hurry because I think the contest is ending any day now.