CoSolvent Player

CoSolvent Player was developed to support iPOV.net's eLearning and documentation services. Now, iPOV is offering it for general use. The player is highly configurable using a JSON syntax.

CoSolvent Player is an Adobe Flex application providing multi-clip video and animation playback on a Virtual Timeline.

 

 Introductory Offer

iPOV is offering the Professional CoSolvent Player at an introductory price of $60 per domain. As shown in our roadmap, iPOV plans to introduce several enhancements and addons over the coming months. When we feel that the overall product portfolio has reached our target configuration, we will increase the price to a list price of $95 per domain. However, customers that purchase at this introductory price will receive the full package of support, enhancements and addons.


Virtual Timeline :

More than just a standard playlist, the Virtual Timeline means that the CoSolvent Player can be configured to play multiple video clips as if they were a single movie. Mark in and mark out values may be configured for each video, allowing for fine-grained control over what is shown. Several clip segments can be pulled from a single video asset and played in any order, yet the asset is loaded only once.  Virtual Timeline

The Virtual Timeline configuration is resolved by the browser's Flash player at run time, allowing you to "single source" video without the need to edit together and host multiple variations of your videos.

Progressive Download :

CoSolvent player supports progressive download of both FLV and Flash video assets. Flash videos are free to include timeline animations and/or actionscript. Asset loading can be prioritized per video. In general progressive download will provide the most seemless experiecne for users.

Streaming Content :

For cases where streaming is preferred to progressive download, CoSolvent player supports playback of FLV and .h264 video through streaming servers such as Red5. See Technical Details for information about the pros and cons of both progressive download and streaming content.

Proxy for Flash 6 - 8 :

With the introduction of Flash 9, the existing Actionscript Virtual Machine was replaced with a new version, thus AVM1 and AVM2. AVM1 assets may be loaded into an AVM2 application, but communication then requires a proxy solution. CoSolvent player provides such a solution and thereby supports the use of Flash 6-8 files in combination with Flash 9.

Media Support :

Any combination of the following media types can be combined on an instance of the Virtual Timeline in any order.

  • FLV Video accessed via progressive download
  • FLV Video accessed via streaming (Red5 or FMS)
  • MP3 Audio
  • Flash 6 - 8 Animations (AVM1)
  • Flash 9 Animations (AVM2)

The Player can also display .h264 encoded mp4 video, but only as a stand-alone clip. We are currently working to add support for .h264 to the virtual timeline.

Currently, Flash SWF animation support is limited to timeline-based media (i.e., movies, shapes and tweens). The SWF can contain Actionscript, but the CoSolvent Player cannot override the embedded code. This may or may not cause some unexpected behaviors. iPOV is working on ways to 'harden' the player against some of these effects.

Many SWF movies are effectively 'logical formats' that have event-driven animations. As a general rule, support for logical formats (e.g. duration estimation) must be negotiated between the player and the content (e.g., through an addon). iPOV has plans to introduce addons for selected known, generic logical formats (e.g., output from Adobe Captivate).

For more details on SWF behavior and logical formats please see our FAQ or post questions and suggestions to our Forums.

Multiple Video Resolutions:

The player will automatically size the Flash stage to accomodate source material of varying dimensions. The builtin behavior is to size to the largest video and center smaller content. We plan on providing for configuration of this behavior in the near future.

Skins :

We take a minimalist approach for the visual design of the player. Currently, the skin shown below is the default. As a part of our roadmap, we will be modularizing this skin as well as three others, and we also plan to provide custom theming options.


CoSolvent player simple skin
XML Annotations :

XML annotations provide the following capabilities:

  • Subtitles - display subtitles to the user in an interactive panel, supports embedded metatags 
  • Markers - supply a named marker for a point on the timeline, this name can then be referenced as a target for an action
  • Actions - perform actions at predefined points along the timeline
  • Interactions - allow the user to interact with a widget in order to perform a specific action

Annotations can accompany either specific videos or any portion of the virtual timeline. Annotations are represented in a relatively simple XML dialect which is described by a relaxNG schema.

 

These features are only available in the Professional version of the CoSolvent Player.