About

The Kaltura v2 and v7 players are two generations of the Kaltura media player. This article compares the v7 player's main improvements with the v2 player and explains technical differences to consider when you migrate.

Upgrading to v7 doesn't change your media content. It only changes how viewers see and interact with your videos.

Key improvements

The v7 player improves on the v2 player in several areas, including performance, playback, and viewer features. Here are the main differences.

Performance

• Faster start: The v7 player's join time is 32% shorter than the v2 player's on average: 33% shorter on desktop and 40% shorter on Chrome.
• Less buffering: The v7 player spends 75% less time buffering than the v2 player.
• Smaller player: The v7 bundle is 476 KB, compared to 791 KB for the v2 player.
• Fewer back-end calls: The v7 player needs one back-end API call, compared to three for the v2 player.

Playback and devices

• Live failover: If a live stream fails over, the v7 player keeps playing without a page refresh. The v2 player needs a full page refresh.
• Apple AirPlay: Viewers can play v7 videos on AirPlay devices. The v2 player doesn't support AirPlay.
• Autoplay options: The v7 player can autoplay always, only when the player is in view, or not at all. The v2 player has fewer autoplay options.
• Preload: The v7 player can preload the video when the page loads. The v2 player can't.
• Floating player: When the player scrolls out of view, the v7 player can keep it visible as a floating player. The v2 player can't.
• Lock orientation: On mobile devices, the v7 player can lock the screen orientation. The v2 player can't.
• Bumpers: The v7 player can play a bumper before the video, after it, or both. The v2 player plays a bumper before or after, but not both.

Audio and reels players

• Audio player: The v7 player includes a standalone, responsive audio player with custom playback speed, volume, and looping. The v2 player has no audio player.
• Reels player: The v7 player includes a reels player, a playlist player designed for short videos. It plays each video in turn and shows the other videos in the playlist as thumbnails to the side. It adjusts to any screen size. The v2 player has no reels player.

Interactive features and plugins

The v7 player has built-in support for analytics, advertising, and interactive features such as quizzes, captions, and video paths. Many plugins also have a new design and more options.

• Chapters: Viewers can search chapters and see them on the timeline and in the navigation menu.
• Quiz: The quiz plugin has a new design for moving between questions and reviewing answers, with question markers on the timeline.
• Hotspots: The v7 player gives you more control over how hotspots look and when they appear.
• Transcripts: The transcript is built into the player, with clickable timestamps.
• Caption styling: Viewers can change caption appearance in Advanced captions settings. They can choose one of six preset styles, such as high contrast or night mode, or create a custom style. This option appears whenever captions are available. In the v2 player, you must turn on caption styling first, and no preset styles are available.
• Dual-screen: The dual-screen plugin has a new design, with a preview of both streams over the timeline.
• Document entries in playlists: The v7 player plays playlists that include document entries. The v2 player shows an error when it reaches one.
• Downloads: Viewers can download captions, flavors, transcripts, and attachments from inside the player.
• Sharing and info: The v7 player offers improved clip sharing and displays content owner details in the info panel.

Accessibility

The v7 player has improved keyboard navigation and screen reader support. It also has a published Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The v2 player doesn't.

For more information, see Accessibility in Kaltura Products.

Design

The v7 player has a refreshed, modern look, with flexible options to customize the UI.

Technical details

Embed types

Embed codes come in three types: Auto Embed, Dynamic Embed, and Iframe Embed. You can get all three from the Rich Media Content Management System (Rich Media CMS) to embed a v2 or v7 player on an HTML page.

For more information, see Embed Code differences between Kaltura v2 player and v7.

Player configuration

You can set v7 player configuration options in Rich Media CMS and override them in your application or in local storage.

Unlike the v2 player, the v7 player keeps all its configuration settings in a single JSON object.

To configure the player at startup, use the setup() method. To change the configuration at runtime, use the configure() method.

Player API

The v2 player has several classes, each with its own API functions. The v7 player exposes its whole API through the KalturaPlayer class and the player instance that KalturaPlayer.setup creates.

Playback engines

The v7 player supports most of the media formats that the v2 player supports, except:

• HDS
• MSS
• Multicast
• P2P streaming

The v7 player also supports offline playback.

Platform support

The v7 player supports playback on Smart TV devices, including native HTML5 video playback on supported platforms. It also supports IPv6.

User interface

The v7 player supports most of the v2 player's UI features, with design improvements for an updated, easier-to-use experience.

Unlike the v2 player, the v7 player doesn't need plugins for standard UI controls, such as quality and volume. These controls are built in.

You can extend the UI by:

• Creating your own plugins
• Styling elements with CSS
• Turning off default UI controls

Analytics

The v7 player supports most of the analytics platforms supported by the v2 player. For more information, see the analytics section of the v2 and v7 parity list on GitHub.

Advertising

The v2 player supports VAST and VPAID ads. The v7 player supports these ad types, as well as VMAP ads, IMA DAI ads, and ad waterfalling.

Plugins

The v7 player has built-in support for many common integrations and interactive features. Not all v2 plugins are available in v7, but the v7 player supports most core features natively or through updated plugins.

The v7 player doesn't support webcasting polls in the legacy webcasting application. To run polls, use a newer webcasting application. These applications support polls through the chat and collaboration panel, which appears on the right side of the page. For more information, see Introduction to Live Studio.

The v7 player also supports more plugins, including integration and interactive plugins.

If you rely on specific v2 plugins, check that they're available in v7 when you plan your migration.

Identify a v7 player

The quickest way to identify a v7 player is by its control bar. The v7 player has 10-second rewind and 10-second forward buttons, a modern settings menu, and updated player controls.

The v2 player doesn't have the 10-second buttons.