Accessibility
Adobe Media Player

Adobe

 

Created:
18 August 2008
User Level:
Intermediate
Products:
Media Player

Distributing content in Adobe Media Player using a website badge

Note: The following article is adapted from the Adobe Media Player 1.5 Content Developer Kit, available for download from the Adobe Media Player Developer Center home page.

You can place an Adobe Media Player download badge on your content websites and associate it with shows that you want viewers to access with Adobe Media Player. When viewers visit your websites and click the badge associated with one of your shows, the badge:

  • Prompts the viewer to install Adobe AIR (if AIR is not already installed on the client).
  • Prompts the viewer to install Adobe Media Player (if AIR is already installed and Adobe Media Player is not already installed on the client).
  • Launches Adobe Media Player after installation of AIR and Adobe Media Player is complete and prompts the viewer to indicate whether to add the associated show to My Favorites.

If you have a contractual relationship with Adobe, you receive a "publisher bounty" when a viewer installs Adobe AIR and Adobe Media Player by clicking on the Adobe Media Player download badge on your website. (A publisher bounty is a special consideration for helping to distribute Adobe Media Player.) If a user downloads Adobe Media Player from an Adobe site, the publisher bounty does not apply. To enable the publisher bounty, you need to become an Adobe partner. For more information, contact the Adobe Strategic Alliance Team.

This article focuses on just the basic badge setup for distributing your content in Adobe Media Player without a contractual relationship with Adobe.

Requirements

To make the most of this article, you need the following software:

Adobe Media Player

Sample files:

Prerequisite knowledge

This article assumes reasonable familiarity with HTML, JavaScript, and XML.

Custom Adobe Media Player badge usage guidelines

Your use and creation of a custom download badge is for the sole purpose of providing access for downloading Adobe Media Player software, subject to the following:

  • Your badge must always be an active link to the Adobe Media Player product page (www.adobe.com/products/mediaplayer), the Adobe Media Player download page (www.adobe.com/go/amp_install) on the Adobe official website, or an Adobe authorized Adobe Media Player software download page on a company intranet or local network.
  • Your use may not be obscene or pornographic, and may not be disparaging, defamatory, or libelous to Adobe, any of its products, or any other person or entity. You may not link to www.adobe.com from a website that is obscene or pornographic, or disparaging, defamatory, or libelous to Adobe or any of its products.
  • Your use may not directly or indirectly imply Adobe sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your product or service.
  • Your use may not infringe any Adobe intellectual property or other rights, may not violate any state or federal laws, and must comply with international IP laws.
  • You may not create a frame or border environment around Adobe content.
  • You may link to, but may not replicate, Adobe content.
  • You may not present false or misleading information about Adobe products or services.
  • Any reference to Adobe, its products, and its website must comply with the general trademark guidelines found at www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html#general.
  • You may not use the Adobe corporate logo or any other Adobe logo or graphic to link to www.adobe.com or any other Adobe owned web page.

How to set up a badge on your website

  1. Integrate the badge HTML sample provided in Listing 1 into the HTML of your website and then upload it to your server.

    Note: When modifying the badge HTML file, ensure that it points to the Adobe-hosted version of Adobe Media Player.

  2. Create a setup OPML file to define the shows you want to distribute in Adobe Media Player and then upload it to your server.

Describing the badge parameters

Table 1 describes the specific parameters used by the badge. Some of these are common parameters that need to remain fixed and consistent for Adobe Media Player. Table 2 describes other badge parameters you can customize for your specific content.

Table 1. Common AMP badge parameters

Parameter Value Notes
appurl http://www.adobe.com
/go/amp_install
AMP installer on adobe.com
appname Adobe Media Player 1.1 Appears as a message to the viewer on the badge on your site about the name of the application that will be installed or launched.
airversion 1.1 Specifies the version number of the AIR runtime to be installed, if needed, as part of the badge setup process.
requiredMajorVersion 9 Flash Player version number needed for badge to function correctly in the browser.
requiredMinorVersion 0 Flash Player minor version number needed for badge to function correctly in the browser.
requiredRevision 115 Revision of Flash Player required for badge to function correctly in the browser.

Table 2. Custom badge parameters for your website and content

Parameter Value Notes
imageurl Arbitrary URL; for example, http://mysite.com/badge/
mybranding/myshow-icon.jpg
URL to branding image that renders as the primary artwork on the badge on your site. This can be a SWF file as well if that's preferred.
invparam Arbitrary URL; for example, http://mysite.com/badge/setup.xml URL to the OMPL setup file that specifies the MRSS feed URLs for the shows your badge will add to AMP.

Creating and modifying HTML to enable your badge on a web page

Integrate the badge HTML template page and setup.xml file, customizing them to include the parameters and settings you want to use, and then upload them to your server. The code in Listing 1 is dependent on two JavaScript files. You can find these in badge_installation.zip linked to at the beginning of this article.

Because the variables for your image URL and setup OPML file are defined as global variables in the HTML file, you will not need to update the InstallBadge.js file with your unique values.

Note: The image file should be a URL. Also, ensure that the image is illustrative of your branding, and the branding of the shows you are adding to Adobe Media Player using the badge.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html" charset="UTF-8" />
<title>My Website for Showing Distribution in Adobe Media Player</title>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Begin global parameter declaration and initialization. -->
// Globals
<!-- Flash Player version detection -->
// Major version of Flash required
var requiredMajorVersion = 9;
// Minor version of Flash required
var requiredMinorVersion = 0;
// Minor version of Flash required
var requiredRevision = 115;
// AIR version and AMP specific variables
// AIR Version Required
var airVersion = "1.0";
// AIR Application Name
var airApplicationName = "Adobe Media Player";
// AIR Application URL
var airApplicationURL = "http://www.adobe.com/go/amp_install";
<!-- Your publisher-specific branding -->
// You are adding this content to Adobe Media Player.
// AIR Application Image
var airApplicationImage = "http://mysite.com/badge/myshowbadgelogo.jpg";
// Optional: Refers to the shows you are adding to Adobe Media Player with this badge.
var invparam = "http://mysite.com/badge/setup.xml";
<!-- End global parameter declaration and initialization. -->
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="flashContent">
<!-- This following JS include is used for generic inline SWF support. The source -->
<!-- code for this include is an important "best practice" and can be found in the -->
<!-- article that is listed and linked following this sample. To use the JavaScript -->
<!-- files, create, deploy, and reference them using the appropriate URLs, as shown -->
<!-- below. -->
<script src="http://mysite.com/badge/AC_RunActiveContent.js" language="javascript"></script>
<!-- The following JavaScript code is the Installer JavaScript code that implements -->
<!-- functionality that is required for the badge to work. An example of the source -->
<!-- code is listed below. To use this, you must create a file from the sample code -->
<!-- and deploy it. Then reference your own appropriate URL as shown here. -->
<script src="http://mysite.com/badge/InstallBadge.js" language="javascript"></script>
<!-- Following is a "noscript" block for users who have JavaScript disabled. This -->
<!-- is the same functionality that is implemented by the InstallBadge.js code. -->
<!-- Optional: Adobe provides this so the functionality can work for those web -->
<!-- users that have JavaScript disabled in their browsers. The noscript block -->
<!-- also refers to the values of the variables defined above. They must be updated -->
<!-- accordingly when the variables are modified. Specifically, the values that -->
<!-- must be updated are:
<!-- * appname: This corresponds to the airApplicationName value. Note: The "space" -->
<!-- character within a string must be replaced with the "%20" string. -->
<!-- * appurl: This corresponds to the airApplicationURL value. This usually refers -->
<!-- to a goUrl hosted by Adobe. -->
<!-- * imageurl: This corresponds to the airApplicationImage value. -->
<!-- * invparam: This corresponds to the invparam value. Note: Omit this parameter -->
<!-- if the invparam value is empty. -->
<!-- * airversion: This corresponds to the airVersion value. -->
<noscript>
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version
=8,0,0,0" width="217" height="180" id="badge" align="middle">
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="all" />
<!-- The following parameter is a specific goURL that points to the common badge -->
<!-- SWF file on adobe.com that can be used by all partners. In the JavaScript -->
<!-- include case, this goURL to the badge SWF is in included in the JavaScript -->
<!-- code. -->
<param name="movie" value="http://www.adobe.com/go/mp_partner_badge" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" />
 
<!-- The following parameter is important to customize for your deployed URLs. -->
<param name="FlashVars" value="appname=Adobe%20Media%20Player&appurl=http://www.adobe.com/go/amp_install&airversion=1.0&buttoncolor=00FF00&messagecolor=FF0000&imageurl=http://mysite.com/badge/myshowbadgelogo.jpg&http://mysite.com/badge/setup.xml"/>
<!-- Embed a tag version with the object tag parameters from the preceding example. -->
<embed src="http://www.adobe.com/go/mp_partner_badge" quality="high" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="217" height="180" name="badge"
align="middle" allowScriptAccess="all" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"
FlashVars="appname=Adobe%20Media%20Player&appurl=http://www.adobe.com/go/amp_install&airversion=1.0&buttoncolor=CC0000&messagecolor=000000&imageurl=http://mysite.com/badge/myshowbadgelogo.jpg&http://mysite.com/badge/setup.xml"/>
</object>
</noscript>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Listing 1. A complete badge HTML page

Creating and modifying the setup OPML file

The setup OPML file is used to specify the specific MRSS feeds you want the badge to add to AMP from your website. Listing 2 shows a basic sample.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<opml version="1.0" xmlns:amp="/amp/1.1">
<body>
<outline amp:primaryShow="true" xmlUrl="http://www.foo.com/fooshow/feeds/adobe/BB.xml" />
<outline xmlUrl="http://www.foo.com/fooshows/feeds/adobe/foo1.xml" />
<outline xmlUrl="http://www.foo.com/fooshows/feeds/adobe/foo2.xml" />
<outline xmlUrl="http://www.foo.com/fooshows/feeds/adobe/foo3.xml" />
<outline xmlUrl="http://www.foo.com/fooshows/feeds/adobe/foo4.xml" />
</body>
</opml>

Listing 2. A basic sample OPML specifying the MRSS feeds you want

Once you have posted this setup file to your website, ensure that the invparam value is pointing to this URL. Additional parameters you can configure in the OPML file are covered in the "Bounty Install" section of the CDK.

Testing your badge

Once you've got this posted, you should test drive the experience in the following conditions:

  • AIR or Adobe Media Player already on your system: Adobe Media Player should launch if needed and just prompt to add the Shows from your website to My Favorites.
  • Clean system—no AIR or Adobe Media Player installed: Both AIR and Adobe Media Player should be installed automatically, and then your shows will be added to My Favorites.

If those two cases work, you should be ready to start marketing the availability of your content in Adobe Media Player from your website.

If there are problems, it's most likely that some of the URLs to your assets and files are incorrect. That's the first place to check.

Optimizing the user video experience

To ensure that you are creating the best video viewing experience for your users, Adobe provides guidance on how to best encode and deliver your content within Adobe Media Player, including:

  • Optimizing video encoding for streaming video at different bit rates
  • Optimizing video encoding for users with differing computer CPU capacities

For detailed instructions on best encoding practices, see the Flash Media Live Encoder documentation.

Responding to content flags

In Adobe Media Player, users can flag shows in the Catalog if they have a concern about whether the content is appropriate. Using the Report a Concern button on the Show Information tab, users can select from the following Reasons For Flagging content options, and provide additional detail on their content issue:

  • This content is offensive
  • This content is explicit and not marked so
  • This content is in my feed but I'm not the one who added it
  • This content is in copyright violation

Flagged shows are reviewed by Adobe Media Player administrators. Adobe will contact content publishers whose shows have been flagged if:

  • A user reports an offensive issue about a show or episode, and after review Adobe determines that the content is illegal. In this case, Adobe removes the entire show and notifies the content publisher.
  • A user reports an offensive issue about a show or episode, and after review Adobe agrees with the report. Adobe then asks the content publisher to remove the offensive content from the Feed or Enhanced Playlist. If the content publisher does not respond to an Adobe request within five business days, Adobe disables the entire show.
  • A user reports an issue with a show or episode being explicit, but it is not marked as such. Adobe asks the content publisher to update the Feed or Enhanced Playlist with the "adult" flag. If the content publisher does not respond within five business days, Adobe disables the entire show.
  • A user reports a copyright issue with a show or episode, they are directed to submit a formal written complaint to the Adobe legal department. Adobe Media Player directs the user to adobe.com/go/learn_mp_copyright for instructions on how to do this.

Illegal content is not allowed in Adobe Media Player, and explicit content must be marked as such using the following code:

<media:rating scheme="urn:simple">adult</media:rating>

Where to go from here

For instructions on installing the AIR badge, see the documentation: Enabling badge installation and publisher bounties.

About the author

This content was authored by Adobe Systems, Inc.