The VideoPress plugin for WordPress now includes dynamic support for HTML5 <video> playback on devices incapable of Flash playback. Your videos are directly inserted onto your webpage alongside your other content: no iframes or other secondary content embeds necessary. The new VideoPress plugin for WordPress delivers faster load times, better playback experiences on more devices, and delivers even more accessibility and search engine friendly features.

HTML5 video

VideoPress automatically detects the playback capabilities of each website visitor and serves the most appropriate video player based on those capabilities, your publisher settings, and custom attributes you may specify with each shortcode. Visitors capable of Flash playback will see the VideoPress Flash player complete with HD switching and share options. Visitors capable of HTML5 <video> playback of MP4 (H.264, AAC) or Ogg (Theora, Vorbis) will see a browser-native HTML5 <video> player and controls.

VideoPress videos are first-class citizens of your webpage with support for custom layout, styling, and playback events tracked by your existing analytics providers. VideoPress will automatically light up third-party analytics software with support for HTML5 media events.

Authors can opt-out of the new dynamic player and force Flash by including shortcode attribute flashonly=true. Freedom-loving authors and publishers may continue to include only Freedom-loving formats through their site’s media settings or by including shortcode attribute freedom=true.

Faster load times

The VideoPress plugin for WordPress now includes a lightweight video preview before activating a full video player in response to a visitor’s click or touch. This two-stage approach delivers improves website load times and general responsiveness.

Introducing VideoPress for WordPress.com

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Search engine friendly

The VideoPress preview also provides more descriptive on-page markup for your videos, helping search engines and screen readers better understand your video content. Videos with associated transcripts, such as WordPress TV, include WebVTT data for display by supporting browsers.

Technical notes

The VideoPress plugin for WordPress supports WordPress 3.0 or later, including cache-awareness for multisite installs. Publishers who have customized their CSS around past VideoPress Flash markup will want to adjust their theme for the new video preview markup. We recommend clearing your site cache, if applicable, to take advantage of the new player. The VideoPress dynamic player chooses the best player at runtime, avoiding the need for a separate page cache for HTML5-capable browsers. The VideoPress plugin for WordPress integrate well with your existing cache setup.

Today VideoPress was upgraded to OSMF 1.6, bringing better performance, lower power usage and a couple of new features.

Performance

Adobe recently updated Flash Player to improve hardware-accelerated video decoding called StageVideo; VideoPress now takes advantage of the latest features of Flash Player for lower CPU and memory consumption in Adobe Flash Player 10.2 and above.

VideoPress uses Stage Video to split up video processing between multiple CPU cores, GPUs, and hardware decoders to improve video performance by up to 85% and decrease RAM utilization. For you, this means smoother video playback and lower power usage on netbooks, smartphones, tablets, and other low-power devices. Desktop playback will still deliver the same results great results you’re used to, now with fewer resources.

Features

The big new feature we’ve added today is progressive seek. Instead of having to wait for a video to download before you can jump ahead, VideoPress now supports seeking to any place in the video, without needing to load the entire video. This also means you can switch between HD and SD at any time and your video will continue playing from the same spot.

Finally, for those of you who use multiple monitors, VideoPress will now play nicely in full screen mode – you can play videos on one screen, and keep doing other things on the other!

VideoPress now supports HTML5 <video> playback in supporting browsers without Flash playback support. Low-power devices such as smartphones can now play MP4 (H.264 video, AAC audio) and Ogg (Theora video, Vorbis audio) content natively in the browser. VideoPress also supports Apple’s AirPlay streaming technology to share video between supporting locally networked devices such as iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Videos with associated transcripts, such as WordPress TV, include WebVTT <track> data for display by supporting browsers.

VideoPress automatically selects the best video player for your viewers as they load the page. Visitors see a preview of your video’s content, including its title and preview image, before loading the full video by clicking anywhere in the preview area. This lightweight HTML-based preview helps the rest of your page load more quickly without requiring a player download or Flash plugin instantiation before a visitor has directly requested your video content.

All content is integrated directly into your web page markup, not passed off to an iframe for remote viewing like other video hosts. VideoPress builds upon the unique qualities of your blog, including videos displayed in smartphone-optimized themes and smart markup exposed to search engines such as Google or social sharing sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The new VideoPress dynamic loader abstracts away the complexities of video publishing, helping you focus on creating great content built on WordPress.

Want to see this new capability in action?  Here’s the original VideoPress debut video — give it a shot on your HTML5-friendly browser or iOS device:

Introducing VideoPress for WordPress.com

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A new version of the VideoPress plugin for WordPress is now available. The latest release improves page assembly time, adds support for HTML5 Ogg Theora/Vorbis playback, increases the minimum version of Flash required for video playback, and includes autoplay support. We recommend all users upgrade their plugin through their blog’s administrative dashboard to take advantage of these new features, speed, and improved stability.

Communication between your WordPress blog and VideoPress servers now uses a slimmer data response encoded as JSON. Information about each video is cached locally on your server, reducing the time needed to build page markup.

Self-hosted WordPress blogs can limit video playback to free video formats unrestricted by known patent claims or intellectual property licensing hurdles. Set the Freedom level of all VideoPress videos via a blog setting or for individual videos via a shortcode parameter. Simply toggle the “Free formats” option under your blog’s media settings to display all VideoPress videos using an Ogg file container with Theora video and Vorbis audio. You may display individual videos in Free software formats by adding freedom=true to your VideoPress shortcode.

The VideoPress plugin for WordPress now supports initiating video playback once the video object is loaded onto your page. Add a shortcode parameter autoplay=true to enable autoplay for individual videos. The shortcode parameter affects both Flash and HTML5 video playback options. Videos with restrictions, such as adult-rated content or embed privacy settings, will not autoplay.

Advanced WordPress users may alter Flash parameters used by VideoPress for each video. Add a new filter action for the video_flash_params filter to customize style elements such as window mode or background color. Altering your Flash parameters may break playback so be careful.

The minimum Flash version required to display our OSMF Flash player is 10.0.0. This value is now reflected in the SWFObject handlers included on each video page.

VideoPress has a new look! The VideoPress Flash player has been completely rewritten on top of the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF). This new MPL-licensed framework led by Adobe provides common player functionality shared by most video players: play/pause, volume control, download progress, buffering, and more. VideoPress extends this shared foundation with custom skins, VideoPress-specific functionality such as video sharing and HD toggle support, and partner integrations including WordPress.com Stats, Quantcast demographics, and CDN providers. Partner integrations are much simpler through OSMF plugins offering advertising and analytics built by each potential partner.

The new VideoPress player replaces the Embed menu with a new Share menu. Your video’s WordPress Shortcode and HTML embed snippet are now hidden behind a copy-to-clipboard button. We have also exposed direct download links for the highest quality video available in MP4 (H.264/AAC) and Ogg (Theora/Vorbis) formats. These download links were previously hidden within your blog’s RSS feed, available to podcatchers such as iTunes and Miro or direct download from a feed preview screen. Your viewers now have the option to download a high-quality video for full-screen viewing in their favorite desktop video player or on a television. We have renamed our blog-level and video-level sharing preferences to reflect this change.

The new VideoPress Flash player includes support for the many written languages of the VideoPress community. Please visit our VideoPress translation page to help us support even more languages inside the VideoPress player.

We are excited by the new player foundation and opportunity for future expansion of video playback features and partners.