Instructional video site 5min has released a new beta version of their SmartPlayer, introducing support for text, video, and images that can be merged into a single embeddable flash widget. The site considers the player to be revolutionary, and believes that it will help set 5min apart from their numerous competitors in the instructional video space.
The original SmartPlayer gave users the ability to manipulate instructional videos on the fly, allowing for frame-by-frame progress, slow motion, and zooming. The new version improves on these features by introducing ‘add-ons’, which are essentially pages of text and images with no limits on length. By including all of this data, the 5min videos have become self-contained guides that can be embedded on any website.
I think that the updated player has a lot of potential. Chefs will be able to include their recipes alongside detailed videos demonstrating how to prepare a dish. And musicians will be able to include sheet music or tablature alongside their lessons – a godsend for instructors.
But despite the improvements made since the first Smartplayer, 5min still has a ways to go. For one, it seems that there is no way to resize the video and attachment windows, which is a pain when there is a lot of text. There is also no way to get the ‘add-on’ field to auto-scroll, which would be key for musicians attempting to play a score along to a video.
Other competitors in this crowded space include Howcast, Expert Village, and Instructables. You can check out a sample video below (you might want to make it full screen).
WOW, that’s impressive. I think that they are doing a mistake if they limit themselves only for how to videos. This player can serve a lot of other content, and the wiki abilities on top of a video can make a huge service for creators.
Nice move…
Online video players are getting big and feature rich day by day, this is another addition. I have recently seen a video player in which a viewer can comment on that inside the video where he wants to at the specific moment. Good post!
Very Nice player! I agree with Jim they need to do more than How to videos! They do have the best how to content. Wonder if it will run on the iPhone if the iPhone ever gets flash capabilities?
Good job!
Now, is 5 min ahead of competition really enough?
Revolutionary? The startup I was at in 2004 did this in 2006. I won’t bother mentioning the name to prove this post isn’t link bait. But that’s far from revolutionary.
Thats is very hard job,but i mean that’s impressive. Keep watch competition.
Kudos to 5min!
The piano DIY video is actually fun to watch. Shall check out 5min for sure!!
What’s the point of 5 min again? Seems like a worthless site with too much VC money.
Ya James, real worthless. They only have the most advanced and revolutionary video player out there to date (by far) and the most how-to content out of any site of its kind. So really, what’s the point of your comment?
“Revolutionary video player”? Please. How does it matter? It’s so incremental.
“Most how-to content” – actually YouTube has more. It just takes some searching.
Tyler – you sound like a shill for 5min. Get a life buddy.
That´s great” I´ll check it out.
Looks like Tyler’s boss at 5 min told him to shut up because 5min still sucks.
I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks for the post I shall check it out.
I’m impressed! great stuff!
We’re definitely excited about it. Thanks for the positive feedback.
And…Sorry to disappoint, but Tyler is not one of us – although I was relieved to see that he chose to use grown-up lingo in his comments, as opposed to some of the other comment contributors
@ Ealeal – Good job on your grammatical usage and capitalization. I really want to learn from people who can’t even speak English properly.
@ Jimbo – If so, my suggestion is to refrain from trying to learn from Yanks over the internet.
It’s pretty amazing what can be done with instructional videos these days. My preferance involves importing video into camtasia. As for the angle of the above video, an overhead view would show the hand positions better.
@ 2 Siddarth & @ 5 – Jaisen:
In the name of openness, transparency, and sharing knowledge please post those links you refer to. Without these, surely, your comments are futile?
@18. I wish you luck, but are you doing yourself any favours making comments such as ‘yanks’? I am British (hence favours vs. favors), but the majority of readers surely aren’t. Make friends, not enemies… Seriously – good luck, looks very interesting. Hope you guys can scale and/or open it up?…
see how they perform
http://soobrosa...9/instructions/