Using the HTML5 media player

What is the HTML5 player?

The original media player in previous versions of Multimedia Manager was built using Flash, a widely used technology standard at the time. As widespread as Flash has become, however, it's never been universally accepted. One major holdout has always been Apple's iOS-based devices: iPods, iPhones and iPads cannot display videos that are presented on a Flash-based player. Eventually, the HTML5 web technology standard began to displace Flash and quickly surpassed it in popularity. In order to maximize utility and to enable clients to display media content on as many devices as possible, Finalsite has shifted away from the legacy Flash-based player to the now firmly entrenched HTML5 player.

When is the HTML5 player used?

The HTML5 player is used whenever you embed video content from Multimedia Manager into a page or banner. 

When is the Flash player used?

The Flash player is only used when viewing a Flash file that has been uploaded to File Manager. Multimedia Manager now re-encodes Flash files in HTML5 when they're uploaded, but pre-existing Flash files can still be uploaded to File Manager. When editing a page in Page Manager, you can click the "Embed Media" button in the popup editor and select "Flash" from the dropdown menu. A File Manager window will open; navigate to the Flash file and click on it to embed it in your page.

When looking at the popup editor, you can tell if an embedded media object will be played using Flash or HTML5. Flash objects are yellow and have the Flash icon at the center, while HTML5 objects are blue with an orange HTML5 logo.