Installation

0. Setup MIME-types
1. Install MediaElementJS
- Installation in WordPress
- Additional plugins
2. Add Script and Stylesheet
3. Add <video> or <audio> tags
4. Setup Player
5. Set default language (Optional)

0. Setup MIME-types (optional)

On Linux/Apache servers, create a file called .htaccess with the following text and upload it to the root of your website

# Video support
AddType video/ogg .ogv
AddType video/mp4 .mp4
AddType video/webm .webm
AddType video/ogv .ogv

# Audio support
AddType audio/mp3 .mp3
AddType audio/oga .oga
AddType audio/ogg .ogg
AddType audio/wav .wav

# For HLS support
AddType application/x-mpegURL .m3u8
AddType vnd.apple.mpegURL .m3u8
AddType video/MP2T .ts

# For M(PEG)-DASH support
AddType application/dash+xml .mpd

# For subtitles support
AddType text/vtt .vtt
AddType text/srt .srt

On Windows/IIS servers, please follow Microsoft's instructions on how to add/edit MIME types on IIS6 and IIS7.

If you are working with local files and plan to test Flash playback, make sure you go to the Flash Security Settings page and add your working directory. Also, things tend to work best when you use absolute paths.

If you want to make your media to play in Chromium browser, please read this document

For more information about how to set up a server to serve media properly and other general and useful topics about dealing with HTML5 video, this article is a good start point.

Do not compress media (mod_deflate or gzip), since it can lead to unexpected results, like headers not being passed correctly.

1. Install `MediaElementJS`

To get the default installation there are several different ways.

Download the package from https://github.com/mediaelement/mediaelement
Use a CDN reference; the most popular ones are jsDelivr and cdnjs.
Through GIT: git clone https://github.com/mediaelement/mediaelement.git
Through NPM: npm install mediaelement
If you are using Meteor: meteor add johndyer:mediaelement or meteor npm install mediaelement

Installation in WordPress

WordPress currently incorporates MediaElementJS as a part of the Embeds core package.

If you do not need this, just make sure you upgrade MediaElementJS in the theme(s) you are using, locate the player configuration, add the classPrefix: 'mejs-' element, and use the mediaelementplayer-legacy.min.css to avoid breaking styles for the theme.

However, if you want to bring the latest version and support the Embeds functionality, follow the next steps:

`wp-includes/js/mediaelement`

Just remove the entire content of the folder and Paste the content of the build folder from the latest version of MediaElementJS inside of it.
Download the wp-mediaelement.zip file, unzip it and move all its content inside the in the wp-includes/js/mediaelement folder.

`wp-includes/functions.php`

NOTE: WordPress has not approved this change officially, so do it under your own risk.

In the wp_check_filetype() method, add the following condition inside this loop:

foreach ( $mimes as $ext_preg => $mime_match ) {
   // Add this conditional
   if ($ext_preg === 'm3u8') {
       $ext_preg .= '.*';
   }

In the wp_get_mime_types() method, add the following MIME types:

'm3u8' => 'application/x-mpegurl',
'mpd' => 'application/dash+xml'

In the wp_get_ext_types() method, add the following extensions at the end of the video array:

'video' => array(..., 'm3u8', 'mpd')

`wp-includes/media.php`

NOTE: WordPress has not approved this change officially, so do it under your own risk.

In the wp_get_audio_extensions() method, add the following extension:

// This will allow us to play M3U8 files as audio only
return apply_filters(..., '.*?type=audio')

In the wp_get_video_extensions() method, add the following extensions:

return apply_filters(..., 'm3u8', 'mpd');

In the wp_audio_shortcode() method replace

if ( ! in_array( strtolower( $type['ext'] ), $default_types ) )

with:

if ( ! in_array( strtolower( $type['ext'] ), $default_types ) &&
     !preg_match('/' . implode($default_types, '|'). '/i', $type['ext']))

`wp-includes/script-loader.php`

Find the block:

$scripts->add( 'mediaelement', "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/mediaelement-and-player.min.js", array('jquery'), '2.22.0', 1 );

and replace all of that until you reach the end of the translations, with this:

$scripts->add( 'mediaelement', "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/mediaelement-and-player.min.js", array('jquery'), 'X.X.X', 1 );
did_action( 'init' ) && $scripts->localize( 'mediaelement', 'mejsL10n', array(
    'language' => get_bloginfo( 'language' ),
    'strings'  => array(
           'mejs.install-flash'       => __( 'You are using a browser that does not have Flash player enabled or installed. Please turn on your Flash player plugin or download the latest version from https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/' ),
           'mejs.fullscreen-off'      => __( 'Turn off Fullscreen' ),
           'mejs.fullscreen-on'       => __( 'Go Fullscreen' ),
           'mejs.download-video'      => __( 'Download Video' ),
           'mejs.fullscreen'          => __( 'Fullscreen' ),
           'mejs.time-jump-forward'   => [ __('Jump forward 1 second'), __('Jump forward %1 seconds') ],
           'mejs.loop'                => __( 'Toggle Loop' ),
           'mejs.play'                => __( 'Play' ),
           'mejs.pause'               => __( 'Pause' ),
           'mejs.close'               => __( 'Close' ),
           'mejs.time-slider'         => __( 'Time Slider' ),
           'mejs.time-help-text'      => __( 'Use Left/Right Arrow keys to advance one second, Up/Down arrows to advance ten seconds.' ),
           'mejs.time-skip-back'      => [ __('Skip back 1 second'), __('Skip back %1 seconds') ],
           'mejs.captions-subtitles'  => __( 'Captions/Subtitles' ),
           'mejs.captions-chapters'   => __( 'Chapters' ),
           'mejs.none'                => __( 'None' ),
           'mejs.mute-toggle'         => __( 'Mute Toggle' ),
           'mejs.volume-help-text'    => __( 'Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.' ),
           'mejs.unmute'              => __( 'Unmute' ),
           'mejs.mute'                => __( 'Mute' ),
           'mejs.volume-slider'       => __( 'Volume Slider' ),
           'mejs.video-player'        => __( 'Video Player' ),
           'mejs.audio-player'        => __( 'Audio Player' ),
           'mejs.ad-skip'             => __( 'Skip ad' ),
           'mejs.ad-skip-info'        => [ __('Skip in 1 second'), __('Skip in %1 seconds') ],
           'mejs.source-chooser'      => __( 'Source Chooser' ),
           'mejs.stop'                => __( 'Stop' ),
           'mejs.speed-rate'          => __( 'Speed Rate' ),
           'mejs.live-broadcast'      => __( 'Live Broadcast' ),
           'mejs.afrikaans'           => __( 'Afrikaans' ),
           'mejs.albanian'            => __( 'Albanian' ),
           'mejs.arabic'              => __( 'Arabic' ),
           'mejs.belarusian'          => __( 'Belarusian' ),
           'mejs.bulgarian'           => __( 'Bulgarian' ),
           'mejs.catalan'             => __( 'Catalan' ),
           'mejs.chinese'             => __( 'Chinese' ),
           'mejs.chinese-simplified'  => __( 'Chinese (Simplified)' ),
           'mejs.chinese-traditional' => __( 'Chinese (Traditional)' ),
           'mejs.croatian'            => __( 'Croatian' ),
           'mejs.czech'               => __( 'Czech' ),
           'mejs.danish'              => __( 'Danish' ),
           'mejs.dutch'               => __( 'Dutch' ),
           'mejs.english'             => __( 'English' ),
           'mejs.estonian'            => __( 'Estonian' ),
           'mejs.filipino'            => __( 'Filipino' ),
           'mejs.finnish'             => __( 'Finnish' ),
           'mejs.french'              => __( 'French' ),
           'mejs.galician'            => __( 'Galician' ),
           'mejs.german'              => __( 'German' ),
           'mejs.greek'               => __( 'Greek' ),
           'mejs.haitian-creole'      => __( 'Haitian Creole' ),
           'mejs.hebrew'              => __( 'Hebrew' ),
           'mejs.hindi'               => __( 'Hindi' ),
           'mejs.hungarian'           => __( 'Hungarian' ),
           'mejs.icelandic'           => __( 'Icelandic' ),
           'mejs.indonesian'          => __( 'Indonesian' ),
           'mejs.irish'               => __( 'Irish' ),
           'mejs.italian'             => __( 'Italian' ),
           'mejs.japanese'            => __( 'Japanese' ),
           'mejs.korean'              => __( 'Korean' ),
           'mejs.latvian'             => __( 'Latvian' ),
           'mejs.lithuanian'          => __( 'Lithuanian' ),
           'mejs.macedonian'          => __( 'Macedonian' ),
           'mejs.malay'               => __( 'Malay' ),
           'mejs.maltese'             => __( 'Maltese' ),
           'mejs.norwegian'           => __( 'Norwegian' ),
           'mejs.persian'             => __( 'Persian' ),
           'mejs.polish'              => __( 'Polish' ),
           'mejs.portuguese'          => __( 'Portuguese' ),
           'mejs.romanian'            => __( 'Romanian' ),
           'mejs.russian'             => __( 'Russian' ),
           'mejs.serbian'             => __( 'Serbian' ),
           'mejs.slovak'              => __( 'Slovak' ),
           'mejs.slovenian'           => __( 'Slovenian' ),
           'mejs.spanish'             => __( 'Spanish' ),
           'mejs.swahili'             => __( 'Swahili' ),
           'mejs.swedish'             => __( 'Swedish' ),
           'mejs.tagalog'             => __( 'Tagalog' ),
           'mejs.thai'                => __( 'Thai' ),
           'mejs.turkish'             => __( 'Turkish' ),
           'mejs.ukrainian'           => __( 'Ukrainian' ),
           'mejs.vietnamese'          => __( 'Vietnamese' ),
           'mejs.welsh'               => __( 'Welsh' ),
           'mejs.yiddish'             => __( 'Yiddish' ),
    ),
) );
$scripts->add( 'wp-mediaelement', "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/wp-mediaelement$suffix.js", array('mediaelement'), false, 1 );
$mejs_settings = array(
	'pluginPath' => includes_url( 'js/mediaelement/', 'relative' ),
        'classPrefix' => 'mejs-',
        'stretching' => 'responsive',
);

being X.X.X the latest version you want to install.

Remove $scripts->add( 'froogaloop', "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/froogaloop.min.js", array(), '2.0' );
Replace:

$styles->add( 'mediaelement', "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/mediaelementplayer.min.css", array(), '2.22.0' );

with:

$styles->add( 'mediaelement',  "/wp-includes/js/mediaelement/mediaelementplayer-legacy.min.css", array(), 'X.X.X' );

being X.X.X the latest version you want to install.

Additional plugins

If you want to install any of them, refer to the new plugins repository clicking here for more information.

2. Add Script and Stylesheet

<script src="/path/to/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="/path/to/mediaelement-and-player.min.js"></script>
<!-- Add any other renderers you need; see Use Renderers for more information -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/to/mediaelementplayer.min.css" />

If you wish to install the sources in different directories (i.e., all Javascript files in a js, all CSS in a styles, Flash shims in plugins, etc.), add the following CSS update after the mediaelementplayer.css reference (only if the images are not in the same folder as the stylesheet):

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/path/to/mediaelementplayer.min.css" />

<style>
.mejs__overlay-button {
    background-image: url("/path/to/mejs-controls.svg");
}
.mejs__overlay-loading-bg-img {
    background-image: url("/path/to/mejs-controls.svg");
}
.mejs__button > button {
    background-image: url("/path/to/mejs-controls.svg");
}
</style>

Also, update pluginPath within the configuration options (visit Usage and Tips and API and Configuration for more details) with the location of the Flash shims.

You can also use a CDN to load your script and stylesheet.

As stated above, the important factor is to set the pluginPath correctly, but also, for this scenario, you will need to set the shimScriptAccess configuration element as always to make the shims to work.

As an example:

$('video, audio').mediaelementplayer({
	// Do not forget to put a final slash (/)
	pluginPath: 'https://cdnjs.com/libraries/mediaelement/',
	// this will allow the CDN to use Flash without restrictions 
    // (by default, this is set as `sameDomain`)
	shimScriptAccess: 'always' 
	// more configuration
});

Check the content of mediaelementplayer.min.css (or if you decided to use the old styles, mediaelementplayer-legacy.min.css) to customize any CSS related to the player.

Also, as an example, visit this section to have an idea on how can you customize the look-and-feel of the player.

3. Add `<video>` or `<audio>` tags

Default setup

If your users have JavaScript and/or Flash, the easiest route for all browsers and mobile devices is to use a single file.

<video src="myvideo.mp4" width="320" height="240" type="video/mp4"></video>

or

<video width="320" height="240">
    <source type="video/mp4" src="myvideo.mp4" />
</video>

All the formats supported are listed in this table. Besides that, there are some additional attributes that can be added in the video/audio tag. Visit the Attributes section for more information.

Note: Although it is important to include their MIME type so the plugin renders the media accurately, some browsers like Firefox can display warnings in regards of unknown/custom MIME types. But they do not prevent the plugin to work properly.

Multiple codecs (Optional)

This includes multiple codecs for various browsers (H.264 for IE9+, Safari, and Chrome, WebM for Firefox 4 and Opera, Ogg for Firefox 3).

<video width="320" height="240" poster="poster.jpg" controls="controls" preload="none">
	<source type="video/mp4" src="myvideo.mp4" />
	<source type="video/webm" src="myvideo.webm" />
	<source type="video/ogg" src="myvideo.ogv" />
</video>

Browsers with JavaScript disabled (Optional)

In very rare cases, you might have a non-HTML5 browser with Flash turned on and JavaScript turned off. In that specific case, you can also include the Flash <object> code. For more information abput this approach, please read Video for Everybody! documentation.

<video width="320" height="240" poster="poster.jpg" controls="controls" preload="none">
	<source type="video/mp4" src="myvideo.mp4" />
	<source type="video/webm" src="myvideo.webm" />
	<source type="video/ogg" src="myvideo.ogv" />
	<object width="320" height="240" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="/path/to/mediaelement-flash-video.swf">
		<param name="movie" value="/path/to/mediaelement-flash-video.swf" /> 
		<param name="flashvars" value="controls=true&amp;poster=myvideo.jpg&amp;file=myvideo.mp4" /> 		
		<img src="myvideo.jpg" width="320" height="240" title="No video playback capabilities" />
	</object>
</video>

If you plan to use this approach, just remember that it will only work for native media types, and you can use mediaelement-flash-audio.swf (MP3), mediaelement-flash-audio-ogg.swf (OGA) or mediaelement-flash-video.swf (MP4, FLV, RTMP, M4V, etc.) shims for it.

Use of Closed Captioning (Optional)

The way to setup closed captioning is by using the track tag as follows:

<video width="320" height="240" poster="poster.jpg" controls="controls" preload="none">
    <source type="video/mp4" src="myvideo.mp4" />
    ... 
    <track src="subtitles_en.[srt|vtt]" kind="[subtitles|captions|chapters]" srclang="en" label="English">
    <track src="subtitles_es.[srt|vtt]" kind="[subtitles|captions|chapters]" srclang="es" label="Spanish">
    ...
</video>

This works perfectly on any browser that supports HTML5 natively; however, to make this work across browsers, an AJAX request is performed to parse the content of the subtitles file.

That's why is important to put the caption files in the same domain as the player is. Otherwise, the request of the file will be denied.

As a final note, to display closed captioning in iOS, they will need to be transcoded it in the video. To learn more about this topic, please read The Zencoder guide to closed captioning for web, mobile, and connected TV.

4. Setup Player

The easiest way to use the player is adding the class="mejs__player" to any <video>, <audio>, or <iframe> tags, and add the data-mejsoptions to configure it.

For more details and ways to set the player, please read the Usage section.

5. Set default language (Optional)

By default, all the strings in MediaElementJS are in English. If you wanna set a different language for them, you need to set the language code via mejs.i18n.locale.language before the player instantiation, and specify the language in the media container in the success callback.

Optionally, just can set the attribute lang in the <html> tag with the one you set before, to declare the default language of the text in the rest of the page as well.

<script>

    mejs.i18n.language('de'); // Setting German language
    
    $('audio,video').mediaelementplayer({
        success: function(player, node) {
        
        	// Optional
            $(player).closest('.mejs__container').attr('lang', mejs.i18n.language());
            
            $('html').attr('lang', mejs.i18n.language());
            
            // More code
        }
    });
</script>

Available languages:

Catalan (ca)
Czech (cs)
German (de)
English (en)
Spanish; Castilian (es)
French (fr)
Hungarian (hu)
Italian (it)
Japanese (ja)
Korean (ko)
Dutch (nl)
Polish (pl)
Portuguese (pt)
Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR)
Romanian (ro)
Russian (ru)
Slovak (sk)
Swedish (sv)
Ukrainian (uk)
Simplified Chinese (zh-CN)
Traditional Chinese (zh-TW)

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installation.md

installation.md

Installation

0. Setup MIME-types (optional)

1. Install `MediaElementJS`

Installation in WordPress

`wp-includes/js/mediaelement`

`wp-includes/functions.php`

`wp-includes/media.php`

`wp-includes/script-loader.php`

Additional plugins

2. Add Script and Stylesheet

3. Add `<video>` or `<audio>` tags

Default setup

Multiple codecs (Optional)

Browsers with JavaScript disabled (Optional)

Use of Closed Captioning (Optional)

4. Setup Player

5. Set default language (Optional)

Files

installation.md

Latest commit

History

installation.md

File metadata and controls

Installation

0. Setup MIME-types (optional)

1. Install MediaElementJS

Installation in WordPress

wp-includes/js/mediaelement

wp-includes/functions.php

wp-includes/media.php

wp-includes/script-loader.php

Additional plugins

2. Add Script and Stylesheet

3. Add <video> or <audio> tags

Default setup

Multiple codecs (Optional)

Browsers with JavaScript disabled (Optional)

Use of Closed Captioning (Optional)

4. Setup Player

5. Set default language (Optional)

1. Install `MediaElementJS`

`wp-includes/js/mediaelement`

`wp-includes/functions.php`

`wp-includes/media.php`

`wp-includes/script-loader.php`

3. Add `<video>` or `<audio>` tags