RxPlayer Features

Overview

The RxPlayer has this concept of “features” which are functionalities which may or may not be included to your build.

This allows to reduce bundle size by not including features you don’t use, like parsers for subtitles formats you don’t depend on.

Which features you will need to import will depend on what RxPlayer’s build you rely on;

  • If you import the default RxPlayer build (e.g. through an import RxPlayer from "rx-player import), you will obtain an RxPlayer with most features, which should be sufficient for most use-cases. It already includes the following features (description of each available in the next chapter):

    • SMOOTH
    • DASH
    • DIRECTFILE
    • EME
    • NATIVE_SRT_PARSER
    • NATIVE_VTT_PARSER
    • NATIVE_TTML_PARSER
    • NATIVE_SAMI_PARSER
    • HTML_SRT_PARSER
    • HTML_VTT_PARSER
    • HTML_TTML_PARSER
    • HTML_SAMI_PARSER

  • If you import the RxPlayer’s minimal build however (e.g. through an import RxPlayer from "rx-player/minimal import), you will obtain an RxPlayer with no feature by default. In that case, you will probably need to add the features you want.

addFeatures static method

New features can be added by calling the addFeatures static method:

import RxPlayer from "rx-player/minimal";
import { DASH } from "rx-player/features";

RxPlayer.addFeatures([DASH]);

Features list

Features, which are variables imported from the "rx-player/features" path, are all objects declared in upper-case.

Here is the anotated exhaustive list (notes are at the bottom of the table):

Feature Description of the feature
SMOOTH Enable Smooth streaming (HSS) playback
DASH [1] [2] Enable DASH playback using a JavaScript-based MPD parser
DIRECTFILE Enable playback of “directfile” contents
EME Enable playback of encrypted contents
HTML_SRT_PARSER [3] Parse SRT text tracks for the "html" textTrackMode
HTML_VTT_PARSER [3] Parse VTT text tracks for the "html" textTrackMode
HTML_TTML_PARSER [3] Parse TTML text tracks for the "html" textTrackMode
HTML_SAMI_PARSER [3] Parse SAMI text tracks for the "html" textTrackMode
NATIVE_SRT_PARSER [3] Parse SRT text tracks for the "native" textTrackMode
NATIVE_VTT_PARSER [3] Parse VTT text tracks for the "native" textTrackMode
NATIVE_TTML_PARSER [3] Parse TTML text tracks for the "native" textTrackMode
NATIVE_SAMI_PARSER [3] Parse SAMI text tracks for the "native" textTrackMode
DEBUG_ELEMENT Allows to use the createDebugElement RxPlayer method
DASH_WASM [1] [2] [5] Enable DASH playback using a WebAssembly-based MPD parser
LOCAL_MANIFEST [4] Enable playback of “local” contents
METAPLAYLIST [4] Enable playback of “metaplaylist” contents
NATIVE_TEXT_BUFFER [6] (Deprecated) Base for the "native" textTrackMode.
HTML_TEXT_BUFFER [6] (Deprecated) Base for the "html" textTrackMode.

Notes:

[1]: In cases where both the DASH and DASH_WASM features are added (which are both parsers for DASH contents), the RxPlayer will default using the WebAssembly parser (provided by DASH_WASM) and fallback on the JavaScript parser (provided by DASH) when it cannot do so.

[2]: Both the DASH and DASH_WASM features only concern DASH contents loaded in main thread. If you just want to load DASH content in "multithread" mode, you don’t need any of those features, but the MULTI_THREAD feature instead.

[3]: The "native" and "html" textTrackMode are options set when loading a new content through the loadVideo method. To help you choose between those two:

  • The "native" mode relies on HTMLTrackElement (<track> tags) to display subtitles. This does not need any setup but may lead to poorly stylized subtitles. You may rely on this if you don’t need advanced subtitles stylization.
  • The "html" mode relies on regular HTMLElement (like <div> and such) to display subtitles. It allows more powerful stylization but will need a parent textTrackElement to also be provided on that same loadVideo call (as documented in the corresponding API documentation page.

[4]: Those features are experimental. They should be imported from rx-player/experimental/features.

[5]: The DASH_WASM feature has its own setup, detailed in the corresponding documentation page.

[6]: Both the NATIVE_TEXT_BUFFER and HTML_TEXT_BUFFER features are deprecated. They are already implicitly imported when parsing any of the corresponding text parsers.

[7]: The MULTI_THREAD feature has its own setup, detailed in the corresponding documentation page.

Examples

To help you choose your features, are some examples that represents common usecases.

unencrypted DASH contents with native webVTT subtitles

import RxPlayer from "rx-player/minimal";
import {
    DASH,
    NATIVE_VTT_PARSER,
} from "rx-player/features";

RxPlayer.addFeatures([DASH, NATIVE_VTT_PARSER]);

possibly-encrypted DASH contents with HMTL webVTT and TTML subtitles

import RxPlayer from "rx-player/minimal";
import {
    DASH,
    EME,
    HTML_VTT_PARSER,
    HTML_HTML_PARSER,
} from "rx-player/features";

RxPlayer.addFeatures([
    DASH,
    EME,
    HTML_VTT_PARSER,
    HTML_TTML_PARSER,
]);

RxPlayer Features

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