Audio, Video: MediaElement.js Added to Core!

Now this is some big and very sweet news – audio and video support has been added to core, courtesy of the incredible MediaElement.js library.

John Dyer, the man behind MediaElement.js, is someone I’ve known for many, many years and is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met – I don’t say that flippantly or facetiously, he really is that smart.

But besides his brilliance he’s got a great heart – one that’s been giving back to the open source community for sometime. For his MEjs library to be included in core is a huge plug for not only his great work but also his philosophical ties. I couldn’t be more happy about this new addition!

Complete with shortcodes and embeds for you to choose from you’ll have a wide variety of markups to choose from:

At the core of the experience is the fantastic library, MediaElement.js. MediaElement is the facade layer that gives us maximum file support and cross-browser compatibility.

While some libraries require a Flash-only solution to make your media work cross-environment, MediaElement lets you use HTML5 audio / video tags in every browser, and, only when necessary, will use a Flash or Silverlight plugin in the background to make incompatible media work. Translation, things like this: <audio> tag works in old IE, Windows Media files work in Chrome.

MediaElement uses the same HTML markup, regardless of playback implementation, and you can use CSS to skin the players.

Themers won’t get left out either with structured post formats to use (try looking at Twenty Thirteen) such as the_post_format_audio() and the_post_format_video() to associate with a post and retrieve output.

Congrats to the team for making a great decision and thanks to John Dyer for contributing it for the world (literally) to use.