New Video Player (Bye Bye Flash, Hello HTML5)

leftquark

Yesterday we launched an update to the in-browser video player when you and your visitors are browsing Videos on your SmugMug website. It's now an HTML5 video player that removes the last place where we were using Flash (there's still 1 or 2 third-party integrations that use Flash that we're working on removing).

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

sdb

Finally a player that loads and starts immediately! Thank you!

The previous one, in addition to being slower, almost never started the first time. It always needed a page refresh.

David_S85

Hey, nice job Works great.

jcharmon

Good to (almost) get entirely rid of Flash. It has too many vulnerabilities and I (and any anyone security-minded) refuse to use it.

Jtring

This last post reminds me that I have a few observations on the new video player too, some positive, some not. Your timing, by the way, was excellent. Just as the new player came out, I launched into the most video-heavy project I've had in years.

The new player is much, much smoother than the old Flash player, and while perhaps it's just my imagination, it seems smoother than the old HTML player too. No more little starts and stops. Also on the plus side, the resolution selection button works reliably. It didn't always before. (So I'm doubly disappointed that you've suggested the sizes button is going away.)

Unfortunately, for me at least, there's still a showstopper problem with video. However nice the player looks, it takes a 3-7 seconds (for me) for the player to get there, to diagnose the right resolution for my bandwidth and jump to it. My Full HD videos start with 3-7 seconds of fuzzy low-resolution mush: a low resolution version upscaled to a 1920 x 1080 window, which looks as awful as you'd expect. Then it crisps up. I have plenty of bandwidth for FHD. Is any one else seeing this? I'd be much happier to watch the little wheel spun for a few more seconds and then have the video begin after it's found at the best resolution for the connection. Several seconds of mush really doesn't cut it. (And I don't know what a low bandwidth user would see.)

So how am I dealing with the current performance? For the project I just finished, I opted to post videos on SmugMug at 960 x 540, where the resolution jump on videos played inside the lightbox isn't as jarring but the end result isn't as clear. I've put the Full HD versions on my Vimeo site with embeds at the end of the relevant SmugMug galleries. So those galleries have both versions for a user to look at: SmugMug's in-line and Vimeo's in separate widgets at the end. That works, of course, but since video is only a small piece of what I do, I'd really like to just do all the video posting in FHD on SmugMug and be done with it. Dealing with two versions is not a great user experience either. Unfortunately, SM isn't fully there yet. Vimeo is still getting its annual tithe.

Any chance you could revisit the resolution identification issue?

(There's also a caption overlap problem with the video control bar in the current lightbox. It only shows up when editing a caption, so it's not a problem for a user. And that problem seems to be gone with the new lightbox that you are testing in the organizer.)