WP Media Player
WP Media Player is a Silverlight based media player plugin for WordPress. It is used for playing self-hosted video files as well as for videos hosted on external video servers, such as for example Silverlight Streaming. The plugin has the following features:
- 6 player styles
- Watermark Image
- Tracking and reporting on how many times the videos have been watched
- 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.
- The UI for video uploading and selecting of media files that is fully integrated into the WordPress post editing UI.
Some of the sites that use the plugin:
- Tribord Amure par Matthieu
- Hrišćanska Adventistička Crkva
- Full Gospel First Church of Washington
- The Campaign for Disability Employment
Here is an example of how plugin works:
Installation
Download the plugin from this location:
The plugin has been tested on WordPress versions from 2.5 up to 2.7.1. 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: Use the “Media Player” menu group to configure and manage the plugin:
Usage Instructions
The plugin is very easy to use. Follow these three simple steps:
Step 1: Click on the “Silverlight Video” button:
Step 2: Choose video file to upload or a URL with a video content (note: video must be in WMV format)
Step 3: Insert the video into a blog post or a page
Encoding Video Content
Since the player is Silverlight-based, it requires that the video file is encoded by using Silverlight-friendly parameters. It is recommended to encode the video content by following the instructions at WP Silverlight Media Player – Video Encoding.
Getting the Media Player Statistics
To check how many time the video files have been watched and how many of those have been watched until the end use the “Media Player Statistics” page:
Comments and Feedback
Please leave your feedback and report any issues with the plugin by submitting comments to this page. Before submitting the question please check the existing comments on this page as your question may have already been answered.
Donations
The plugin is absolutely free, but if you like it, you may want to consider making a small donation:
Thank You for using the WP Media Player plugin!
Silverlight Media Player for WordPress – Update…
Since the Silverlight Media Player plugin for WordPress was published in January 2009, it has been downloaded more than 900 times. It is being used in many web sites all over the world – here are just a couple of examples: Tribord Amure par Matthieu an…
thanks, it help me much
Thanks, Ruslan. Works Fine.
Thanks for this plugin ,can you include other codec like mp4 ,avi & Can you adapt it as a buddypress plugin for users to use from there profiles like facebook ?
doc: http://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/creating-a-custom-buddypress-component/
Pete, thanks for suggestions – i’ve never used buddypress before, but would be interested in trying it and adapting this plugin for it.
Is it possible do create and have playlist played with your plugin?
Something like WordTube?
Great work, thank you.
Nenad, it’s not possible to use playlists currently. I may look into adding that functionality in future versions.
First of all, fantastic player – I am very impressed by what I can achieve using this player.
I have two present diffuculties on the website that I am designing, that I am wondering if there are solutions for:
1) I ‘m looking for a Silverlight player that is able to recieve Windows Media Streams (MMS protocol) and play them live. Is this player configured to handle streams like this? If it isn’t, how hard is that to achieve?
2) Is there any way to automate the process of sending Windows Media files to a template player website? (Example: I click on a WMV file link on my website – can the player be configured to catch me clicking that link, and automatically load the file into the player without leaving my website?)
I know these are both fairly out-there requests, but I am curious about whether this player could be my solution (now or in the future), and whether there are other solutions out there that may allow me to continue using WordPress.
Thank you for your time – I look forward to hearing back from you.
Cheers,
Matt
Matt, thanks for your comments. Regarding first question – this player should be able to play mms content. I tried it with MMS content long time ago and also one other user reported that it worked with MMS content for him.
I’ll need to think more about the second question and then reply.
Ruslany –
Thank you for the MMS page – a mixture of using the wrong website, with the comments left on that subject got me all fixed. Yay easy solutions!
I have one more feature question…is it possible to set the player to load muted? One of the design ideas that has been suggested for the site I’m working on is to embed three video feeds side by side, each playing a different feed. Clearly, playing the three channels with audio would be hard to listen to…thus the desire to set a loading mute.
Thank you again for your help – I appreciate very much the assistance!
Cheers,
Matt
Matt, currently it is not possible to load the player muted. But this is a great feature suggestion, which is very easy to add. I’ll push another update to the plugin this week which will have the “muted” configuration setting.
Where is the donate button?! This is fantastic! Thanks!
Thanks Marius! If you do not mind, I’ve added a link to you site on this page. There are some really great videos there!
I just donated a symbolic amount of money. I can’t afford more
We use a lot of money on equipment for our movies. Thanks for linking 
Hi wanting to make the wp silverlight player start in full screen mode can you help and then return to specified page in wp
bonditv, I think this is possible to do, but I will need to research how to do it. If you are willing to try changing the plugin code yourself, here are some resources on how to do full screen mode in Silverlight.
Hello again! I just wondred if you knew about the bug “Video does not play if you have pictures that opens with a lightbox effect” ?
A bit annoying since I have the gallery with the video. I you look at the gallery first, you can’nt look at the video afterwords.
Thanks for reporting this. The latest release of the plugin has a fix for this bug.
How did you make that PLAY button picture? I tried it and the picture goes away. I tried to use that thumb command.
I used player style “PopUp” and [mediaplayer ... autoLoad=0 autoPlay=0]
Thanks! but now how do I put my own image on there instead of the Silver Light PLAY button image?
The play button image is not easily changeable. It is hard-coded in the player. If you choose different player style the play button will look different, but there is currently no way to customize the look of the button. The thumb parameter controls the image that is displayed before video is loaded, but it does not control the play button.
That’s cool. That’s what I needed to know exactly. I meant to change the image before you hit the play button.
Thanks,
Ken
New release of Silverlight Player for WordPress…
Today I have published a new release of the WP Silverlight Media Player plugin for WordPress. In addition to a few important improvements and optimizations, it contains a new feature that allows to track the number of times the video files have been wa…
Hey can someone please tell me how to get this on my video page.When i click on the media its just set to be on my homepage and i dont want that.Can someone please help me with this.
PS im useing the 2.8 version of wordpress,thanks Val
When I click on the Silverlight Video Icon I get this error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_options_page() in /Library/WebServer/Documents/dtvblog/wp-content/plugins/ws-audio-player/wsaudioplayer.php on line 25
Thanks for reporting this. It was indeed a bug in the plugin. It is now fixed in the latest version.
Can we add a watermark logo on the right bottom of the video? (like viddler, or youtube)
Not in the current version, but this is on my list of features to add in future versions.
I have this error on video library.
Warning: opendir(/home/wordp/home/wordp/wp-content/uploads) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: No such file or directory in /home/wordp/wp-content/plugins/wp-media-player/uploader.php on line 192
there is to time the same /home/wordp i don’t understand please help me
How can i change the default upload file size limit?
The default upload file size limit is controlled by the php configuration. You can change it by opening php.ini file and modifying these settings:
- upload_max_filesize
- post_max_size
I am getting a blank black box when I tried displaying a video using your instructions. I tried reinstalling and going through the steps again, but to no avail. I know the video is encoded correctly b/c everything works on my test site, just not on my live site. Please let me know if there is a fix or what you think I might be doing wrong.
@Stacey: Can you please let me know the URL of the page where this error happens? I would like to investigate and fix if this is a bug in the plugin. You can use the contact form to send me the URL.
Hello again!
Love that you are still updating this fantastic player!!! But, in the last update I have problems with getting watermark to work. Any suggestions? I have checked that the url is correct and har the right permissions.
Best regards Marius from autobloggen.net
@Marius: For some reason the player does not show the png file that you use for the watermark. Once I opened and saved that file by using Paint.NET editor, it started to show up for me. Which image editor did you use to create a watermark?
Hi Ruslany!
Firtst of all, i love this plugin very much. Also i have a question. Is it possible to change the style Pop Up so that you see the navigations buttons when the player has loaded the video? When people click on the play button (or the still), the video start playing and the navigation buttons will go outside to the bottom. When people move there mouse over the video, the navigation buttons appear and so on. Do you have a solution for that?
Thanks, Thomas
@Thomass: Thanks for your comment! With the current version of the player the only thing you can try is to turn off autoLoad and that will cause the player to display big “Play” button on the entire screen (same as you can see on this blog post). But if autoLoad is enabled then the navigational buttons will be hidded by default.
Maybe it actually makes more sense if buttons worked as you suggested, e.g. show the buttons until user clicked play and then hide them? I’ll see if I can change that in future versions of the player.
I just wanted to thank u again for this plugin! Very good! When is the embed function coming?
@Marius: thanks for your support! I have not thought yet about the embed function, but I think it should be possible to do. I may try to add it in a future releases.
Hi.
I’m having the same problem as Stacey. The player doesn’t show. You can see for yourself here: http://ostkd-klubb.com/?page_id=87
It used to work fine, but for some reason it doesn’t work anymore.
I thought it was my host that had messed up in some way (they had a crash 3 weeks ago and somethings have been kinda f***** up since), but when I saw that Stacey had the same problem I thought I should ask you.
-Janis
@Janis: Did it work before you have upgraded to WP 2.8.5?
It looks like the player’s scripts are not loaded because the page does not reference them in any way.
Can you double check that the page with the player has a custom tag wp_media_player and it is set to 1 ?
@Ruslany: Can you give me a hint so i can do the moderation by myself? Wich file need to updated for example?
“Firtst of all, i love this plugin very much. Also i have a question. Is it possible to change the style Pop Up so that you see the navigations buttons when the player has loaded the video? When people click on the play button (or the still), the video start playing and the navigation buttons will go outside to the bottom. When people move there mouse over the video, the navigation buttons appear and so on. Do you have a solution for that?
Thanks, Thomas”
Hai Ruslany,
I have again a question. When you put more than one player in a post, then the watermark only appears on the first video! Do you have a solution for that?
Best Regards, Thomas
@Thomass: The change about the popUp style is not trivial. You will need to modify the files located in wp-content/plugins/wp-media-player/styles/popup/.
I have also noticed the problem with the watermark not showing up in some players. I am working on the next version of the plugin where I will fix this problem and also modify the popup player style.
@Ruslany: Great!
Hi Ruslany, do you think it is posible to integrate JW Silverlight as a player in your plugin?
It is possible, but it is not easy. It would have to be a completely different implementation in the plugin because the player uses different JavaScripts.
By the way I am rewriting the players to use Silverlight 2 – that will significantly reduce the size of the player files (e.g. 30kB vs 300kB), plus it will be faster and easier to modify the player’s functionality.
@Ruslany: that will be great! Thanks…
hey, i ‘ve just installed this plugin on my site plus silverlight as wwell and tried to embed streaming link on my site with ur plugin but seems its not not working at all
link i was trying to embed is:
mms://ams01.egihosting.com/ExpressNews
need help in this regard,
thankss
Hi Ruslan!
When the main menu drops down, the buttons going behind the player we use. See the image: http://www.omroepzeeland.nl/sport/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/navi-behind-silverlightplayer.jpg. I’m using the PopUp-skin.
Thanks for your plugin, it functions well except for the aspect ratio. my uploaded video is 16:9 however when i play it through your media player it squeezes the video into 4:3. Any ideas about what i am doing wrong?
Thanks a lot for this useful plugin, saved me a lot of time! Greatly appreciated. Tracking also? Impressive.
Hi,
So far I have found the plugin with the popup style to be an excellent alternative to using flash players. However, I noticed that if you use your mouse wheel to scroll the page, that as soon as the cursor is over the video the mouse wheel stops responding and the page does not scroll.
Does anyone know a way that I can prevent this behaviour as it stops the flow of interaction that the user has?
Thanks
@James Huxtable: Which web browser has this problem? I just tried with IE8 and am able to use the mouse wheel for scrolling.
Hi,
Thanks for the response. I am using Firefox as my main browser. You’re right about IE, I just tried it in IE 8 and it works fine. I also just tried it in OSX using Safari 4. So it seems like just an issue with Firefox
Regarding the scrolling issue, I have performed some additional tests to try and pinpoint which browsers this issue occurs on.
I tested the following;
Safari on OSX = OK
Firefox 3.5 on OSX = OK
Firefox 3.6 on OSX = OK
Internet Explorer 8 on XP and Windows7 = OK
Firefox 3.5 on Windows = OK
Firefox 3.6 on Windows = Stops scrolling
So it seems that the problem is only related to Firefox 3.6 on the Windows platform. Apologies for thinking that the plugin may have been at fault. I only thought that as other sites with embedded silverlight/flash players worked correctly when scrolling. I did manage to find several other users having scrolling issues when using Firefox 3.6 as well (albeit not quite the same). So it looks like a possible bug in Firefox.
Hello,
First of all i want to say that this is the BEST plugin i have EVER worked with and thanks a lot for it.
i have a small problem with the plugin,
some times when i press the play i get the msg:”Unable to load media ‘File_Name.WMV’.
This may be because there is no such file at this location or the video file is encoded incorrectly.”
after i refresh the page it works just fine.
can you help me fix the problem ?
Works great with wordpress 2.9.2 as well… Thanks Ruslan… Will be using this in production soon…
However, I see that HiddenDark and HiddenLight are the only 2 skins which have full screen mode… was it designed that way or you think there is some incompatibility with 2.9.2??
ma_khan: all styles support full screen mode. It can be turned on/off by double clicking on the video window.
Hi Ruslan,
Is it possible to encode flv files with Windows Media Encoder with any plugin added? I see there is a option to register 3rd party encoder. I was wondering if there is one from Microsoft? I personally think that WMV is great. But unless there are options within WME to convert from worldly file formats to WMV this application is limited in its functionality.
I would like to see more video formats to enocode to WMV. If I missing something could you please let me know.
@Pradeep: I do not know for sure if WME can handle FLV files. I suspect that it cannot, but I have have never researched that to confirm.
This is a great Video and using it throughout several websites. I have two questions.
1. Is there a way to allow the video to load some before it starts playing. On some of the video, the player stops when it catches the buffer. Maybe we can set a delay from the loading before it plays to allow the buffer to be well ahead.
2. I know you stated above that you are looking at a playlist or gallery option which would be real nice add-on. I have to do several players on one page. Do you have an idea when this maybe added.
Again, Thanks for a great plugin.
thanks for this great plugin
I have mms stream, it’s work fine with windows media player, and the files that I’m streaming is working fine with silverlight because I check it as a file before adding it to my mms stream.
now, I’m trying to use this great player, but the mms is not working, any help?
Thanks for your help Ruslany! Found the settings
Ruslany,
Thanks for a wonderful plugin. Very easy to use. However, I have encountered a problem with a site I am building (www.pchchiro.com) using WP. My video(s) are under a drop down list (Services). When the video is displayed, my drop down list stops where the video player starts, so users can’t access the video menu if they’re on a page displaying video. Can this be corrected? My customer loves the video also! RB
Hi there,
I’ve got a couple of questions regarding the use of this plugin. First, is it possible to make the video that is being played ‘loop’…in effect play continously, then restart on its own once it ends?
Second is if this can be enabled for use in a widget, so it could be placed in a sidebar, for instance?
Thanks.
Blessings,
Gary
Hi Gary,
The media player does not support continuous loop playback. Also, it cannot be placed in a sidebar. It can only be placed inside of a post or a page.
Sorry that it does not fit your requirements.
Отличный плеер. Просмотрел все возможные – этот лучший, поэтому хочу видеть на своем сайте только его, но возникла проблема – на странице, при нажатии на плеер выскакивает следующая надпись:
Unable to load media ‘http://vidstop.ru/wp-content/uploads/stop.wmv’. This may be because there is no such file at this location or the video file is encoded incorrectly.
Место расположение правильное, кодировку проверил – не могу понять в чем проблема. плюнул бы и поставил на WordPress другой плеер, но мне нужен этот! HELP!
I’ve got some wmv files and need to publish them.
Installed that plugin, activated, but can’t even add video files (already uploaded by ftp) to a player’s library.
What can I be doing wrong?
WP 3.0.1
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