Once you install or upgrade to this version of the plugin you should see a new menu group in the WordPress Dashboard:

From that menu you can get to the Statistics page where you can see how many times your site visitors watched your video files:

The implementation idea for the statistics page was re-used from the WP-Postratings, which is a very popular plugin written by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan.

Other improvements in this version include:

• Minified JavaScript files for the player, which will help reduce the download time;
• Fixed incompatibility bug with NextGen Gallery plugin;
• Complete localization support and translation into Russian (ru_RU).

Download the latest version of the plugin from the plugin page at WordPress plugin directory. To get more information about the plugin refer to the following resources:

• Usage instructions
• How to encode video content for the WP Media Player
• Changelog
• Download statistics

Download the latest version of the plugin from here: WP Media Player.

The biggest improvement in this version of the plugin is the addition of the user interface for uploading video content and for insertion of the media player into blog posts and pages. Here is how it looks like.

Add a media player to a blog post or a page by clicking on the “Silverlight Video” button:

Upload a new video file or specify a URL of the video content:

Or choose a video file from WordPress media library:

After video content has been chosen, modify media player parameters, if necessary, and then insert the media player into the post:

More information about the plugin can be found at the plugin homepage.

Description and Features

The plugin has the following features:

• Default player configuration settings, such as size, thumbnail, auto load and auto play.
• Per-instance player configuration settings that can be used to customize each individual player within or across blog posts.
• Unlimited number of players within the same blog post or page.
• Option to not load players on the home page of the blog. This helps to reduce the amount of content to download for visitors who do not want to watch a video.
• 6 player styles

Here is an example of how the media player plugin works:

Play Video

(the video may play with interruptions – my server’s internet connection is pretty slow)

Download and Install

Download the plugin from here:

WP Media Player

The plugin has been tested on WordPress versions from 2.5 up to 2.7.  Once you downloaded the plugin files follow these steps to install and configure it:

Step 1: Upload wp-media-player directory (including all files and directories withing) to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory. Make sure that the path to the main plugin php file is /wp-content/plugins/wp-media-player/wp-media-player.php. If path does not look like this then plugin may not show up in the WordPress plugins page.

Step 2: Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

Step 3: Visit the plugin settings options (Options – WP Media Player) for WordPress 2.3.x, (Settings – WP Media Player) for WordPress 2.5.x-2.7

Usage walkthrough

To add a player to a blog post or a page, follow these steps:

Step 1: Encode the video to a Windows Media Video (WMV) format by using Microsoft Expression Encoder or Windows Media Encoder. If you use Windows Media Encoder then follow these instructions to properly encode the video content for Silverlight.

Step 2: Upload the video to WordPress either via FTP or by clicking on “Add Video” in the post editing page:

When uploading the video, take a note of the absolute URL path where the video file has been placed to. Do not click on “Insert into Post” button!

Step 3: Place the following tag inside of the blog post content where you want the video player to appear:

[mediaplayer src=”/absolute/url/path/to/video/file.wmv”]

Usage examples

To use a custom placeholder image instead of the default one use the “thumb” parameter, e.g.:

[mediaplayer src=”/absolute/url/path/to/video/file.wmv”
thumb=”/absolute/url/path/to/thumb/file.jpg”]

To specify player’s width and height, use the “width” and “height” parameters, e.g.:

[mediaplayer src=”/absolute/url/path/to/video/file.wmv” width=320 height=240]

To change auto load and auto play settings use “autoLoad” and “autoPlay” parameters, e.g.:

[mediaplayer src=”/absolute/url/path/to/video/file.wmv” autoLoad=1 autoPlay=0]

Please try it out on your WordPress installation and let me know if you find any bugs or if you have any suggestions.

WP Media Player