-        object_doc = xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(object_str)
-        assert u'BrightcoveExperience' in object_doc.attrib['class']
-        params = {'flashID': object_doc.attrib['id'],
-                  'playerID': find_xpath_attr(object_doc, './param', 'name', 'playerID').attrib['value'],
-                  }
-        playerKey = find_xpath_attr(object_doc, './param', 'name', 'playerKey')
+
+        # Fix up some stupid HTML, see https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/1553
+        object_str = re.sub(r'(<param(?:\s+[a-zA-Z0-9_]+="[^"]*")*)>',
+                            lambda m: m.group(1) + '/>', object_str)
+        # Fix up some stupid XML, see https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/1608
+        object_str = object_str.replace('<--', '<!--')
+        # remove namespace to simplify extraction
+        object_str = re.sub(r'(<object[^>]*)(xmlns=".*?")', r'\1', object_str)
+        object_str = fix_xml_ampersands(object_str)
+
+        try:
+            object_doc = xml.etree.ElementTree.fromstring(object_str.encode('utf-8'))
+        except xml.etree.ElementTree.ParseError:
+            return
+
+        fv_el = find_xpath_attr(object_doc, './param', 'name', 'flashVars')
+        if fv_el is not None:
+            flashvars = dict(
+                (k, v[0])
+                for k, v in compat_parse_qs(fv_el.attrib['value']).items())
+        else:
+            flashvars = {}
+
+        def find_param(name):
+            if name in flashvars:
+                return flashvars[name]
+            node = find_xpath_attr(object_doc, './param', 'name', name)
+            if node is not None:
+                return node.attrib['value']
+            return None
+
+        params = {}
+
+        playerID = find_param('playerID')
+        if playerID is None:
+            raise ExtractorError('Cannot find player ID')
+        params['playerID'] = playerID
+
+        playerKey = find_param('playerKey')