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Detecting Media Player Using BrowserObject™ Server Component

If you own an online music store, audio streaming will be at the heart of your website. Instead of the connection speed of your hosting, you should be more worried whether all visitors are able to listen to your demonstration clips.

The most common media players for video/audio streaming include Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime, and RealPlayer. However, not every visitor will have these media players installed. For example, you may provide audio streaming for only RealPlayer but the visitor may only have Windows Media Player installed. As a result, the visitor cannot listen to the demonstration clip at all.

To avoid the loss of visitors, you can prepare 3 types of media files for each demonstration clip that you have. Then, the media player detection from BrowserObject.com will play a very important role to help you determine what type of media players the visitors have installed on their machines.

By using media player detection from the BrowserObject Server Component, you can detect whether visitors have Windows Media Player installed. If yes, you can display a Windows Media Player supported file. If no, you still have the option to determine whether visitors have QuickTime installed. If visitors have QuickTime installed, you can display the QuickTime media file. If both Windows Media Player and QuickTime are not installed, you can still check for RealPlayer installation and if it is installed, you can display a Real media file. In the worst case when visitors do not have any media player installed, you can still prompt them to download any of the media players that are available.

BrowserObject™ in Action

You do not have any media player installed!
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Sample Codes (VB)

Dim obj As BrowserObject.BrowserObjectClass obj = BrowsObjCtrl.getObject() If obj.WindowsMediaPlayerInstalled = "True" Then Me.litMessage.Text = "You have Windows Media Player installed. Music is now playing..." Me.litPlayer.Text = "<OBJECT ID=""MediaPlayer"" WIDTH=""300"" HEIGHT=""40"" CLASSID=""CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"" STANDBY=""Loading Windows Media Player components..."" TYPE=""application/x-oleobject""><PARAM NAME=""FileName"" VALUE=""town.mid""><PARAM name=""autostart"" VALUE=""true""><PARAM name=""ShowControls"" VALUE=""true""><param name=""ShowStatusBar"" value=""false""><PARAM name=""ShowDisplay"" VALUE=""false""><EMBED TYPE=""application/x-mplayer2"" SRC=""town.mid"" NAME=""MediaPlayer"" WIDTH=""300"" HEIGHT=""40"" ShowControls=""1"" ShowStatusBar=""0"" ShowDisplay=""0"" autostart=""0""></EMBED></OBJECT>" ElseIf obj.QuickTimeInstalled = "True" Then Me.litMessage.Text = "You have QuickTime Player installed. Music is now playing..." Me.litPlayer.Text = "<OBJECT CLASSID=""clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B"" HEIGHT=40 WIDTH=300 CODEBASE=""http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab""><PARAM NAME=""src"" VALUE=""town.mid""><PARAM NAME=""autoplay"" VALUE=""true""><EMBED HEIGHT=40 WIDTH=300 PLUGINSPAGE=""http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"" SRC=""town.mid"" AUTOPLAY=""true""></OBJECT>" ElseIf obj.RealPlayerInstalled = "True" Then Me.litMessage.Text = "You have Real Player installed. Music is now playing..." Me.litPlayer.Text = "<OBJECT ID=RVOCX CLASSID=""clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA"" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=40><PARAM NAME=""SRC"" VALUE=""town.mid""><PARAM NAME=""CONTROLS"" VALUE=""All""><PARAM NAME=""AUTOSTART"" VALUE=""true""><EMBED SRC=""town.mid"" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=40 NOJAVA=true CONTROLS=All AUTOSTART=true></OBJECT>" ElseIf obj.WindowsMediaPlayerInstalled = "False" And obj.QuickTimeInstalled = "False" And obj.RealPlayerInstalled = "False" Then Me.litMessage.Text = "You do not have any media player installed!" Me.litPlayer.Text = "" End If

Sample Codes (PHP)

require "BrowserObject.class.php"; $data = &new BrowserObject(); $wmpInstalled = $data->WMPInstalled(); $quickTimeInstalled = $data->QuickTimeInstalled(); $realPlayerInstalled = $data->RealPlayerInstalled(); if($wmpInstalled == "True"){ echo "You have Windows Media Player installed. Music is now playing..."; echo "<br><OBJECT ID=\"MediaPlayer\" WIDTH=\"300\" HEIGHT=\"40\" CLASSID=\"CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95\" STANDBY=\"Loading Windows Media Player components...\" TYPE=\"application/x-oleobject\"><PARAM NAME=\"FileName\" VALUE=\"town.mid\"><PARAM name=\"autostart\" VALUE=\"true\"><PARAM name=\"ShowControls\" VALUE=\"true\"><param name=\"ShowStatusBar\" value=\"false\"><PARAM name=\"ShowDisplay\" VALUE=\"false\"><EMBED TYPE=\"application/x-mplayer2\" SRC=\"town.mid\" NAME=\"MediaPlayer\" WIDTH=\"300\" HEIGHT=\"40\" ShowControls=\"1\" ShowStatusBar=\"0\" ShowDisplay=\"0\" autostart=\"0\"></EMBED></OBJECT>"; } elseif($quickTimeInstalled == "True"){ echo "You have QuickTime Player installed. Music is now playing..."; echo "<br><OBJECT CLASSID=\"clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B\" HEIGHT=40 WIDTH=300 CODEBASE=\"http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab\"><PARAM NAME=\"src\" VALUE=\"town.mid\"><PARAM NAME=\"autoplay\" VALUE=\"true\"><EMBED HEIGHT=40 WIDTH=300 PLUGINSPAGE=\"http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/\" SRC=\"town.mid\" AUTOPLAY=\"true\"></OBJECT>"; } elseif($realPlayerInstalled == "True"){ echo "You have Real Player installed. Music is now playing..."; echo "<br><OBJECT ID=RVOCX CLASSID=\"clsid:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11cf-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA\" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=40><PARAM NAME=\"SRC\" VALUE=\"town.mid\"><PARAM NAME=\"CONTROLS\" VALUE=\"All\"><PARAM NAME=\"AUTOSTART\" VALUE=\"true\"><EMBED SRC=\"town.mid\" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=40 NOJAVA=true CONTROLS=All AUTOSTART=true></OBJECT>"; } elseif($wmpInstalled == "False" && $quickTimeInstalled == "False" && $realPlayerInstalled == "False"){ echo "You do not have any media player installed!"; }