Question

I am using flvplayer.swf player, it is playing the videos,but before playing the video the player has black screen and a play button. When I click the play button the video plays.

Is it possible to show a screen-shot of the video with the play button on top, instead of the blank screen?

This is the code of my player:

<embed
    id="fl"
    src="flvplayer.swf"
    bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
    align="left"
    type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
    pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
    flashvars="file=hospitaldemo.swf&autostart=false&frontcolor=0xCCCCCC&backcolor=0x000000&lightcolor=0x996600&showdownload=false&showeq=false&repeat=false&volume=100&useaudio=false&usecaptions=false&usefullscreen=true&usekeys=true"
    style="width: 400px; height: 350px">
</embed>

Answer 1

Long Tail offer a free flvplayer called JW Player. This player allows you to specify an image in the flashvars – whether a given player allows an image to be specified is very much down to the individual API.

In the case of JW Player, you would set:

flashvars="[...]&image=myimage.png[...]"

http://developer.longtailvideo.com/trac/wiki/Player5FlashVars