Since its release at NAB two years ago, Azure media Player has grown significantly in robustness and in richness of features. We have been working hard addressing feedback from our fantastic customers (that’s you!) to enhance and improve a player that everyone can benefit from. For AMP’s 2nd birthday I am incredibly excited to announce our first major release its initial; welcome AMP 2.0!
What’s new in AMP 2.0?
Advertisement support
Azure Media Player version 2.1.0 and higher supports the insertion of pre- mid- and post- roll ads in all your on demand assets. The player inserts ads in accordance to the IAB’s VAST standard and allows you to configure options like ad position and skipabilty. To learn more about video ads with Azure Media Player check out my blog post: Monetizing Your Content With Azure Media Player
A new skin
We released a new skin along with as a counterpart to “AMP-Default” called “AMP-Flush”. You can enable AMP flush by simply changing two point in your code:
1) update the CSS your application loads
from
<link href="//amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-default/azuremediaplayer.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
to
<link href="//amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-flush/azuremediaplayer.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
2) updating the class in your videotag
from
<video id="azuremediaplayer" class="azuremediaplayer amp-default-skin amp-big-play-centered" tabindex="0"> </video>
to
<video id="azuremediaplayer" class="azuremediaplayer amp-flush-skin amp-big-play-centered" tabindex="0"> </video>
making these changes should result in the following new skin:
A more accessible player
We are always working towards creating a more accessible and user friendly player. The team has been working hard to improve your experience with the player in use cases like:
- interfacing with assistive technologies (like JAWS or Narrator)
- playback in High Contrast mode
- navigating without a mouse (or Tab To Navigate)
New plugins
This release comes with some new plugins you can load from our plugin gallery as well as new functionality baked into the player like Playback speed (icon in the screencap above). The details for these new features and additional APIs can all be found in our documentation. You can utilize them to customize the player to support the playback scenario you want to achieve. Plugin development is a very community driven operation and if you have any questions about creating plugins, modifying the ones in the gallery, or contributing them to the player, please email me at saraje@microsoft.com
Making the Switch to AMP 2.0
Transitioning to AMP 2.0 is an incredibly simple process. Make sure to update your CDN endpoints to point to 2.1.0 like so:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://amp.azure.net/libs/amp/2.1.0/skins/amp-default/azuremediaplayer.min.css">
<script src="//amp.azure.net/2.1.0/amp/latest/azuremediaplayer.min.js"></script>
Providing Feedback
Azure Media Player will continue to grow and evolve, adding additional features and enabling new scenarios. You can request new features, provide ideas or feedback via UserVoice. If you have and specific issues, questions or find any bugs, drop us a line at ampinfo@microsoft.com.
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