Player customisation
Video player skins
A skin decides the structure of the player: where the controls sit, what shape the play button is, whether the progress bar rides above the controls or through them. Colour is a separate layer, and so is behaviour. This page separates the three, because asking one of them to do another one's job is the quickest way to spend an afternoon and still have a player that looks wrong.
Structure first, then colour
Structure
Colour
Scope
The distinction that matters
Skin, theme and controls are three different settings
People ask for "a skin that matches our brand" and mean colour. They ask for "a cleaner skin" and mean fewer controls. Neither is what a skin is, and that mismatch is why a player can be configured for an afternoon and still look wrong.
- The skin is layout: whether the controls sit in one pill or two, whether they hug the bottom edge or float in a corner, where the progress bar goes, and whether the big play button is a circle, a rounded square or bare icon.
- The theme is appearance: the colour of the controls, the foreground, the caption text and the typography. Any hex value is accepted, so exact brand colours are a matter of pasting them in rather than choosing from a palette.
- The controls are visibility: play, volume, quality, speed, fullscreen and the control bar itself are each switchable, independently of both the skin and the theme.
Getting them in the right order saves time. Choose the structure for where the player physically lives, then the colours, then hide what that audience does not need. Doing it the other way round produces a player that is the right colour in the wrong shape.
The named skins
What the seven names in the dashboard actually resolve to
The video editor offers Clear, Solid, Square, Circle, Round, Bar and Classic. The names combine a smaller set of control layouts and play-button shapes, making it easier to choose the structure that fits each placement.
- Clear, Solid and ClassicSame layout
- All three resolve to the standard two-pill layout: a left pill carrying play, volume and time, a right pill carrying settings and fullscreen, with the progress bar above them and a circular play button. Choosing between these three names changes nothing structural about the player today. They remain in the picker because accounts already store them and those values must keep working.
- CircleSame layout, circular play button
- The two-pill layout with the play button explicitly pinned to a circle. Since that is also the default shape, the visible result matches Clear.
- Square and RoundSame layout, rounded-square play button
- The two-pill layout with the big play button rendered as a rounded square rather than a circle. That is the whole difference — a small, visible change to the largest element on the poster frame, and nothing else.
- BarGenuinely different
- The one name in the list that resolves to a different structure: a single unified pill with the seek bar running through it, so play, seek, volume, time, settings and fullscreen all sit on one horizontal element. If you want the player to read as one control strip rather than two clusters, this is the one.
- Set on the video, or on the projectInheritance
- A project carries default player options, including its skin, and a video can override them. That is what lets one account hold several brands or content categories with different players, without configuring each upload by hand.
- Recognised retired values are remappedDurability
- The seven picker names above, and the specific retired layout and shape values the player still recognises, are each mapped to a current equivalent when the player resolves them rather than erroring. An unrecognised value falls back to the default layout and a circular play button, so an embed carrying an old setting keeps rendering — it does not necessarily keep rendering identically, and we would rather say that than promise permanence for values nobody has enumerated.
Where the real variety is
Use player presets for layouts tailored to each audience
The player carries a wider set of layout variants than the seven-name picker exposes. The ones below are reached by saving a preset, which is a plan-gated feature absent from the entry tier.
- CinematicLandscape
- A full-width gradient control area with the progress bar along its top edge and a rounded-square play button. The arrangement people mean when they say "make it look like a streaming service".
- Minimal and EdgeLandscape
- Minimal collapses to a small floating control that expands on hover. Edge reduces the resting state to a thin progress line at the bottom of the frame, with controls appearing over the video. Both are for players that should disappear into a page rather than announce themselves.
- BroadcastLive
- Built for live streams: a prominent live treatment and no seek affordance, because a seek bar on a live stream invites an interaction that cannot be honoured.
- ThumbnailSmall embeds
- A simplified control set and a large play target, for players sitting in cards, lists and galleries where a full control bar would not fit legibly.
- Shorts, Stories and Vertical MinimalPortrait
- Three vertical arrangements for 9:16 video: a right-hand icon stack, segmented progress across the top, and a stripped tap-to-play. Vertical video in a landscape player is one of the few genuinely unrecoverable layout mistakes, so these exist as their own variants rather than as a squeeze of a landscape one.
- Classroom, Editorial, Minimap and FilmstripLong-form
- Four arrangements built around navigating inside a long video — a lesson rail, a magazine-style contents layout, a storyboard timeline and a filmstrip progress treatment. Relevant when the viewer returns to a video repeatedly rather than watching it once.
The workflow
Configuring a player without doing it twice
Project first, video second. The reverse order is how accounts end up with a hundred individually configured videos.
- 01
Decide the project boundaries
- 02
Set the structure on the project
- 03
Paste your colours
- 04
Turn off what this audience does not need
- 05
Preview, then override only the exceptions
Questions
Player skin questions
What is a video player skin?
A skin is the structural layout of the player controls: whether they sit in one pill or two, where they are anchored in the frame, where the progress bar runs, and what shape the big play button is. It is deliberately separate from colour, which is a theme setting, and from which controls are visible, which is a per-control toggle.
How many skins are there?
The skin picker on a video lists seven names, but that number overstates the visible difference: six of them resolve to the same two-pill layout, varying only in play-button shape, and one (Bar) resolves to a single unified control pill. The player carries a wider set of layout variants than the picker exposes — cinematic, minimal, edge, broadcast, thumbnail, three vertical arrangements and four long-form ones — and those are reached through saved player presets rather than the skin picker.
Can I match my exact brand colours?
Yes. Control, foreground and caption colours each accept a hex value rather than a fixed palette, so you paste in the value from your brand guideline. Worth checking the result against the actual page section the player sits in, not against a white background.
Can I put my logo on the player?
A skin controls player structure, colours and visible controls. Logo and watermark requirements are separate branding capabilities, so review the white-label page and confirm the exact presentation required for your plan and player layout.
Can different projects use different skins?
Yes, and this is the intended way to use them. Player options including the skin live on the project, and a video can override its project. An agency or a multi-brand product configures once per project rather than once per upload.
Is there anything for vertical video?
Three portrait layouts exist — a right-hand icon stack, a segmented top progress arrangement, and a stripped tap-to-play. They are reached through a saved preset rather than the named skin list, and saved presets are plan-entitled.
If I set a skin now, will it still work later?
It will keep rendering. The picker names and the specific retired values the player recognises are each mapped to a current equivalent at resolution time rather than erroring, and anything unrecognised falls back to the default layout with a circular play button. So an old embed does not break — but this is a guarantee that it renders, not a guarantee that a given value renders identically forever.
Tell us where the player lives, not which skin you want
Describe the page, the video shape and the audience, and we will tell you which structure fits, whether it needs a saved preset, and what that requires from your plan.