Playlist Support for Single Video Players

In this topic you will learn how to use a hidden List component in a custom player template to create a player that you can program with a single playlist.

The standard Video Player template doesn't automatically support the ability to play through a lineup like its predecessor, the AS2 Single Title player, did. This popular capability allowed you to program an entire playlist to the Single Video Player in the Brightcove Console without the playlist appearing by default. You could then choose whether to display a custom playlist using JavaScript or Flash, or not to display it at all.

You can easily use BEML to re-create this functionality in a custom template. By adding a hidden List component you can assign a playlist to the player and it will automatically play through each of the titles in the hidden playlist. The playlist data can also be accessed in the Player API so you can build custom playlist navigation.

This template looks identical to the Video Player template, and because it's composed of the same components, it supports the same degree of customizable styles and sizing:

BEML Source

Here's the BEML code to create this template. Note the List element with the includeInLayout='false' attribute. That creates a component that provides the content of a playlist to the player, but the List component is not visible in the player.

To use this custom template, copy and paste this code into the "New Template" dialog in the Publishing module.

<Runtime>
  <Theme name="Deluxe" style="Light"/>
  <Layout>
      <VBox padding="3">
         <VideoPlayer id="videoPlayer" video="{videoList.selectedItem}" />
      </VBox>
      <List id='videoList' automaticAdvance='true' 
            visible='false'>
         <ListItem></ListItem>
   	 </List>
  </Layout>
</Runtime>