JW Player Module Advanced

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.8.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.8.6 :

In JW Player 7.8 HLS will be played in HTML5 as default in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge without the need to set a separate configuration.
This update comes on the heels of Chrome updating to turn all Flash into click-to-play.
JW 7.8 also adds support for autoplay on mobile, including a new interface element to unmute autostarted videos on mobile, as well as a FreeWheel advertising plugin.

Please Note: Since the player will now be rendering HLS streams in HTML5 in most browsers,
we suggest that you make sure the CORS headers on the domains hosting your streams are set up properly to allow your domain access.
Otherwise, your HLS streams may fail to play. Please see our Cross-domain File Loading support article for more information.

+ JW 7 : Streaming Updates

Added failover support to load the player via HTML5 when Flash is chosen as the primary setting but is blocked or not available
Added support for multiple audio track renditions using #EXT-X-MEDIA and TYPE equal to AUDIO in HTML5.
Added support for subtitles in HTTP Live Streaming using WebVTT with #EXT-X-MEDIA and TYPE equal to SUBTITLES in HTML5
Improved time to switch to a higher quality.
Updated UI to show bitrate when multiple adaptive qualities with the same width are present.

+ JW 7 : FreeWheel HTML5 Integration

Created built in FreeWheel Ad Manager for HTML5.
Added support for all primary use cases around ad formats, pre/mid/post-roll slots, analytics, Javascript creatives (Flash creatives are not supported).

+ JW 7 : Mobile Autoplay and UI

Added support for inline autoplay while muted on iOS and Android
Added mute/unmute button to controlbar on mobile
Provided the configuration autoplayadsmuted:true to allow ads to autoplay muted on mobile
Updated sharing overlay for improved usability at smaller player sizes

+ JW 7 : Sharing Overlay

Created small player and mobile-friendly overlay that scales based on player size
Removed video title that was previously being truncated for most title lengths
Removed Iframe/embed icon and text from overlay to reduce clutter
Removed URL text to reduce clutter in favor of a button that copies the URL

^ Used Classic xml list selection for JWPlayer version in backend, since folderlist Joomla issue hasnt been resolved since 3.6.0...

- Remove provider.caterpillar.js file
- Remove some old deprecated comment lines.
- Remove old code lines refer to vimeo as it's a deprecated product.
- Remove JWPlayer 5 as it's a deprecated product.
- Remove iscroll menu and library as it's a library attached to jwplayer 5 which is a deprecated product.

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.9.0 :

+ PHP 7.1 support, PHP mimimum 5.2.4.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.9.1.

In JW 7.9, the UI has been updated to embrace small player sizes on mobile and desktop.
Additionally, the Casting feature has been overhauled to handle both Google’s Chromecast and Apple’s Airplay.
Lastly, support for playback of 360 Video has been added - no additional plugin required.

+ UI Updates

Improved usability of controls at small player sizes:
Moved the timeslider above (instead of inline) the control bar buttons to make the timeslider more functional and reduce clutter in the control bar.
Moved the Play/Pause, Rewind, and Next buttons onto the player view.
Moved dock buttons closer to the top right corner.
Updated the controlbar during ad playback to have a fixed height and fit ad text in a single line.
Removed the video description text that was visible before media playback starts.
Display a countdown instead of the current time and duration at player sizes below 320px.
Added a configuration option timeSliderAbove that moves the timeslider above the control bar buttons at all player sizes.
Updated player controls on mobile so that users can tap on the view to hide/show the controls while paused to facilitate taking screenshots of the content being watched.
Overhauled premium skins to provide better consistency.

+ Casting Updates

JW 7.9 no longer uses the custom receiver application hosted by JW Player.
Instead, once casting is enabled the player will connect to the default receiver application hosted by Google.
Because of this, you no longer need to register an application ID with Google and all existing setups will function correctly.

The following changes have also been implemented:

AirPlay is now supported in Safari and iOS from within the Player.
Cast configuration options have been removed from the Dashboard.
Non VP9 DASH streams can be cast to Cast enabled devices.

+ Advertising Updates

Added configuration option vpaidcontrols for VPAID ads to force the controlbar to show.

+ Streaming Updates

Added support for Azure’s PlayReady AES functionality.
Performance improvements to HLS in HTML5.
Added support for playback of 360 Video. Both magic window and VR modes are supported when streaming a spherical 360-degree video.
Updated FreeWheel slot-end event handling.

- Remove some old deprecated comment lines.

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.10.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.10.5.

JW Player 7.10 supports more DASH streams and features likes DVR windowed live streams, multiple audio tracks, and improved subtitles.
7.10 also adds a viewability api method that you can use to get the viewability of the player or listen to events to determine if the player was viewable during that event.

+ Streaming Updates

Added ability to display language with captions and audio tracks with DASH
Added support for DVR with DASH
Added support for multiple audio tracks with DASH
Added bitrate to quality labels with DASH to differentiate between levels with the same height but different bitrate
Added support for custom quality labels
Made general improvements to DASH streaming
Made general improvements to HLS streaming
Improved handling of Live stream completion by showing the end state

+ Flash Version Update

JW Player 7.10.1 requires Flash 18 or higher. Previous versions required 11.2 or higher. The change allows us to restore hardware accelerated video playback for HLS with Flash with minimal effort.
This fixes various issues with DVR streams and IE11 memory usage. Flash Plugin 25 is the latest version. Flash Plugin 18 is the last version to receive LTS security patches. Enforcing this requirement ensures greater security on sites that use our player.
Players on systems with Flash 11.2-17.x will no longer be able to use Flash. "primary: flash" will be ignored on these systems and html5 playback will be required.

+ Viewability

Added viewability information to all events coming from the player API.
Added a getViewable() method that will return 0 if the player is less than 50% viewable or 1 if it is greater than 50%.
Added config option “autostart”: “viewable” which starts playback on desktop devices when the player appears in view rather than on page load or via user click.

+ UI

Added config option “nextUpDisplay”: false to disable the “Next Up” tooltip
Added config option "qualityLabels": Use this configuration option to apply a custom quality label to a desired bandwidth in kbps, works for HLS and DASH.
Added support for timeslider thumbstrips on mobile
Improved default styling of captions

+ Advertising Updates

Created a new on(adschedule) event that displays elements of a parsed VMAP prior to ad playback, specifically the schedule of ads that should play.
Updated the on(adimpression) event with information from a parsed VMAP that can be tied back to the on(adschedule) event
Enabled the IMA config option “setLocale” for skip button language localization via “locale”: “de” in the advertising block. Two-letter language codes should be used.
Added a config option custParams to the advertising block for VAST. This allows passing custom parameters to individual ad breaks.


+ General Updates

Improved handling of VMAP breakstart/breakend events
Added support for autoplay muted on iOS Chrome

- Remove some old deprecated comment lines.

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.11.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.11.2.

To optimize player performance, the UI is no longer packaged as part of the core player javascript in JW Player 7.11.0.
This decreases player load and setup time, especially when using controls:false,
which ultimately saves bandwidth and eliminates rendering of elements that are never used.

JW 7.11 also has some visual updates to the discovery overlay that improve performance and usability.
We have also extended HLS in HTML5 to IE 11 on Windows 8 and higher.

+ Updates

Moved player controls to its own script to be managed as its own module, or excluded to create a chromeless player, and updated the API accordingly.
Improved controlbar state transitions in the Seven skin by fading elements’ visibility.
Added functionality that seamlessly switches the controlbar UI when a manifest changes from live to DVR to VOD.
Changed the tooltip for the related playlist overlay to say “Discover” instead of “Related,” and updated its icon.
Added functionality that automatically displays the related playlist overlay after a video is paused for seven seconds.
Added ARIA labels to all buttons to be fully 508 compliant.
Updated captions support in Firefox and Internet Explorer to allow more styling control.
Improved captions rendering in IE11 and Firefox.

+ Advertising Updates

Improved VPAID 2 resizing in Vast plugin.

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 4.12.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.12.3.

Designed with publishers of education and sports media in mind, JW Player 7.12.0 introduces a new configuration option to enable playback rate controls.
When enabled, a tooltip menu in the control bar gives viewers the ability to control the playback speed of the video.
Publishers can choose to show our pre-set rates or to configure custom values between 0.25x and 4x.
Developers can also use the new API getter, setter and event listener to control the playbackRate.
This release also includes native caption and subtitle support for casting.

+ Improvements

Added the playbackRateControls configuration option to enable the playback rate menu in the controlbar. This allows viewers to control the videos playback speed. Publishers may use default or custom speed values. When playing HLS streams on Android Chrome or using Flash, the menu will be hidden due to unsupported functionality.
Added setPlaybackRate and getPlaybackRate API methods and a playbackRateChanged event listener.Note that this is not supported in Flash or Android Chrome with HLS streams.
Added support for embedded and sideloaded VTT tracks in the default Chromecast receiver. Captions style configuration options are also applied to the receiver.
VTT tracks must be loaded from the same domain as the media.
Set the video elements title attribute so that the media title displays on iOS and Android lock screens during playback.
Updated 403 error copy to You do not have permission to access this content.
Expose the PROGRAM-DATE-TIME from HLS manifests in the meta event.
Improved manual quality switching in DASH streams so that when a viewer chooses a higher quality, the switch happens immediately. If the viewer chooses a lower quality, the existing buffer is played, then the quality switch occurs.
Added a new API method, setConfig, to set multiple properties at once. The following properties are supported: repeat, autostart, mute, and volume.
Added HLSjs debug output to the player’s debug logs. This is automatically enabled when jwplayer.debug to true.
Added the viewable event, making it easier to control the user experience based on the player’s visibility. Previously, developers had to rely on the viewable property in other events (eg. time, play) to know when the players is above the fold in the active tab.
Expanded HLS.js usage to Edge. This significantly improves the viewing experience over the native playback of HLS streams. Users can expect to see a reduction in artifacts, better captions display, and support for captions styling.
Improved the user experience of the sharing overlay. It s now less intrusive at larger player sizes, allowing playback to continue while the viewer makes a selection from the newly redesigned sharing menu.
Added support for multi-track captions in DASH streams, allowing viewers to select any of the captions tracks specified in a DASH manifest.
Added support for custom license request filters with DASH streams using Widevine or PlayReady.
Shaka provider has been updated to version 2.1.4.

+ Advertising Updates

Updated the adError event to note not just the original tag supplied to the player, but all tags in a wrapped ad chain including the creative that errored
Updated the handling of the creativeTimeout config option to address all mediafiles, not just VPAIDs
Improved mapping of FreeWheel AdManager events to JW Player events
Added a configuration option to allow a publisher to supply their own FreeWheel AdManager URL
Added clickThroughURL parameter to the adImpression event for the VAST plugin for parity with the IMA plugin.
Added config option custParams to the adBreak block for the VAST plugin for parity with the IMA plugin.
For the VAST plugin, updated the onadSchedule event to display all schedules, not just schedules within a VMAP.
Updated the VAST plugin’s ad event order to be consistent with the IMA plugin and more representative of the VAST/VPAID specs.
Added support for the SpotX ad_mute 1 URL parameter with the IMA plugin.
Added support for VAST macros including [CACHEBUSTING], [ASSETURI], and [TIMESTAMP]

Upgrade !! (Only for the Advanced version the free one stay for now with JW6)


Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.0.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.0.0.

Introducing JW8

JW Player 8 is our fastest and easiest-to-use player to date.
This major release debuts a completely redesigned, mobile-optimized user interface that can easily be customized to brand your player.
JW8 features smart content preloading and a smaller embed script, so viewers never see a buffer wheel and experience faster page loads.
To continue to offer publishers industry-leading support, we now officially support Facebook Webview and VAST 4, and have deprecated Flash.

General Changes

Updated the default player size to 640px wide x 360px high.
Upgraded hls.js to version 0.8.4, which enhances the stability of HLS playback in the player and improves HLS stream support.
Changed the default provider for HLS content on Chrome for Android from HLSjs to HTML5.
The player will now show a center display icon when the player pauses itself due to a failed attempt to play the video, providing more visual indication to the viewer that they need to manually hit play again. This is especially helpful in response to Safari 11, where autoplaying videos with sound are automatically paused on playback unless the user has changed the default browser setting.
Added the Cardboard mode icon to the idle state, so that when available, viewers can enter 360 mode before starting the video.
Added the ability to instantiate a player and immediately begin playback from a click on an element. By calling setup() followed by play(), the user interaction on the element is propagated all the way through to the instantiated player, eliminating the need to interact with the player to start playing media after it’s setup.
Bundled the most frequently used combinations of player assets (controls, media providers, and browser polyfills) so that all the Javascript needed to begin playback can be provided in fewer responses.
Improved handling of player asset loading so that users get feedback more quickly when a plugin, component, or non-essential asset fails to load. In the case of non-fatal errors, the player will attempt to recover gracefully. If a required component fails to load, the player will fail to setup and the user will be notified within 20 seconds.
Separated the core player to make our embed script significantly smaller, shaving off more than 100kb that no longer needs to be loaded and parsed before the player is set up.
Updated the preload behavior so only the first player on the page or viewable players preload when preload is set to anything other than none.
Improved the preload: metadata setting so that the player loads the manifest and buffers a maximum of one segment of media for HLS and Dash streams. MP4 streams load metadata only.
Improved preload: auto so that the player loads the manifest and buffers approximately 30 seconds of media. MP4 streams load based on browser behavior when the preload: auto attribute is set.
Updated the default preload configuration to do preload: metadata when preload is not set.

Support

JW8 does not support JW7 license keys. JW Platform-hosted JW8 players will automatically have JW8 keys. For self-hosted players: Your JW7 license key will still work with your JW7 player embeds, but it will not work with JW8. Every account will provide both JW8 and JW7 versions of the license key.
HLS, DASH, 360, and casting are now all supported in all editions of the player, including the Free edition.
The recommendations plugin is no longer supported in the Premium edition.
YouTube and RTMP formats are no longer supported in the player.
Removed the Flash provider from the open-source jwplayer project. Flash is no longer supported in JW Player and is only used to play HLS streams in IE11 on Windows 7.

API Updates

Added a getEnvironment() API method, which provides an object containing all browser and operating system information decomposed from the user agent.
Deprecated the primary configuration option. Flash can no longer be defined as a primary provider. The player will choose the appropriate provider based on the environment it's in and the media type.
Deprecated all jwplayer().onEventName events, Browser/OS util methods and player constants that follow the pattern JWPLAYER_*.
Deprecated the ability to toggle the state simply by calling play() or pause(). This change makes play and pause behavior more predictable in the API. Going forward, calling play() while media is playing does nothing, as does calling pause() when the player is already paused.
Changed the configuration options and API for using playback rate controls. In JW8, playbackRateControls is a boolean that toggles the visibility of playback rates in the global menu. playbackRates, a new optional config property, accepts an array of numbers which overrides the default playback rate options of 0.5, 1, 1.25, 1.5, and 2. This improves upon the first iteration of the feature, released in 7.12, where playbackRateControls controlled both the menu’s visibility and custom playback rates. This change is backward compatible and will not affect JW7 players upgraded to JW8.
Created a backward compatibility script so that custom code written against deprecated API functionality will continue to work when a JW7 player is updated to JW8.

User Interface Improvements

The control bar now uses flexbox, which simplifies the DOM structure and css. Icons are no longer grouped in left, center, and right divs.
Consolidated all control bar icons that had their own menus into a single settings menu, accessible via the gear icon in the control bar. This includes quality, audio tracks, captions and playback rate controls. Captions still has a dedicated icon in the control bar for accessibility reasons. The sharing menu has also been added to the settings menu. Like captions, sharing has a dedicated control bar icon that opens the settings menu to the sharing sub-menu.
Removed webfont-based icons and replaced them with inline SVGs. The following icons have been redesigned for JW8: live, quality, buffer, error, and rewind 10 seconds.
Changed all dock icons from being positioned in the upper-right corner to the control bar. The addButton API now adds buttons to the control bar. These buttons will be added to the right of the logo if the logo is present in the control bar.
Improved the timeslider behavior so there’s a visual indication when a user hovers or scrubs to a new playback position. We’ve also increased the touch target to make it easier to engage with the timeslider on touch devices.
Leveraged the timeslider as a progress indicator during ad playback by making it visible and positioning it below the control bar icons.

Skins

Added 11 new skin customization options in JW8. If supplied, the three customization options that were available in JW7 (skin.background, skin.inactive, skin.active) will map to the new options in JW8. Note that there’s no mapping to the new skin.timeslider.rail option.
Deprecated all JW7 skins. JW8 debuts our all-new default skin featuring a transparent control bar, tooltips, and a modern interface, which carry over to ads and audio only modes.

Accessibility

Added tooltips that appear on hover or focus over any icon in the settings menu, which increases clarity for viewers.
Improved support for keyboard navigation in JW8. Users can tab to advance through buttons and menu options in the player, and use the enter key in lieu of a click to take action on any focused item. The escape key can be used to close overlays and menus.

Logos

Added a new logo position option, “control-bar”, which places the logo in the control bar with an optional clickthrough link. Note: currently, all logos in the control bar render in a square container. A future release will support rectangular logos.
Deprecated the timeSliderAbove configuration option since it will be the only layout in JW8.
Updated the default logo margins to be 20px from the sides of the player.
Added maximum dimensions for logos. The height or width of a logo will not exceed 15% of the player’s height or width. The player will dynamically resize logos to fit within the height and width constraints so as to not obstruct the video.

Advertising Updates

Included the Skip button in the vpaidcontrols configuration’s functionality for the VAST plugin.
Included the duration present in the VAST XML on the adImpression event.
JW8 dropped support for VAST 1 as it has been deprecated by the IAB and has extremely low usage and a high risk of causing ad errors.
Added MediaFile compliance metadata from VAST4 tags to Vast plugin API events, including the reason the tag was not compliant.
Updated our Vast plugin to support playback of VAST 4 ad tags.
The following VAST 4 metadata has been added to Ads API events: UniversalAdID, Categories, ConditionalAd, as well as compliance with IAB guidelines on MediaFile setup.
Added support for m3u8 MediaFiles in ad tags in our Vast plugin.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 7.12.9.

+ Advertising Updates JW 7

Added support for Skippable Ads on iOS, with the caveat that ads cannot be displayed in the device's native fullscreen.
Viewers encountering an ad in fullscreen will be forced out and will have to manually re-enter fullscreen.
Note: there is a known issue with this functionality with IMA in Facebook webview that the IMA team has identified and is aiming to patch in an upcoming release.

+ Add Joomla! Update System support, new edition upgrade of the Joomla extension will be now announce in the backend, the upgrade process still require to login and download on joomlarulez.com.

^ Used folderlist xml list selection for JWPlayer version in backend, since folderlist Joomla issue has been resolved.