Video Player status update

[Justin Obara]

We are preparing to start our final round of testing before the initial 0.1 release of the Video Player. 

A full list of issues affecting the Video Player can be found in our issue tracker.
http://issues.fluidproject.org/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20VP%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved%20ORDER%20BY%20priority%20DESC

With the Video Player only moving to its initial release, there are still a number of issues that have yet to be addressed.

Captions:

Currently, whenever we need to use a flash player to present the video, we are unable to show captions. This is most evident in IE 8, which does not have any native video support, Firefox when trying to show .mp4 formatted videos, and anytime a YouTube video is used. Users will still be able to use the transcripts while watching the video.

An additional feature we will add in a coming release will be to automatically query Amara for video transcripts. At the moment, integrators will have to supply the transcript URLs directly to the component. 

Our current strategy for using Amara captions in the Video Player involves creating a data url using captions fetched from Amara. One issue that we have not addressed is that Webkit based browsers currently do not support data URLs for captions. This means that users will not be able to use Amara captions in Webkit browsers.

Full Screen:

Neither IE 8 or IE 9 currently support the full screen api, as such, the Video Player will not provide the option in these browsers. Additionally, the flash player has issues with launching into full screen. If a youtube video is played, in browsers that support full screen, the Video Player can be put into full screen mode, but the video will only be displayed in the top left corner at the original resolution.

UIO Integration:

The 0.1 release will come with a first pass at integrating into UI Options. This will be modified and expanded in conjunction with future upgrades to UI Options itself and the Video Player. There are currently a couple of outstanding issues with the implementation as it stands. When setting the button size or the language preference, the changes take effect immediately and correctly. However, after refreshing or reloading the page, there are some issues. For button sizes, they revert back to the original size. For the transcripts, the language is set correctly, but the select box in the transcripts is incorrect.

Localization:

While the Video Player currently supports localization through string bundles, they are currently spread across several locations. This means, while possible, it will be a less than ideal experience to modify all the of the strings.

Thanks
Justin