Thumbnails in Custom URL

Firstly Thanks for a really great module... it definitely is the smoothest video experience for Drupal so far.

I am making use of the Custom URL feature with Custom Embedded thumbs to try and get the best quality for clips without hosting them on the site server. So far this is working great and I am able to use Views Bonus Grid to output a grid of thumbnails linking to the videos which works well. There are two issues though that I feel need addressing.

1.) Firstly when viewing either the preview or full version of a custom url video, the actual video is black with "click to play" in the centre. It would be great if the custom thumbnail added for that file could be loaded in to this black area to give an idea of what the clip contains.

2.) The limitation of using an external version of the mediaplayer.swf rather than allowing it to be specified in the module is very frustrating. I thought one of the biggest advantages of using a custom URL over youtube would be that quality is better and you can specify to launch the clip fullscreen which you cant do with the external youtube player.

Thanks for all your great work so far.
Gregg