Player events

Overview

To communicate about events (like an error or the update of the current video bitrate) the player use the event listener pattern.

As documented in the API, you can call addEventListener to register a callback for a particular event, like:

player.addEventListener("playerStateChange", (newState) => {
  console.log("the RxPlayer's state changed to:", newState);
});

You can unregister a callback through the removeEventListener API, documented here.

Basic events

This chapter describes the most important events sent by the player.

playerStateChange

payload type: string

Emit the current state of the player, every time it changes.

This is the event to catch if you want to know when the player is playing, is paused, is rebuffering, is ended or is stopped.

As it is a central part of our API and can be difficult concept to understand, we have a special page of documentation on player states.

error

payload type: Error

Triggered when a fatal error happened.

A fatal error is an error that led the player to stop playing the current content.

The payload is the corresponding error. See the Player Error documentation for more information.

warning

payload type: Error

Triggered each time a minor error happened.

This error won’t lead the RxPlayer to stop the content. It can for example be an HTTP request error, some minor error detected in the content or the current position being to far below the minimum playable position.

The payload is the corresponding error. See the Player Error documentation for more information.

positionUpdate

payload type: Object

Emit information about the current position at most every seconds (also emits every time various player events are received).

The object emitted as the following properties:

  • position (Number): The current position in the video, in seconds.

  • duration (Number): The duration of the content.

  • bufferGap (Number): The gap, in seconds, between the current position and the end of the current buffered range.

  • playbackRate (Number): The current playback rate the content is on.

  • liveGap (Number|undefined): Only for live contents. The gap between the current position and the “live edge”. Might not be set for directfile contents.

  • maximumPosition (Number|undefined): The maximum time until which the buffer can currently be filled. That is:

    • for static contents (like VoD), the duration.

    • for dynamic contents (like live contents), the current maximum available position (live edge for live contents) minus a security margin we added to avoid buffering ahead of it.

  • wallClockTime (Number|undefined): Only for live contents. The current time converted to wall-clock time in seconds. That is the real live position (and not the position as announced by the video element).

play

Emitted when the RxPlayer’s videoElement is no longer considered paused.

This event is generally triggered when and if the play method has succeeded.

Note that this event can be sent even if the player’s state doesn’t currently allow playback, for example when in the "LOADING" or "BUFFERING" states, among other. It shouldn’t be sent however when the player’s state is "STOPPED" which is when no content is loading nor loaded.

pause

Emitted when the RxPlayer’s videoElement is now considered paused.

This event is triggered when and if the pause method has succeeded, when the content has ended or due to other rare occurences: for example if we could not automatically play after a "LOADING" or "RELOADING" state due to the browser’s autoplay policies.

Note that this event can be sent even if the player’s state doesn’t currently allow playback, for example when in the "LOADING" or "BUFFERING" states, among other. It shouldn’t be sent however when the player’s state is "STOPPED" which is when no content is loading nor loaded.

seeking

Emitted when a “seek” operation (to “move”/“skip” to another position) begins on the currently loaded content.

seeked

Emitted when a “seek” operation (to “move”/“skip” to another position) on the currently loaded content has finished

Track selection events

This chapter describes events linked to the current audio, video or text track.

availableAudioTracksChange

payload type: Array.<Object>

Triggered when the currently available audio tracks might have changed (e.g.: at the beginning of the content, when period changes…) for the currently-playing Period.

The event might also rarely be emitted even if the list of available audio tracks did not really change - as the RxPlayer might send it in situations where there’s a chance it had without thoroughly checking it.

The array emitted contains object describing each available audio track:

  • active (Boolean): Whether the track is the one currently active or not.

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track. Use it for setting the track via setAudioTrack.

  • language (string): The language the audio track is in, as set in the Manifest.

  • normalized (string): An attempt to translate the language property into an ISO 639-3 language code (for now only support translations from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language codes). If the translation attempt fails (no corresponding ISO 639-3 language code is found), it will equal the value of language

  • audioDescription (Boolean): Whether the track is an audio description of what is happening at the screen.

  • dub (Boolean|undefined): If set to true, this audio track is a “dub”, meaning it was recorded in another language than the original. If set to false, we know that this audio track is in an original language. This property is undefined if we do not known whether it is in an original language.

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between audio tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

  • representations (Array.<Object>):

    Array listing the available audio Representations linked to this audio track. Each object describing a single Representation, with the following properties:

    • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

    • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

    • codec (string|undefined): The codec of the representation

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

availableVideoTracksChange

payload type: Array.<Object>

Triggered when the currently available video tracks might change (e.g.: at the beginning of the content, when period changes…) for the currently-playing Period.

The event might also rarely be emitted even if the list of available video tracks did not really change - as the RxPlayer might send it in situations where there’s a chance it had without thoroughly checking it.

The array emitted contains object describing each available video track:

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track. Use it for setting the track via setVideoTrack.

  • active (Boolean): Whether this track is the one currently active or not.

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between video tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

  • representations (Array.<Object>): Representations of this video track, with attributes:

    • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

    • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

      undefined if unknown.

    • width (Number|undefined): The width of video, in pixels.

    • height (Number|undefined): The height of video, in pixels.

    • codec (string|undefined): The codec given in standard MIME type format.

    • frameRate (number|undefined): The video framerate.

  • signInterpreted (Boolean): Whether the track contains sign interpretation.

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

availableTextTracksChange

payload type: Array.<Object>

Triggered when the currently available text tracks might change (e.g.: at the beginning of the content, when period changes…) for the currently-playing Period.

The event might also rarely be emitted even if the list of available text tracks did not really change - as the RxPlayer might send it in situations where there’s a chance it had without thoroughly checking it.

The array emitted contains object describing each available text track:

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track. Use it for setting the track via setTextTrack.

  • language (string): The language the text track is in, as set in the Manifest.

  • normalized (string): An attempt to translate the language property into an ISO 639-3 language code (for now only support translations from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language codes). If the translation attempt fails (no corresponding ISO 639-3 language code is found), it will equal the value of language

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between text tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

  • closedCaption (Boolean): Whether the track is specially adapted for the hard of hearing or not.

  • forced (Boolean): If true this text track is meant to be displayed by default if no other text track is selected.

    It is often used to clarify dialogue, alternate languages, texted graphics or location and person identification.

  • active (Boolean): Whether the track is the one currently active or not.

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

audioTrackChange

payload type: Object|null

Information about the current audio track, each time it changes for the currently-playing Period.

The payload is an object describing the new track, with the following properties:

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track.

  • language (string): The language the audio track is in.

  • normalized (string): An attempt to translate the language property into an ISO 639-3 language code (for now only support translations from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language codes). If the translation attempt fails (no corresponding ISO 639-3 language code is found), it will equal the value of language

  • audioDescription (Boolean): Whether the track is an audio description of what is happening at the screen.

  • dub (Boolean|undefined): If set to true, this audio track is a “dub”, meaning it was recorded in another language than the original. If set to false, we know that this audio track is in an original language. This property is undefined if we do not known whether it is in an original language.

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between audio tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

  • representations (Array.<Object>):

    Array listing the available audio Representations linked to this audio track. Each object describing a single Representation, with the following properties:

    • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

    • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

    • codec (string|undefined): The codec of the representation

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

textTrackChange

payload type: Object|null

Information about the current audio track, each time it changes for the currently-playing Period.

The payload is an object describing the new track, with the following properties:

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track.

  • language (string): The language the text track is in.

  • normalized (string): An attempt to translate the language property into an ISO 639-3 language code (for now only support translations from ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 language codes). If the translation attempt fails (no corresponding ISO 639-3 language code is found), it will equal the value of language

  • closedCaption (Boolean): Whether the track is specially adapted for the hard of hearing or not.

  • forced (Boolean): If true this text track is meant to be displayed by default if no other text track is selected.

    It is often used to clarify dialogue, alternate languages, texted graphics or location and person identification.

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between text tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

videoTrackChange

payload type: Object|null

Information about the current audio track, each time it changes for the currently-playing Period.

Information about the current video track, each time it changes (the last received segment got a new one).

The payload is an object describing the new track, with the following properties:

  • id (string): The id used to identify the track. Use it for setting the track via setVideoTrack.

  • label (string|undefined): A human readable label that may be displayed in the user interface providing a choice between video tracks.

    This information is usually set only if the current Manifest contains one.

  • representations (Array.<Object>): Representations of this video track, with attributes:

    • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

    • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

      undefined if unknown.

    • width (Number|undefined): The width of video, in pixels.

    • height (Number|undefined): The height of video, in pixels.

    • codec (string|undefined): The codec given in standard MIME type format.

    • frameRate (number|undefined): The video framerate.

  • isTrickModeTrack (Boolean|undefined): If set to true, this track is a trick mode track. This type of tracks proposes video content that is often encoded with a very low framerate with the purpose to be played more efficiently at a much higher speed.

    To enter or exit a mode where trickmode tracks are used instead of regular non-trickmode ones, you can use the setPlaybackRate function.

  • trickModeTracks (Object | undefined): Trick mode video tracks attached to this video track.

    Each of those objects contain the same properties that a regular video track (same properties than what is documented here).

    It this property is either undefined or not set, then this track has no linked trickmode video track.

  • signInterpreted (Boolean): Whether the track contains sign interpretation.

A null payload means that video track has been disabled.

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

In DirectFile mode (see transport option), a `null` payload may be received even if the video track is still visually active. This seems due to difficult-to-detect browser bugs. We recommend not disabling video track when in directfile mode to avoid that case (this is documented in the corresponding APIs).

Representation selection events

This chapter describes events linked to the current audio, video or Representation / quality.

videoRepresentationChange

payload type: Object|null

Emitted when the current video Representation being considered by the RxPlayer changes.

The payload is an object describing this new Representation, with the following properties:

  • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

  • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

    undefined if unknown.

  • width (Number|undefined): The width of video, in pixels.

  • height (Number|undefined): The height of video, in pixels.

  • codec (string|undefined): The codec of the Representation.

  • frameRate (number|undefined): The video framerate.

A null payload means that no video track is available now.

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

audioRepresentationChange

payload type: Object|null

Emitted when the current audio Representation being considered by the RxPlayer changes.

The payload is an object describing the new Representation, with the following properties:

  • id (string): The id used to identify this Representation.

  • bitrate (Number|undefined): The bitrate of this Representation, in bits per seconds.

  • codec (string|undefined): The codec of the representation

This event only concerns the currently-playing Period.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

Playback information

This chapter describes events describing miscellaneous information about the current content.

periodChange

payload type: Object

Triggered when the current Period being seen changes.

The payload of this event is an object containing the following properties:

  • start (number): The starting position at which the Period starts, in seconds.

  • end (number|undefined): The position at which the Period ends, in seconds.

    undefined either if not known or if the Period has no end yet (e.g. for live contents, the end might not be known for now).

  • id (string): id of the Period, allowing to call track and Representation selection APIs (such as setAudioTrack and lockVideoRepresentations for example) even when the Period changes.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

newAvailablePeriods

payload type: Array.<Object>

This event is triggered when one or multiple new Periods start to be considered by the RxPlayer in the current content.

This event mainly allows to choose the text, audio and/or video tracks as well as the audio and/or video Representations to select for those Period(s).

This event is first sent once the content is first loaded and then may be triggered gain everytime the RxPlayer is considering another Period of the content.

The payload of this event is an array of object, each describing a single Period in chronological order. Those objects all contain the following properties:

  • start (number): The starting position at which the Period starts, in seconds.

  • end (number|undefined): The position at which the Period ends, in seconds.

    undefined either if not known or if the Period has no end yet (e.g. for live contents, the end might not be known for now).

  • id (string): id for this Period, allowing to call track and Representation selection APIs (such as setAudioTrack and lockVideoRepresentations for example) even if that Period is not currently playing.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

trackUpdate

payload type: Object

Event triggered if a video, audio or text track chosen for any Period is changed by the RxPlayer.

This event is triggered just after the track is updated but before any of the corresponding data is actually loaded, thus allowing you to edit track or Representations settings before the RxPlayer can continue.

However keep in mind that this event is not triggered for the initial default track choice made by the RxPlayer. If you want to react to this event instead, you can rely on the newAvailablePeriods event.

Cases where the track changes include:

  • when the application updates a track manually (for example through a setAudioTrack call)

  • when it had to be done as a side-effect of another API (for example after enabling trickmode video tracks through a setPlaybackRate call)

  • or in the extremely rare situation where the RxPlayer had to do it by itself automatically (one situation would be when a refreshed content’s Manifest removes the previously-chosen track. There, the RxPlayer will send the trackUpdate event and - if no new track is chosen since - will automatically switch to that track so playback can continue).

The payload for this event is an object with the following properties:

  • trackType (string): The type of track concerned. Can for example be audio for an audio track, video for a video track or text for a text track.

  • period (Object): Information about the concerned Period. This object contains as properties:

    • start (number): The starting position at which the Period starts, in seconds.

    • end (number|undefined): The position at which the Period ends, in seconds.

      undefined either if not known or if the Period has no end yet (e.g. for live contents, the end might not be known for now).

    • id (string): id of the Period, allowing to call track and Representation selection APIs (such as setAudioTrack and lockVideoRepresentations for example) even when the Period changes.

  • reason (string): The reason for the track update. For now, it can be set to:

    • "manual": the track was updated because the application called a method to directly update it.

      This event is the direct consequence of calling setAudioTrack, setTextTrack, setVideoTrack, disableTextTrack or disableVideoTrack, so it corresponds to track updates you should already be aware of.

    • "trickmode-enabled": The track is being updated because the application wanted to enable video trickmode tracks (usually by setting the preferTrickModeTracks option of the setPlaybackRate method to true).

    • "trickmode-disabled": The track is being updated because the application wanted to disable video trickmode tracks (usually by setting the preferTrickModeTracks option of the setPlaybackRate method to false).

    • "missing" the previously-chosen track was missing from the content’s refreshed Manifest.

    • "no-playable-representation": the previously-chosen track had none of its Representation playable, most likely because of decipherability issues and thus the RxPlayer decided to switch to a new track.

    Though other reasons may be added in the future (for future reasons not covered by those values), so you should expect this possibility in your application’s logic.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

representationListUpdate

payload type: Object

Event triggered if the list of available Representation linked to the currently-chosen video, audio or text track for any Period (for example inspectable through the representations property of audio and video track objects) may have changed compared to what it was before.

Note that you won’t receive a representationListUpdate event the initial time the corresponding track is selected, it is only sent when its linked list of available Representations might have dynamically changed during playback. For now, this may only happen if at least one of the Representation in the chosen track became undecipherable (in which case it is not available anymore) or decipherable (in which case it becomes available again).

The main point of this event is to let you adjust your tracks and Representations choice when they depend on the list of available Representation.

The payload for this event is an object with the following properties:

  • trackType (string): The type of track concerned. Can for example be audio for an audio track, video for a video track or text for a text track.

  • period (Object): Information about the concerned Period. This object contains as properties:

    • start (number): The starting position at which the Period starts, in seconds.

    • end (number|undefined): The position at which the Period ends, in seconds.

      undefined either if not known or if the Period has no end yet (e.g. for live contents, the end might not be known for now).

    • id (string): id of the Period, allowing to call track and Representation selection APIs (such as setAudioTrack and lockVideoRepresentations for example) even when the Period changes.

  • reason (string): The reason for the update. For now, it can be set to:

    • "decipherability-update": The list of available Representations is being updated either because at least one of that track’s Representation became undecipherable or because it became decipherable again.

    Though other reasons may be added in the future (for future reasons not covered by those values), so you should expect this possibility in your application’s logic.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

brokenRepresentationsLock

payload type: Object

Fairly rare event triggered if representations locked through Representations selection API such as lockVideoRepresentations or lockAudioRepresentations all became unplayable (most likely linked to encryption reasons), in which case, the RxPlayer “broke” that lock, i.e. it decided to remove that lock and play all Representations instead.

This event is sent strictly before the RxPlayer had the chance to actually load those other Representations. You can thus profit from this event by synchronously locking Representations you wish to play and thus avoid playing the others.

The payload for this event is an object with the following properties:

  • period (Object): Information about the concerned Period. This object contains as properties:

    • start (number): The starting position at which the Period starts, in seconds.

    • end (number|undefined): The position at which the Period ends, in seconds.

      undefined either if not known or if the Period has no end yet (e.g. for live contents, the end might not be known for now).

    • id (string): id of the Period, allowing to call track and Representation selection APIs (such as setAudioTrack and lockVideoRepresentations for example) even when the Period changes.

  • trackType (string): The type of track concerned. Can for example be audio for audio Representations or video for video Representations.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

inbandEvents

payload type: Object

Event triggered when the player encounters inband events in the stream. These events are included in the loaded and parsed chunks, and are often used to carry content metadata.

Each event contains :

  • type (type: String) : defines the type of the event, specific to an inband event from a streaming protocol.
  • value (type: Object) : the actual parsed content of the event.

The supported inband event types are :

  • “emsg” : The emsg (Event message box) provides inband signaling for generic or MPEG-DASH specific events. One ISOBMFF media segment may contain one or several boxes. The parsed event contains :

    • schemeIdUri (String)
    • value (String)
    • timescale (Number)
    • presentationTimeDelta (Number)
    • eventDuration (Number)
    • id (Number)
    • messageData (Uint8Array)

    These attributes are documented in the ISOBMFF specification.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

streamEvent

payload type: Object

Event triggered when the player enters the time boundaries of a “stream event”.

“Stream events” are metadata that can be defined in various streaming protocols, which indicates that an application should trigger some action when a specific time is reached in the content.

Those events can either have only a start time or both a start time and an end time:

  • in the case where an event only has a start time, the RxPlayer will trigger a streamEvent right when the user reaches that time.

    If we return multiple time at that position (for example, when a user seeks back to it), you will receive a streamEvent as many times for that same event.

  • in the case where an event has both a start and end time, the RxPlayer will trigger a streamEvent when the current position goes inside these time boundaries (between the start and end time). This can happen while reaching the start during regular playback but also when seeking at a position contained between the start and end time.

    The streamEvent event will not be re-sent until the current position “exits” those time boundaries. If the current position goes out of the boundaries of that event and then goes into it again (most likely due to the user seeking back into it), you will again receive a streamEvent for that same event.

The payload of a streamEvent depends on the source of the event. For example, it will not have the same format when it comes from a Manifest than when it comes from the media container. All possible formats are described in the stream event tutorial.

Note: When an event has both a start and an end time, you can define a onExit callback on the payload. That callback will automatically be triggered when the current position goes after the end time or before the start time of that event. The onExit callback will only be called a single time at most and will only concern this iteration of the event (and not possible subsequent ones).

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

streamEventSkip

payload type: Object

Event triggered when the player skipped the time boundaries of a “stream event” (you can refer to the streamEvent event for a definition of what a “stream event” is).

This means that the current position the player plays at, immediately changed from a time before the start time of a “stream event” to after its end time (or just after its end time for “stream event” without an end time).

This is most likely due to the user seeking in the content. A “regular” content playback which continuously plays the content without seeking shouldn’t trigger any streamEventSkip event.

The payload of a streamEventSkip is the same than for a streamEvent and as such depends on the source of the event. All possible formats are described in the stream event tutorial.

Note that unlike streamEvent events, there’s no point to define an onExit callback on the payload of a streamEventSkip event. This is because this event was not entered, and will thus not be exited.

This event is not sent in DirectFile mode (see transport option)

Player events

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