Brightcove Player Sample: Background Video

Player example

This example uses a Brightcove Player to display a background video without sound or player controls. Select the Pause/Play button to control video playback. Select the original article link to go to the company website.

See the Pen 18164-brightcove-player-sample-background-video by Brightcove Learning Services (@bcls1969) on CodePen.

Source code

View the complete solution on GitHub.

Using the CodePen

Here are some tips to effectively use the above CodePen:

Toggle the actual display of the player by clicking the Result button.
Click the HTML/CSS/JS buttons to display ONE of the code types.
Later in this document the logic, flow and styling used in the application will be discussed in the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and Application styling sections. The best way to follow along with the information in those sections is to:
1. Click the EDIT ON CODEPEN button in the CodePen and have the code available in one browser/browser tab.
2. In CodePen, adjust what code you want displayed. You can change the width of different code sections within CodePen.
3. View the Player/HTML configuration, Application flow and/or Application styling sections in another browser/browser tab. You will now be able to follow the code explanations and at the same time view the code.

Development sequence

Here is the recommended development sequence:

Use the In-Page embed player implementation to test the functionality of your player, plugin and CSS (if CSS is needed)
Put the plugin's JavaScript and CSS into separate files for local testing
Deploy the plugin code and CSS to your server once you have worked out any errors
Use Studio to add the plugin and CSS to your player
Replace the In-Page embed player implementation if you determine that the iframe implementation is a better fit (detailed in next section)

For details about these steps, review the Step-by-Step: Plugin Development guide.

iframe or In-Page embed

When developing enhancements for the Brightcove Player you will need to decide if the code is a best fit for the iframe or In-Page embed implementation. The best practice recommendation is to build a plugin for use with an iframe implementation. The advantages of using the iframe player are:

No collisions with existing JavaScript and/or CSS
Automatically responsive
The iframe eases use in social media apps (or whenever the video will need to "travel" into other apps)

Although integrating the In-Page embed player can be more complex, there are times when you will plan your code around that implementation. To generalize, this approach is best when the containing page needs to communicate to the player. Specifically, here are some examples:

Code in the containing page needs to listen for and act on player events
The player uses styles from the containing page
The iframe will cause app logic to fail, like a redirect from the containing page

Even if your final implementation does not use the iframe code, you can still use the In-Page embed code with a plugin for your JavaScript and a separate file for your CSS. This encapsulates your logic so that you can easily use it in multiple players.

API/Plugin resources used

API Methods	API Events
muted()	ended
paused()
play()
pause()

Player/HTML configuration

This section details any special configuration needed during player creation. In addition, other HTML elements that must be added to the page, beyond the in-page embed player implementation code, are described.

Player configuration

In Video Cloud Studio, navigate to the Players module. In the Settings section, select the Edit button and do the following:

Set the Sizing option to Responsive.
Set the Auto-Start on Player Load to Yes. You can also do this by adding the autoplay attribute to the video tag for the player code.

To the video tag for the player code, add the muted attribute. If you want the video to loop continually, you can also add the loop attribute.

Other HTML

HTML code was added to the page to define the Flamingos text block with a link and a Play/Pause button.

Application flow

The basic logic behind this application is:

When the video ends, set the Play/Pause button value to Play.
When the Play button is selected, start or resume video playback. When the Pause button is selected, pause video playback.

Set the Play button on video end

Find the code where which is labeled:

// +++ Configure video end +++

Listen for the player ended event, and set the Play/Pause button to a value of Play.

Add functionality to the Play/Pause button

Find the code where which is labeled:

// +++ Configure the Play/Pause button +++

Listen for the Play/Pause button click event. When the Play button is selected, start or resume video playback. When the Pause button is selected, pause video playback.

Application styling

The CSS positions the player to cover the entire background of the web page. It also positions and styles the text block which sits on top of the player.

Plugin code

Normally when converting the JavaScript into a Brightcove Player plugin nominal changes are needed. One required change is to replace the standard use of the ready() method with the code that defines a plugin.

Here is the very commonly used start to JavaScript code that will work with the player:

videojs.getPlayer('myPlayerID').ready(function() {
  var myPlayer = this;
  ...
});

You will change the first line to use the standard syntax to start a Brightcove Player plugin:

videojs.registerPlugin('pluginName', function(options) {
  var myPlayer = this;
  ...
});

As mentioned earlier, you can see the plugin's JavaScript code in this document's corresponding GitHub repo: background-video.js.

Using the plugin with a player

Once you have the plugin's CSS and JavaScript files stored in an Internet accessible location, you can use the plugin with a player. In Studio's PLAYERS module you can choose a player, then in the PLUGINS section add the URLs to the CSS and JavaScript files, and also add the Name and Options, if options are needed.