mb.YTPlayer for background videos

by pupunzi

Description

A Chrome-less Youtube® video player that let you play any YouTube® video as background of your WordPress® page or post.
You can activate it for your home page from the settings panel (no license needed) or on any post or page using the short code (need the Plus version) as described in the Reference section of the settings.

If you prefer to use a Vimeo video you can take a look at mb.VimeoPlayer WordPress plug-in

note:
If you don’t want ADs on your background video and you are the owner of it you can disable this on your Youtube channel as explained here: http://candidio.com/blog/how-to-remove-ads-from-your-youtube-videos .

demo: See the Youtube background video in action!
video: See a short video tutorial
pupunzi blog: Go to my blog
pupunzi site: Go to my site

This plug in has been tested successfully on:

Chrome 11+, Firefox 7+, Opera 9+ on Mac OsX, Windows and Linux
Safari 5+ on Mac OsX
IE7+ on Windows (via Adobe Flash player)

To set your homepage background video:

Go to the mbYTPlayer settings panel (you can find it under the “settings” section of the WP backend.
set the complete YT video url
set all the other parameters as you need.

You can also set it by placing a shortcode in the home page via the YTPlayer shortcode window (Plus version).
You can open it by clicking on the YTPlayer button in the top toolbar of the page editor.

To set a video as background of a post or a page:

Use the editor button or write the below shortcode into the content of your post or page (Plus version):

[mbYTPlayer url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2rifmjZuKQ” ratio=”4/3″ mute=”false” loop=”true” showcontrols=”true” opacity=1]

@ url = the YT url of the video you want as background
@ ratio = the aspect ratio of the video 4/3 or 16/9
@ mute = a boolean to mute the video
@ loop = a boolean to loop the video on its end
@ showcontrols = a boolean to show or hide controls and progression of the video
@ opacity = a value from 0 to 1 that set the opacity of the background video
@ id = The ID of the element in the DOM where you want to target the player (default is the BODY)
@ quality:
- small: Player height is 240px, and player dimensions are at least 320px by 240px for 4:3 aspect ratio.
- medium: Player height is 360px, and player dimensions are 640px by 360px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 480px by 360px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
- large: Player height is 480px, and player dimensions are 853px by 480px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 640px by 480px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
- hd720: Player height is 720px, and player dimensions are 1280px by 720px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 960px by 720px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
- hd1080: Player height is 1080px, and player dimensions are 1920px by 1080px (for 16:9 aspect ratio) or 1440px by 1080px (for 4:3 aspect ratio).
- highres: Player height is greater than 1080px, which means that the player’s aspect ratio is greater than 1920px by 1080px.
- default: YouTube selects the appropriate playback quality.

mb.YTPlayer Plus

With the Plus version you’ll get:

Remove the water-mark from the video
Set the video opacity
Set the video quality
Set the video aspect ratio
Set the video start point
Set the video end point
Show the control bar
Choose the full screen behavior
Set the starting audio volume
Choose if the video should start mute or not
Choose if the video should loop
Add a raster image over the video
Track the video views on Google Analytics
Choose if the player should pause if the windows blur
Add any YTPlayer video as background of any page or as backgraund of any element of your page enabling the short-code editor.
Use the YTPlayer to display a clean Youtube video as player (via short-code).

What about mobile

The mb.YTPlayer now works on mobile devices!
The video starts as soon the device screen is touched.

Installation

Extract the zip file and upload the contents to the wp-content/plugins/ directory of your WordPress installation, and then activate the plugin from the plugins page.

Screenshots

The settings panel.
You can add a video as background or targeted to a DOM element in any page or post by inserting a shortcode (Plus version) generated via the editor button.
The shortcode editor (Plus version).

Faq

I’m using the plug in as background video and I can see the control bar on the bottom but the video doesn’t display

Your theme is probably using a wrapper for the content and it probably has a background color or image. You should check the CSS and remove that background to let the video that is behind do display correctly.

Does it work on mobile devices

Yes! the only difference is that the background video starts once the device scrin is touched after the page has been loaded.

I would have an image on the background before the video starts and after the video end; how can I do?

The simplest way is to add an image as background of the body via CSS.

I set the video quality to hd1080 but it doesn’t display at this quality; why?

The video quality option is just a suggestion for the Youtube API; the video is served by Youtube with the quality that best fits the bandwidth and the display size according to that setting.

The video stops some seconds before the real end; why?

To prevent the display of the “play” button provided by the Youtube API the video intentionally stops some seconds before the end; if you are the owner of the video I can suggest to make it a little bit longer (about 3/4 seconds).

I love your plugin! What can I do to help?

Creating and supporting this plugin takes up a lot of my free time, therefore I would highly appreciate if you could take a couple of minutes to write a review. This will help other WordPress users to start using this plugin and keep me motivated to maintain and support it. You can also make a donation to support my work!

Reviews

Shortcode generator is in old classic WP TinyMCE!!

By momo-fr on October 4, 2023

I just purchased the PLUS version and I see that the shortcode generator is only present in the old Classic editor (nothing in the Classic Gutenberg block). It's a shame not to follow the evolution of WordPress. Be careful, this is a huge limitation which makes the plugin almost unusable.

Who wants someone elses email address shown on their website?

By r9000 on May 3, 2020

I understand having to pay extra for access to some settings, but displaying your email address on every page of my website with no option to hide it is crossing the line. Who would want this? It makes the free version worthless and nothing more than a demo.

Perfect for Divi

By Billarga on October 1, 2019

Great plugin and support!

Video just loops and loops

By mrrobot on February 23, 2019

Very simple to use and set up. For some reason the video default setting is set to loop. Maybe this is to annoy people to upgrade to pro, since that is the only way to easily disable it. I suggest using a different player.

don't work

By sielwolf on February 10, 2019

some js problem :-/ Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property '1' of null at getYTPVideoID (jquery.mb.YTPlayer.js?ver=3.2.4:40) at HTMLDivElement.<anonymous> (jquery.mb.YTPlayer.js?ver=3.2.4:424) at Function.each (jquery.js?ver=1.12.4:2) at a.fn.init.each (jquery.js?ver=1.12.4:2) at a.fn.init.buildPlayer (jquery.mb.YTPlayer.js?ver=3.2.4:336) at (index):132

Stable, flexible and easy

By eselsmann on May 5, 2018

I searched a while to find a way to enable YouTube video backgrounds which play also on mobile devices. This Plugin-In is great. I also purchased pro, which is absolutely worth it.

Shady developer

By thebestwp on March 7, 2020

DON"T update to the latest version if you have 2.x since you will LOOSE the ability to adjust the settings without paying for the "Pro" version. You can not trust this developer. An honest developer would WARN it's users that the new version will disable the previously free-functionality OR at LEAST allow users access previous versions.

great!

By clausrg on December 19, 2016

Great plugin working exactly as expected. Even the support is ok, Matteo is really kind, he answers the requests and fixes the problems in no time. The plus version of the plugin is very useful and sold for a very cheap price. Recommended!

A must have plugin

By pinutz on December 15, 2016

A must have and well done plugin. Very minimalistic and easy to set up. The support provided it goes beyond all expectations. Rock on Pupunzi!

Watermark after Update

By szoszk on December 12, 2016

Without any warning the plugin added a watermark to the video after updating it to Version 3.0.3. Without any possibility of a rollback (Versions <3.0.0 were removed from the SVN). I had to buy a 8€ license to remove it. Luckily I still had an older Version on my computer (2.0.9). Otherwise the Plugin does what it says quite well, that's what the extra Star is for. But with the Watermark now, I suggest you search for alternatives, or try your luck finding an older version online (pre 3.0.0).

Changelog

3.3.8

Bug fixing.

3.3.7

Fixed a fatal bug with the mb.ideas menu.

3.3.6

Feature: Updated to the latest js script.

3.3.5

Feature: Defined a better behaviour If you’ve set the autoplay option of a video that has the audio active: Instead of starting the video at the first user interaction with the page, now the video start playing mute and the audio is activated with the first user interaction.
Feature: The plugin now supports the https://www.youtube-nocookie.com host to remove the Youtube cookies.

3.3.4

Bug Fix: With the latest maOS Big Sur system update the User Agent has been changed and the OS detection was failing on Safari causing a blocking error.

3.3.3

Updated: with the latest mb.YTPlayer.js (3.3.4) that fixes a bug for mobile devices.

3.3.2

Updated with the latest mb.YTPlayer.js (3.3.3) that fixes a bug if the wrong YT API key is used.

3.3.1

Bug fix: there was a bug if the server was not allowing content from external urls.

3.3.0

Bug fix: On mobile Chrome browser the size of the background video was broken on orientation change.