Joomla 2.5 video extensions - To transform your site to a media library

Close your eyes and try to imagine the present without videos and images. Oh my god, it's terrible, right?! Those things help me relax and feel full of life and I even want to set up a lively site containing a gallery of favourite videos that I'd love to share with everyone. As a Joomla user, this is not so difficult because there are many Joomla extensions on Joomla extensions directory (JED) to support embedded links to video and audio, and create my own dynamic galleries. I chose the 7 best Joomla 2.5 video extensions split into 2 types - "Video players & galleries" and "Video channels". I also tested them on my site.

What are a Video channel and a Video player?

A Video channel is used to present videos from external video streaming sites such as Youtube, Vimeo and so on. Your site doesn't need to use a lot of bandwidth if you choose this method. A video player, meanwhile, helps to play videos from local folders or external video streaming sites. A video player might be expected to understand and translate several video codecs, containing many video formats.

Now we can start to discover what the 7 best Joomla 2.5 extensions are.

Wish-list

I'm looking for a good video extension which could meet my following requirements:

• Easy to use (this is always a priority on the list)
• Support most major video formats: avi, mp4, mpeg, flv, wmv, etc.
• Support for popular video-sharing websites: Youtube, Dailymotion, Vimeo
• Multiple galleries and playlists
• Social media sharing: Facebook, Twitter

General reviews

Video channels

1. Easy Embed Video

Easy Embed Video is the easiest way to insert embedded links of videos into your Joomla articles.

Easy Embed Video supports 10 video-sharing websites; just paste the link to the video page on major sites such as Youtube, Myspace, Vimeo, Youku, etc. and the flash player will appear in your article automatically. Actually, it just took me 30 seconds to publish a new article with a clip from Youtube. It's fast, right?

If you want to place a normal link without the auto appearance of flash player, just insert "{noembedvideo}" text without quotes into an article.

Website - Download

2. Youtube Gallery

A product by Design Compass Corporation, Youtube Gallery is a stunning video channel extension for Joomla sites. The package includes a component, a plugin and a module. You don't only have multiple galleries of favourite videos or playlists but can mix different sources: Youtube, Vimeo, Yahoo Video, College Humor in a flash. Also, with the plugin, it's easy to bring galleries into your articles.

Nevertheless, to design a satisfying layout, for me, is quite complex and time-consuming. Actually, I think the layout is not unique, either.

Website - Download

Video players and gallery

1. AllVideos

What I can say about this Joomla extension is that everybody knows and loves it. I love it too! AllVideos means all videos. It supports dozens of media supporters including localized versions of YouTube and Google Video, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc. It can stream your own video content, using the 15 web compatible file formats like flv, swf, mov, mp4, wmv and so on. Moreover, you can easily embed your own content from your server into your article. It is also not hard to edit the layout of all the videos shown in your Joomla! website via the plugin's parameters.

You can use the syntax for video embedding or display videos at different dimensions. This, however, is likely to be time-consuming; you might impossibly remember all those syntax. In addition, with the plugin, you cannot create a video gallery.

Website - Download

2. HD FLV Player Free

HD FLV Player Free is a robust extension supporting FLV & H.264 encoded video including MP4, M4V, M4A, MOV, Mp4v, F4v along with Youtube videos, stream from Amazon S3 bucket. If you like enjoying flash videos with high definition, this is surely for you.

There are three methods to show videos on HD FLV Player: Direct YouTube url, External url, Direct videos upload. Besides, thanks to the control panel of the component, you can flexibly change the player size to support your website design, change tool tips on the Player to any language you want, enable Full Screen, Timer, Zoom, Share to your viewers and much more.

This tool is supposed to only allow playing videos from an external website which is Youtube. What about others: Vimeo, Youku? In my opinion, this is a small minus point.

Website - Download

3. All Video Share

All Video Share, a product from the developer Vinoth Kumar, is the best free video-sharing solution for Joomla websites among numerous Video Players and Gallery extensions. It provides 100% flexible and customizable functionality, which will absolutely satisfy you.

Similar to HD FLV Player, AllVideoShare gives you 3 methods to display videos: general upload, third party embedded code and Youtube url. It handles 13 media formats such as flv, mp4, aac, etc.

Unlike other extensions, AllVideoShare has its own built-in video player with more flexible skinning options and HTML5 fallback included. Some other prominent features are Content Player Plugin for articles, Facebook Commenting option, true streaming methods like RTMP and Lighttpd. How great is that!

Website - Download

4. JW Player Advanced

If you have high requirements for a powerful media solution, JW Player Advanced from Joomlarulez and Longtail Video is worth considering. JW Player Advanced comes with JW Player Plugin Advanced and JW Player Module Advanced. But these 2 extension type are not compressed into a single package.

JW Player Advanced helps you to embed a cool player in your article. Some outstanding features are added in this plugin version: a playlist editor, multiple playlist capabilities, auto-generated playlist, pop-ups with jQuery or highslide and so on! Both the plugin and the module support online video streaming platforms and are HTML5 ready. Besides, it allows sharing the video player on Facebook and Twitter as well. A brilliant thing is building skins based on the XML (Extensible Markup Language) file. If you can create an XML file and images (e.g. PNGs), then you can create a skin. Consequently, your player might have plenty of beautiful coats.

Website - Buy

5. HD Webplayer

HD Webplayer is a powerful free Joomla 2.5 video extension to play HD videos online. The Download package consists of a Component, a Module and a Plugin that require a single installation. For me, this is nearly my favourite extension so far.

The extension supports 13 file formats such as flv, mp4, m4v, mov(h.264), etc. To make the Webplayer component more usable, a Help ToolBar is added in each component page. Besides this, you can create categories and add videos to them similar to Youtube; you are even allowed to upload videos right in the front-end because of the module. If your friends or viewers like videos on your websites, they could easily share them on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.

However, I think there are too few options to set up the player as well as too few skin options.

Website - Download

In conclusion

With these 7 Joomla 2.5 video extensions, you have 7 ways to create a multimedia website. Besides, you might consider other Joomla extensions which not only integrate sharing video and social media function but also maximizing support building your Joomla sites by using JSN Page Builder 3. With Joomla Page Builder 3, people can build complex Joomla site easily with rich content when they do not have any coding skills. 

TRY JOOMLASHINE PAGE BUILDER 3

I hope that each of you has your own options. Just buy or download these extensions, use them and tell us about your experiences by leaving your comment below. Thank you for reading!