This week, Vimeo is attempting to make iPhone, iPad, and Roku set-top box owners very happy.
The New York-based streaming company announced Tuesday that it had developed an embeddable Universal Player with support for both HTML5 and Flash, bringing joy to users of mobile devices across the land. In addition, those with Roku set-top boxes will be able to watch staff-selected videos from the site on a new Vimeo channel.
When browsing a site with an embedded Vimeo video, the company’s new Universal Player will detect the end-user’s browser and device and deliver the appropriate wrapper—HTML5 for iOS devices and modern browsers; Flash mobile for Android phones (yikes, sorry, Android)—as well as defining the optimal video definition and playback codec.
In addition, the player sports a new “Watch Later” button, allowing users to tag interesting videos for later consumption. Sadly, it doesn’t quite work like Instapaper’s “Read Later” button, as these videos will just be sent to an album on your online Vimeo account instead of being saved locally to your device; however, Vimeo is releasing the new feature as part of its public API, so you never know what might be cooked up in the future.
In the meantime, you can access the “Watch Later” album from your computer or mobile device. And if you have a Roku set-top box, you can use the newly released Vimeo channel to pull up your “Watch Later” queue directly on your television. Roku users can also connect their accounts to watch their own videos (as well as videos from their inbox) and staff-selected SD and HD videos from Vimeo’s Website.