Alternative Players

Alternative Players - which should I use?

With so many different operating systems and browser combinations out there, it's difficult/impossible to find a "one-size-fits-all" player which is ideal for everyone. For that reason, we have several different players available.

• Generally, we currently recommend the Brid.tv player.

• If you are seeing "Video Error" frequently, then the new hls.js player might be a good option.

• The Flussonic Old Std player is also worth a look.

Here is a list of all the players and their pros & cons :

Brid.tv - This is our default/standard player.

Pro ... very compatible and works on most devices.

Pro ... short-term rewind feature

Con ... not good with streams which have glitches or if you are on a slow connection - tends to stop and display "Video Error"

Flussonic - Our old standard player.

Pro ... more tolerant of glitchy streams than Brid.tv

Pro ... scroll-to-zoom feature - a form of digital zoom on the streams

hls.js - Our newest player

It's early days on this, but it seems ....

Pro ... tolerant of glitchy streams - will usually restart after a blip

flowplayer - an oldie but goldie

Pro ... a good all-round player which some users find useful.

Con ... hls.js seems to be a better alternative now

HDW Player

This will be removed in the near future. It was retained for old browsers which used Flash. All modern browsers abandoned Flash for security reasons a long time ago, and Adobe themselves have now discontinued it.

Pro ... The only option for Internet Explorer / Flash.

Con ... Internet Explorer / Flash have passed their sell-by date. It's time we all moved on...

Flussonic Low Latency - not recommended for most users

Pro ... cuts the streaming delay to a minimum - so you are watching in almost real-time

Con ... streaming delay is there for a reason; it enables the player to recover when the data stream is briefly interrupted. The low latency player is therefore likely to stutter and stall unless everything in the chain is running 100% perfectly.

Con ... it places more load on your device and on our server