Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Source: Science 334(6056):666-670
Wrens are one of my favorite bird families. Our local representative is the Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) whose song resembles a pleasant car alarm [listen]. In a recent paper by Eric Fortune at al published in Science there are several recordings of Plain-Tailed Wrens (Pheugopedius euophrys) from South America singing what are obviously coordinated duets. I’d love to have these in my backyard!
A few years ago I was looking for a clean way to embed mp4 video into my blog. Prior to HTML5 the best approach was a Flash-based video player. Of course there is no Flash on iPhones and similar devices. Plus many people avoid Flash because of bugs and security concerns. So I modified this script so it defaults to JWPlayer when Flash is present…
…but degrades gracefully into a screen shot linked to the mp4 when Flash is absent…
…and displays the video in a separate window or helper app…
The code appears below. You must replace all the “V_” placeholders with specific information about the video. The path to the player software should be adjusted to match your configuration. The <div> ID should be unique on your site to prevent collisions. This setup assumes there is a jpg key frame file with the same V_NAME as the mp4. Make sure you adjust the size to suit your needs. I find that 320×240 works well embedded in a content area 500-600 pixels wide. The actual mp4 is 640×480, which looks pretty good even when expanded to full screen.
How does it work? Basically the script attempts to load the player and write the display code into the <div> container. If it fails, the default <div> contents are displayed instead (key frame and link). <smile>
<script src="/jw/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<div id="V_DIV" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="/wp-content/videos/V_NAME.mp4" target="_blank">
<img src="/wp-content/videos/V_NAME.jpg" alt="" />
</a><br />V_SIZE Mb Video
</div>
<script type="text/javascript"> var so = new SWFObject('/jw/player.swf','mpl','320','240','9');
so.addParam('allowfullscreen','true');
so.addParam('allowscriptaccess','never');
so.addParam('wmode','opaque');
so.addVariable('controlbar','over');
so.addVariable('autostart','false');
so.addVariable('file','/wp-content/videos/V_NAME.mp4');
so.addVariable('image','/wp-content/videos/V_NAME.jpg');
so.addVariable('title','V_TITLE');
so.addVariable('author','V_AUTHOR');
so.write('V_DIV');
</script>
[Note that if you cut and paste the code above you should remove most of the line breaks I added to make it display properly.]
