Video.js 4.0 Improves Performance and Stability

Video.js 4.0 released in 2013 and was available for download on Github and hosted for free on our CDN. As background, Video.js is an open source HTML5 video player created by the team at Zencoder, which Brightcove acquired in 2012.

Video.js disrupted the market for open source video player technology and saw tremendous adoption and market share in just a few years. The free Video.js player has been used by tens of thousands of organizations, including Montblanc, Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel, Illy, Applebee’s, Mattel, Kellogg’s, Les Echos, US Navy, Aetna, Transamerica, Washington State University, and many others.

Version 4.0 received the most community collaboration of any previous version, which speaks to the growing strength of the JavaScript community, the growing popularity of HTML5 video, and an increase in Video.js usage. From 2012 to 2013, the number of sites using Video.js has more than doubled, and each month there are more than 200 million hits to the CDN-hosted version alone.

There are many new features in Video.js 4.0.

• Improved performance through an 18% size reduction using Google Closure Compiler in advanced mode
• Greater stability through an automated cross-browser/device test suite using TravisCI, Bunyip, and Browserstack.
• New plugin interface and plugin listing for extending Video.js
• New default skin design that uses font icons for greater customization
• Responsive design and retina display support
• Improved accessibility through better ARIA support
• Moved to Apache 2.0 license
• 100% JavaScript development tool set including Grunt

2013 will be an exciting year for Video.js, with more improvements to performance, multi-platform stability and customizability through plugins and skins. Members of the community have already started work on plugins for some of the more requested features, like playlists, analytics, and advertising.