Video.js Blog

Steve Heffernan2010-11-09

1.1.5 Release - Subtitles using track, Android fix & more

  • Feature: Switched to track method for setting subtitles. Now works like spec.
  • Feature: Created players concept for defining fallbacks and fallback order
  • Fix: Android playback bug.
  • Fix: Massive reorganization of code to make easier to navigate

Ive switched the subtitles to use the new track element defined in the HTML5 spec. You can now add subtitles by creating a track element pointing to your WebSRTsubtitles source.

<video ...>
  <track kind="subtitles" src="../demo-subtitles.srt" srclang="en-US" label="English"></track>
</video>

The closing track tag is needed, otherwise Safari thinks everything else is a child of the track, even with a self-closing track tag. Not sure why that is, but its kind of annoying.

Also a fix for Android playback was added. Android HTML5 video is pretty rough. The canPlayType function returns nothing on Android so VideoJS has a check to see if the source is mp4/m4v, and assumes itll play. Then VideoJS adds a click event to the video so itll play when you touch it. Also the Android will show the poster image, but no indication that its a video and not just an image. Hopefully this will be improved in the next Android version.

Beyond that, I did a massive reorganization of the code, so it should be easier to navigate if youre planning to hack at it or contribute.

Download version 1.1.5