When you look for an online video player, chances are you have heard majorly about YouTube or Vimeo. The reason is that they are simple, easy and free to use. But what if you want more control over your video assets as to how they are displayed, user interaction, restrict them for certain users etc., requires private HTML5 video players.
There are so many out there, with different types. You have flash players, standalone video players or complete video platforms that provide HTML 5 video players. You must be wondering which one to opt for?
No worries! Because in this blog, we will discuss what is an online video player, its advantages and how to play videos from them using a URL. Furthermore, we will be comparing the top online video players.
What Is Online Video Player?
In short, an online video player is a supports playback of your videos over the internet with necessary controls for that video such as fast forward, share, and many more based on the level of customizations you may put in place. This is what the end-users view.
There are two easy ways to stream a video on HTML 5 page: adding a <video> tag or using an <iframe> tag. You can set the width and height for the video and control attributes such as play and pause or set up automatic playback.
Most popular and sophisticated browsers now support HTML5 videos, ensuring compatibility on most devices and browsers.
Steps to Use Online Video Player through a Link
Just follow these steps to use Online Video Player with URL:
- Open up the online URL Video Player from Link
- In another tab, copy the download link of the video.
- Paste the downloaded link or the video URL in the Online Video Player.
- Play the video and enjoy!
Benefits of using an Online Video Player
These are the advantages of using the Online Video Player for streaming video URL:
- You just need a browser.
- Faster load times
- Can use online video player on any device.
- Full cross-browser compatibility
- Easy to customize
- Little to no maintenance
- It is simple and easy to use for seamless playback of your videos.
- If you can take advantage of adaptive bitrate streaming, problems like buffering and grainy footage will no longer be an issue.
Comparing the Top Online Video Player
· YouTube
YouTube is a free and most popular player out there. YouTube iframe player API is where you can customize your player wherever it is embedded on your site. This is mostly for businesses that have a simple use case.
You can benefit from a few features offered in the YouTube player. Furthermore, you can hide controls, remove the logo of YouTube from embedded videos, and set a default closed captions language preference. Nevertheless, these are only very few limited features.
· Video.js
VideoJS is one of the free and open-source online video players that has features like basic playback autoplay, mute, fast forward.
- Unlike other video players, VideoJS uses JavaScript to plug cross-browser inconsistencies, making sure your content appears loading or buffering-free.
- It adds support for HTML5 tags on older Internet Explorer versions and has introduced functionalities such as subtitles and full-screen displays.
- VideoJS supports different plugins so that other standout features can be introduced in it. You can also keep track of Google Analytics right from the player, add your corporate branding in the controls, and introduce Chromecast support.
· Flowplayer
Flowplayer is an easy-to-use and free to convert FLV or MP4 videos to posts or webpages. Flowplayer also provides protection on mobile devices along with MP4 movies. It helps users in the automated inspection of video encoding for logged-in administrators. You can apply branding to make the video interactive at the start and the end of the videos. Moreover, users can make the most of unlimited instances on a single page.
A few other features include
- Google Analytics
- Retina ready
- Subtitles,
- Random seeking,
- Slow-motion
- Native fullscreen
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Cuepoints, and so on
without the use of expensive plugins. It also comes with video ads support and video intelligence, full support for Amazon S3 and other CDNs, Flash fallback, and high efficiency.
How about a Video Portal with Interactive Online Video Portal?
VIDIZMO EnterpriseTube– A Complete Package
This corporate YouTube-like platform lets you have all the controls without the hassle of setting it up. VIDIZMO EnterpiseTube stitches together all the workflows to make video available for seamless playback.
You can embed your videos with VIDIZMO with just one click while making them interactive and branding them according to your company guidelines. Have your videos accessed by only authorized users meaning you can define access on a granular level.
Securely stream live and on-demand videos for an internal or external audience and manage these videos for end-to-end video use cases. The videos are supported and streamed in HLS, using adaptive bitrate streaming to ensure minimal buffering and optimized playback on all devices.
Conclusion
Either you can opt for an online video player for a simple use case or a complete package that offers an interactive video player with extensive features. It all comes down to your business requirements and which one complements them.