Tagged: iPad

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External VfE / My Plugins / Upgrades / WordPress

24 Apr, 2011

Posters (EVfE v1.0)

Version 1.0 of the "External Video for Everybody" WordPress plugin addresses two issues relating to poster images for HTML5 videos:

  1. First-time activations will now use poster images by default. This is a reversal of the previous initial setting. Existing activations will retain their current settings, but existing users who are not using posters might want to start. (See rationale below.)
  2. The plugin now includes a simple and optional built-in style sheet to help posterless videos establish a visual presence in FireFox 4.

The HTML5 <video> tag can take a poster attribute, but setting a poster previously (in iOS3) caused the video to fail on iPhones and iPads, so the default for the External Video for Everybody plugin had been not to set a poster. The iPhone/iPad problem has been corrected in iOS4 so that viewers with an up-to-date iOS should not have difficulty with posters. But there is an even more compelling reason to start using poster images: Unlike FireFox 3, FireFox 4 does not automatically display the first frame of a video. Unless you preload or set a poster, viewers may well see nothing but a blank space (with controls at the bottom) where the video should be. The video will play when you click to start it, but the white space can make for an awkward layout.

If you've been uploading poster files all along in anticipation of the day when they would work across devices, you might want to throw the switch on the Media > External VfE options page. Of course, you can still override site-wide settings in your individual shortcodes.

In case you haven't been using posters and don't plan to start, the plugin's optional built-in style sheet will somewhat alleviate the blank spaces in FireFox 4 by adding a drop shadow and a background gradient. A posterless video in FireFox 4 will then look like this:

External VfE / My Plugins / Upgrades / WordPress

18 May, 2010

External VfE 0.6

Version 0.6 of the External Video for Everybody WordPress plugin allows you to designate (on the options page or within a shortcode) whether or not you wish to include a poster attribute in your HTML5 video tag. Dropping the poster follows Video for Everybody 0.4 in order enable playback on iPads. Leaving posters as an option allows each user to decide globally or on a video by video basis. You might even turn posters off but continue to create and upload them with the idea that you can turn them on when iPads can handle them. Or you can just start making your posters into the first frame of the movie.

Additionally, version 0.6 offers experimental support for video URL's that require a query string after the file name. Amazon S3 has been pointed out as a case in point, but I do not use the service, and so I cannot test whether my accommodation actually addresses the problem.