We at Dotsub are using videojs as video player for our sites. One of the Video.js main benefits is customizability via its plugin system. Recently we had a need to automatically select certain subtitle track after user started video on Video.js player. This is handy when we know the language user is most probably going to need translation into. So we created simple open-source plugin to save few user clicks needed for selecting default subtitle track.

The plugin was named videojs-select-subtitle and is hosted on Github. Assuming you know how to use Video.js plugin for you video player, we jump straight to explaining how to configure this new plugin.

Installation

Most modern JavaScript projects are using some kind of Node.JS based build process with NPM dependency management. So easiest way to install plugin is to use NPM:

npm i --save videojs-select-subtitle

Your other option is to clone Github project build the project with command:

npm run build

This command creates JavaScript files in sub-directory dist. You can include minified or non-minified version of JavaScript plugin file into your project with whatever mechanism you are used to.

Usage

After after videojs player is initialized and plugin is installed in our project, we can execute it with command:

player.selectSubtitle({ trackLanguage: 'es' });

Object passed as parameter into selectSubtitle function is option required by plugin to select correct subtitle/caption track. Options object has to have trackLanguage key and value needs to define language attribute of caption/subtitle track to be selected. Of course such track must be available in videojs player, otherwise plugin can’t select it at all. Both key and value of options object are case sensitive.

Usage on Brightcove Video Cloud

Video.js project was created by Brightcove. Therefore they made it very easy to embed Video.JS plugins into their Video Cloud service. If you are using this service as your online video platform, you can install videojs-subtitle-plugin via their UI.

In order to do this, you need to host built plugin file somewhere on the internet. After plugin is accessible by Brightcove Video Cloud, you can refer to it from your Brightcove player. It is important to configure name of the plugin to selectSubtitle and trackLanguage option for the plugin:

After the user starts video, plugin finds desired caption/subtitle track and show it automatically.