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Media Web Part in SharePoint 2010 - FAQ

  • Article

Media Web Part (MWP) is new Silverlight based web part that can be used to play videos and audios. As it’s a new web part, there have been many doubts/questions around this web part. I plan to clear those doubts in this post using a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) format. Here we go.

1. How do I use Media Web Part?

You can do this through  Video and Audio button on the Ribbon interface on Insert tab. For step-by-step details look at SharePoint 2010: Media Web Part blog post by Chakkaradeep

2. What file formats are supported or can be played in Media Web Part?

Media Web Part is a Silverlight control. So, all the formats supported by Silverlight can be played using MWP. Look at this article for details on that: Supported Media Formats, Protocols, and Log Fields.

3. Can I used Media Web Part to play flash Videos?

No. As Silverlight does not support flash, hence, you can’t play flash videos.

4. Then how can I play flash videos in SharePoint?

You’d need to embed the HTML <object> tag in your pages. There are number of ways you can do that. You can either use out-of-the-box Content Editor web part to embed your <object> tag. If you don’t want to play with HTML, you can use some of open source or third party web parts such as Flash Animation Web Part

5. Can I play videos/audios from other web sites OR I need to store video in local SharePoint site?

You can play videos from external sites (including streaming videos) as well videos in local SharePoint site.

6. Can I use Media Web Part in SharePoint Foundation 2010?

No, Media Web Part is included in Publishing feature, which is only available in SharePoint Server 2010.

7. Can I used Media Web Part in SharePoint 2007?

No, it’s only available in SharePoint Server 2010.

8. Why can’t I embed videos in SharePoint blog site using Media Web Part?

As mentioned above, Media Web Part is included in Publishing feature, which is only available in SharePoint Server 2010. Whereas the blog site template is included in SharePoint Foundation and hence can’t used publishing features.

9. If if have SharePoint Server license, can I use Media Web Part in blog site template?

Yes, you can do this with some bit of extra work with JavaScript. For details. see Video Blogging with Javascript and the Media Web Part blog post by SharePoint Designer Team

10. Can I change URL of the video being played by Media Web Part dynamically at client side?

Yes. Media Web Part exposes JavaScript object model that you can use to manipulate the behavior of Media Web Part in the browser. One example of this is shown in Video Blogging post mentioned in Q 9. For details, see How to: Configure the MediaWebPart Object Using ECMAScript

11. Can I use Media Web part to make complex video sharing web sites in SharePoint?

Yes, You can use Media Web Part and digital asset management (DAM) features in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010  to create a customized social media sharing site. As an example of a video page, you can look at Videos page at SharePoint Official web site.

MSDN has published a series of walkthroughs to describe the whole process:

12. Can I use Media Web part to play any size of video?

No, you should carefully plan the use of Media Web Part or digital content in general. Playing large files can affect the performance of your application drastically, if not planned properly. You need to look at factors such as available bandwidth between clients and server, server configurations (RAM, CPU, Disk Speeds) and advanced features provided be IIS and SharePoint – Bit Rate Throttling and BLOB cache. Bit Rate Throttling is an IIS 7.0 extension that meters the download speeds of media file types and data between a server and a client computer. Based on these factors, you should decide the maximum size of your videos and audios. Details discussion on these factors is beyond the scope of this. However, you should look at the following resources:

13. What is "Play media links in browser" option in Content Query Web Part (CQWP) ? OR I don’t want to use MWP as I need to set preview image URL and Media URL for every video that I need to show. Isn’t there something that can show me list of all media content available and I can play any of those by just clicking on those?

When you upload a video as OOB Video content type or some content type inheriting from Video content type, you get additional Video playing features OOB. For example, if you have an Asset Library showing some digital content (Video, Audio or Image) in Thumbnails view, when you hover over or click an item, it pops up a small window showing the properties of digital item and with relevant links (such as Play, View Item etc.). When you click “Play” it plays the video in the browser itself, through a Silverlight overlay player. You need not use any Media Web Web part for this.

CQWP also behaves in the same way, when you select "Play media links in browser" option in web part properties, presentation section.

Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2010,Media Web Part,Videos

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2010
    Is it possible to insert an inline Media Web Part in an Announcement's Body? I've followed the outlined steps above to Activate the Publishing Features and can add it to a page, but the "Audio/Video" option remains disabled in the Ribbon for Announcement body text. What do I need to do to enable that?

  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2010
    I have the same question too . . . did anyone ever answer this question about the 'Audio and Video' option being disabled in a list?

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2010
    we have got the advanced custom media webpart @ www.thesharepointmarket.com/.../custom-media-webpart-sharepoint-2010

  • Anonymous
    December 21, 2010
    Is it possible to create a whole new video gallery using media web part using silverlight and sharepoint 2010???

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2011
    Is there a way to pass an ID to the media web part?? I want to have a video library and pass video ID through a query string to the player so the video can be played? Is there a way to do this? Thanks a lot

  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2011
    I'm having trouble with this whole concept of a media web part.  Why are we reinventing the wheel by having users upload video directly to the site and bloating the company servers?  It would have made much more sense to simply validate an embedded video link and then embed the video in a custom media list view Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2011
    Media webpart does not stream but instead buffers content, is that true?

  • Anonymous
    July 28, 2011
    Great post. Thanks One query. I can get the media playing properly if it is wmv files but is it possible to play other file formats? If not, what is the best way to change formats to make stuff play properly through SP2010?

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2011
    Good Post.  One addtion - If/when your 2010 site doesn't display the Audio&Video button when you do "Insert" then you should go back to site settings, site collection features, then turn on "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure".  When you've done that you can then see the "Audio&Video button when you do an insert.

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2011
    My understanding of this is that to be able to configure the Media Web Part in Sharepoint I need to first install Silverlight on the server. Will the users therefore (i.e the community using the SP site) need to install Silverlight on their local PC/laptops to be able to play the video also?

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2011
    I have added a Media Web Part to a publishing page layout. When configure the path to the movie and save the page the path is not saved. Anyone know why? How can I get this to work? I have added a field on the content type that is connected to the page.

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2011
    HD Media Center for SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint Online Office 365 HD Media Center is a pure Silverlight application that plugs directly into the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Web Part. HD Media Center is a video delivery and organization solution targeting Office 365 but works equally well in On Premise deployments. silvercontrols.com/.../93-hd-media-center-for-sharepoint.aspx

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2011
    I have a media player web part, and I have used the "Change Image" option to try to set a preview image for the video.  The background of the media player changes from it's usual default (gray with a little cinema wheel) to all black, but the picture does not display.  I have tried various pictures of various sizes, but no luck.  Any idea what i am doing wrong?

  • Anonymous
    November 11, 2011
    I have some video in my asset library and want to play them with a media web part. How can i do it with SharePoint designer 2010? Thanks a lot

  • Anonymous
    November 14, 2011
    Is there some sort of work around for adding a player to a blog post? (Seems like a major use of blogs is to add either audio or video content)

  • Anonymous
    November 23, 2011
    Does Media player webpart supports to mp4 format

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2011
    No silverlight? Look here for the HTML way: www.w3schools.com/.../html_videos.asp

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2012
    I have a strange issue with video upload. I initially uploaded a 33 MB (MP4) video on to libraries, and it worked absolutely fine (like it buffered and started playing instantly on clicking the link). Infact the original size of the file was 51 MB and format was MPG, i compressed it using a conversion software Later on, I tried to upload another video, this time the original version was VOB (the DVD file) & size 144 MB - converted to MP4 again, but the size reduced considerably to 28 MB, No problem, it played absolutely fine on my desktop. However, once I uploaded it on to the sharepont library, it would not play like the earlier video where it buffers and plays immediately. Rather, it says connecting..... and takes atleast about 2 mins to start playing. Any advises how I can achieve the results as the first video Regards Machindra

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2012
    Nice FAQs

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2014
    i uploaded a 286Mb mp4 video to the asset library (it uploaded fine) it was playing great when i first uploaded it but recently i noticed that it's taking at least a minute to start playing the video. any suggestions?

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2015
    How to deactivate media webpart from sharepoint?

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2015
    How to deactivate media webpart from sharepoint?

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2015
    The media web part is working fine for me, but I don't want to allow the user to "pause" my video. I want the video to have a hyperlink behavior when clicked. Is it possible for the video to have a hyperlink embedded?