How to install JW Player 6

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JW Player is an open source, lightweight, versatile media player for self-hosting video content on your website. JW Player is free for non-commercial use and comes with out-of-the-box features like analytics and support for HTML5 playback.

Unlike sourcing your videos directly from YouTube or Vimeo, JW Player provides otherwise missed SEO opportunities like the Video Thumbnail Rich Snippet for example.

The 6th Version of JW Player comes with some great new features and you’ll be pleased to know it’s just as easy as ever to install. It’s still free for non-commercial use – however we’ve noticed in the free version the JW Watermark is a little more intrusive and persistent.

Commercial-use pricing has also changed from  the one-off fee, to annual licensing of about £100 per year, or £200 for a premium license for up to 10 sites. Nevertheless, JW Player is still a fantastic solution in the right circumstances.

The two JS files for the head

In the video I highlight the two different JavaScript files that you need to run within the <head> of your web pages that are going to be showing videos. The second of the two, contains a tracking license key for enabling the built-in JW Player statistics, however this is not mandatory:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jwplayer/jwplayer.js" ></script>
<script type="text/javascript">jwplayer.key="ABCDEFGHIJKLMOPQ";</script>

The inline JS and empty container

Below is the HTML and inline JavsScript you need for embedding a video onto each page. You’ll also find the additional elements we used in the video, such as title, width and height:

<div id="myElement">Loading the player...</div>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            jwplayer("myElement").setup({
                file: "jwplayer/video.mp4",
                image: "jwplayer/poster.jpg",
                title:"Example Video Title",
                width:692,
                height:389
            });
        </script>

Looking to install JW Player 5.7?

We’ve recently updated this video tutorial to JW Player 6, however you can still find our JW Player 5.7 Tutorial on YouTube here.

Using WordPress?

It’s also worth noting that the guys over at LongTailVideo have built a fantastic WordPress extension for using JW Player 6.