Viewing EchoVideo media requires a player with a variety of tools and buttons that let you customize your playback experience. In some cases, you will also have options beyond playback. Basic use of the player is addressed in this article, with additional information available in Using the Media Player Tools and How the Copyright Appears in the Player.

When you first see (embedded in a page) or launch the player (clicking a link), the player shows a title bar, a playback control bar, and an overlaid Play icon, as shown in the figure below. If you have viewed part of this media before, you will also see a Start Over button below the Play icon, which lets you restart playback from the beginning.

If the player isn't working correctly, follow the steps below:
1. Launch Google Chrome.
2. Select the 3 vertical dots and then Settings.
3. Click System.
4. Enable the toggle for Use graphics acceleration when available.
5. Restart Google Chrome.

The figure above shows the new player embedded within an LMS / VLE content window. The same player and its controls also appear in the public player (via a link generated for the media), but options such as Discussion do not.

The figures in the next section below do show the public player. Controlling playback of the media works the same way in all locations.

Player Controls

The control bar at the bottom of the player contains all the controls necessary for video playback, including play / pause, skip forward / back, show / hide transcripts, and speed options, among others. The control bar and title bar will fade out after 3 seconds (if no controls are in focus for keyboard access) and reappear on mouse movement over the player.

The following figure highlights the controls on the left side, which are described below the figure, in the order in which they appear, from left to right:

• Use the Play / Pause button to control the playback of the content.
  You can also click anywhere within the player to play / pause content.
• Use the Skip Back and Skip Forward buttons to fast-forward or rewind by 10-second increments.
  You can also click a location in the playback timeline to move the playback to that location.
• The volume control button and slider let you adjust playback volume, including clicking the icon to mute playback.
• The video timestamp shows the current playback position and the total length of the media.

The following figure highlights the controls on the right side, which are described below the figure in the order in which they appear, from left to right:

• The Transcript button works like a toggle to show / hide the transcript panel. It is disabled (gray) if the media does not have a transcript.
  If the media is inside a frame (i.e., on a webpage or an LMS / VLE page), clicking the Transcript button opens the media in a new tab. This is called the Full Tab view and is discussed briefly below and in more detail in Using the Media Player Tools.
• The Layout button appears only if the media contains two visual streams, such as a video of the lecturer and the computer display. Input sources can still be changed from within the Settings menu.
  
• The CC (closed captions) button works like a toggle to show / hide the closed captions for the media. Like the Transcript button, it is disabled (gray) if the media lacks closed captions.
  Use the Settings menu option for subtitles / CC, described below, to control how the captions appear

• Use the Speed menu to change the speed of playback. You can playback the video at .25 (quarter) speed up to 2x speed, or anywhere in between, at .25 intervals.

  EchoVideo cannot support all 3rd party speed controller plugins. The player's built-in variable speed playback (VSP) should be used and controlled with the existing keyboard shortcuts.

• Click the Settings button to open a menu of playback options as shown in the following figure and described below.
• Use the Quality selection menu to change from the default Auto bandwidth option to select between Full or Lower bandwidth, as is necessary for your network speed / connection.
  • The Subtitle / CC selection menu shows closed captioning options, including position, contrast, and size.
    If you are authenticated (EchoVideo knows who you are), your CC settings are retained and applied to all your EchoVideo media views when you select to show closed captions.
  • The Shortcut Keys option is visible in the Full-Tab Player and opens a list of the available shortcut key controls.
  • The Heatmap option (not shown above) allows you to toggle on or off an overlay that indicates the areas of the media that have been viewed more and less often (as a relative graph). The Heatmap button does NOT appear for media viewed outside of EchoVideo (e.g., embedded media or public links).
  • The Chapters option allows you to navigate between Chapters, if available.
  • The Sources option allows you to make sources visible by changing the toggle for each available source.
  • The Copyright option lets you select the applied Copyright Policies to read the full terms for them.
  • Lock Overlays prevents the player and title bars from hiding when no movement is detected over the player window.
  • The Share Your feedback option navigates to our Customer Feedback Portal (Canny), allowing you to leave feedback or Feature Requests.

• The Fullscreen button opens the media in full-screen mode.

  Once clicked, the arrows on the button change direction, indicating that you can return from the widescreen view to show the Transcript or Discussion panel to the right of the playback.
  This button only appears if your browser window is currently set wide enough to accommodate the playback area WITH either panel to the right of it, AND you have Transcripts showing or Discussions available.

Viewing Interactive Media - Videos with Polls

Most of this page is concerned with playback and other common functionality to the player. However, some of you are viewing  media in the player and, as such, are faced with polling questions that pop up while you are viewing.

Polling Questions can be embedded into videos, and any poll gates the playback so that Students cannot continue viewing or listening (or viewing a transcript or video references from Discussion posts) until they respond to the poll. For more information, see Viewing Videos with Embedded Polling Questions.

Students can respond only once to embedded polls. This is because any response allows the user to continue viewing the video, thereby negating the purpose of gating it. Once they respond, the student is shown their answer and the question's correct answer (if one is identified).