Shaka Upgrade Guide, v2.4 => v3.0

This is a detailed guide for upgrading from Shaka Player v2.4 to v3.0. Feel free to skim or to search for the class and method names you are using in your application.

What's New in v3.0?

Shaka v3.0 introduces several improvements over v2.4, including:

An official Shaka Player UI library to provide customizable and styleable video controls
- Load dist/shaka-player.ui.js
- See tutorial in docs/tutorials/ui.md
Ad-insertion APIs (integrated with the Google IMA SDK)
Complete redesign of the demo app
FairPlay support
Native HLS support on iOS and Safari
Support for single-file playback
Network requests can be aborted when switching streams
Offline storage operations can be aborted
Support for concurrent operations in a single shaka.offline.Storage instance
Stable Track objects across DASH Periods
Partial support for SMPTE-TT subtitles
Improved service worker in demo app PWA
Drift tolerance for live DASH streams (on by default)
PlayReady license URL parsing (ms:laurl)
Support for CEA captions in DASH
Merged CEA captions in text tracks API
New config field to ignore manifest minBufferTime
New config field streaming.inaccurateManifestTolerance to control assumptions about manifest accuracy
New fields in getStats()
Configuration for presentation delay
Offline storage without a Player instance
A safe margin parameter was added for clearing the buffer
Widevine SAMPLE-AES support in HLS

Extern namespace change

If you use the Closure Compiler in your own project, you need to know that v3.0 changes the namespace for our externs, such as plugin interfaces and manifest types. The namespace has changed from shakaExtern to shaka.extern. You MUST update any references to shakaExtern.

// v2.4:
/**
 * @param {shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.RequestType} type
 * @param {shakaExtern.Request} request
 * @return {!Promise}
 */
function myFilter(type, request) { /* ... */ }

// v3.0:
/**
 * @param {shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.RequestType} type
 * @param {shaka.extern.Request} request
 * @return {!Promise}
 */
function myFilter(type, request) { /* ... */ }

Player Factory parameter change

The optional Factory parameter in Player.load() and Storage.store() has been changed to a MIME type string. The Factory parameter was deprecated in v2.5 and removed in v3.0. Applications MUST update to use MIME types instead of explicit factories. Any registered factory can be referenced by its registered MIME type.

// v2.4:
player.load('foo.mpd', /* startTime= */ 0,
    /* factory= */ shaka.dash.DashParser);

// v3.0:
player.load('foo.mpd', /* startTime= */ 0,
    /* mimeType= */ 'application/dash+xml');

See shaka.Player#load for details.

Manifest URI API change

The method Player.getManifestUri() has been renamed to Player.getAssetUri(). The older method was deprecated in v2.5 and was removed in v3.0. Applications MUST update to the new method, whose name more accurately reflects our support for non-manifest content.

// v2.4:
const uri = player.getManifestUri();

// v3.0:
const uri = player.getAssetUri();

Embedded text (CEA 608/708) API change

The CEA-specific methods Player.selectEmbeddedTextTrack() and Player.usingEmbeddedTextTrack() were deprecated in v2.5 and were removed in v3.0. CEA captions now show up in the standard text track APIs: getTextTracks(), selectTextTrack(), getTextLanguages(), getTextLanguagesAndRoles(), and selectTextLanguage(). Applications MUST update to using the track APIs. If you have content with VTT or TTML subtitles, you should already be using these APIs.

// v2.4:
player.selectEmbeddedTextTrack();

// v3.0:
const tracks = player.getTextTracks();
const desiredTrack = someProcessToChooseOne(tracks);
player.selectTextTrack(desiredTrack);

Utility method changes

In v3.0, the method shaka.util.Uint8ArrayUtils.equal has been moved to shaka.util.BufferUtils.equal. The new method supports both ArrayBuffer and subclasses of ArrayBufferView like Uint8Array.

Backward compatibility will be provided until v4.0. Applications SHOULD update to use the new location.

// v2.4:
if (shaka.util.Uint8ArrayUtils.equal(array1, array2) { ...

// v3.0:
if (shaka.util.BufferUtils.equal(array1, array2) { ...

Configurable factory changes

All configuration fields and plugin registration interfaces that accept factories have been changed in v3.0. These factories SHOULD now be functions that return an object and MAY be arrow functions. This makes our configuration and plugin registration interfaces consistent and improves usability in some cases.

Backward compatibility is provided until v4.0. If we detect that a factory needs to be called with new, we will do so and log a deprecation warning. Applications SHOULD update their factories.

This change affects the following types:

// v2.4:
class MyAbrManager {
  // ...
}
player.configure('abrFactory', MyAbrManager);

class MyManifestParser {
  // ...
}
shaka.media.ManifestParser.registerParserByMime('text/foo', MyManifestParser);

// v3.0:
player.configure('abrFactory', () => new MyAbrManager());
shaka.media.ManifestParser.registerParserByMime(
    'text/foo', () => new MyManifestParser());

Misc configuration changes

The configurable callback manifest.dash.customScheme has been removed in v3.0 and is no longer supported.

The config field manifest.dash.defaultPresentationDelay has been moved to manifest.defaultPresentationDelay. Backward compatibility is provided until v4.0. Applications using this field SHOULD update to use the new location.

The manifest.defaultPresentationDelay field now affects both DASH and HLS content. The default value is 0, which is interpreted differently for DASH and HLS:

In DASH, 0 means a default of 1.5 * minBufferTime.
In HLS, 0 means a default of 3 * segment duration.

The config field manifest.dash.initialSegmentLimit has been added to control memory usage during DASH <SegmentTemplate> parsing.

The config field streaming.inaccurateManifestTolerance (in seconds) has been added to control off-by-one behavior in streaming. Compared with v2.4.x behavior, the default for this field should reduce the frequency with which we have to fetch an additional segment before a seek target. For less accurate manifests, the tolerance can be increased. For completely accurate manifests, applications may set this to 0.

See shaka.extern.ManifestConfiguration and shaka.extern.StreamingConfiguration for details.

Offline API changes

In v3.0, there is no longer any restriction on concurrent operations.

The method Storage.store() now returns an instance of IAbortableOperation instead of Promise. This allows applications to call op.abort() to stop an operation in progress. The operation Promise can now be found on op.promise. Backward compatibility is provided until v4.0; these operations will work like Promises in v3.0. (Applications MAY await them or call .then() on them.) In v4.0, these returned operations will no longer be Promise-like, so applications SHOULD update at this time to use op.promise.

// v2.4:
try {
  const result = await storage.store();
} catch (error) {
  // Store failed!
}

// v3.0:
const op = storage.store();
cancelButton.onclick = async () => {
  await op.abort();
};

try {
  const result = await op.promise;
} catch (error) {
  if (error.code == shaka.util.Error.Code.OPERATION_ABORTED) {
    // Store aborted by the user!
  } else {
    // Store failed!
  }
}

In v3.0, shaka.offline.Storage.configure() now takes a complete Player configuration object instead of a separate one. The fields that were previously part of the Storage config (trackSelectionCallback, progressCallback, and usePersistentLicense) have been moved inside the offline field. The old field locations were deprecated in v2.5 and removed in v3.0. Applications MUST update to use the new field locations.

// v2.4:
storage.configure({
  trackSelectionCallback: myTrackSelectionCallback,
});

// v3.0:
const storage = new shaka.offline.Storage();
storage.configure({
  offline: {
    trackSelectionCallback: myTrackSelectionCallback,
  },
});

// OR use shared Player configuration:
const storage = new shaka.offline.Storage(player);
player.configure({
  offline: {
    trackSelectionCallback: myTrackSelectionCallback,
  },
});

// OR use shared Player configuration and two-argument configure():
const storage = new shaka.offline.Storage(player);
player.configure('offline.trackSelectionCallback', myTrackSelectionCallback);

A new method has been introduced to allow an application to clean up and release any offline EME sessions that were not cleanly released: Storage.removeEmeSessions(). Applications MAY use this if desired.

See shaka.offline.Storage for details.

NetworkingEngine API changes

The fields Request.body and Response.data can now be either ArrayBuffer or an ArrayBufferView (e.g. Uint8Array). This means your request and response filters no longer have to convert a Uint8Array to ArrayBuffer to assign to Request.body or Response.data. However, this also means such filters MUST not assume one type or the other if they read those fields.

Applications SHOULD use these provided utilities to simplify common conversions:

Track API changes

The track APIs on Player have changed. Tracks now represent the entire presentation across DASH Periods, and will no longer change at Period boundaries. The originalId field is now a combination of the original IDs of the DASH Representations that make up the track.

Stats changes

The stats returned by Player.getStats() have changed.

The streamBandwidth field now accounts for the current playback rate when reporting the bandwidth requirements of a stream. For example, if the content is playing at 2x, the bandwidth requirement to play it is also doubled.

The following new fields have been added:

manifestTimeSeconds
drmTimeSeconds
liveLatency

See stats for details.

Network scheme plugin changes

In v2.5, we added a new parameter to network scheme plugins to allow plugins to provide progress events. This callback is only provided to your plugin for segment requests, so you must handle the case where this is not provided. The use of this callback enables StreamingEngine to converge more quickly on the ideal bandwidth estimate. Applications SHOULD update their custom network scheme plugins to provide progress events if feasible.

// v3.0:
function mySchemePlugin(uri, request, requestType, progressUpdated) {
  /// ...

    if (progressUpdated) {
      progressUpdated(/* timeElapsedMilliseconds= */ currentTime - lastTime,
                      /* bytesLoaded= */, loaded - lastLoaded,
                      /* byteRemaining= */, contentLength - loaded);
      lastTime = currentTime;
      lastLoaded = loaded;
    }

  /// ...
}
shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.registerScheme('foo', mySchemePlugin);

See shaka.extern.ProgressUpdated and shaka.extern.SchemePlugin for details.

Network filter changes

A new request type was introduced in v2.5: shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.RequestType.TIMING. This is used for time sync requests in the DASH parser. Previously, these requests used the type MANIFEST. Applications which look for specific request types in a filter MAY use this information if desired.

NetworkingEngine changes

In v2.3, the request() method on shaka.net.NetworkingEngine returned a Promise. In v2.5, it returns an implementation of IAbortableOperation.<shaka.extern.Response>, which contains a Promise.

All applications which make application-level requests via NetworkingEngine MUST update to the new API. The old API was removed in v2.5.

// v2.3:
try {
  const response = await player.getNetworkingEngine().request(type, request);
} catch (error) {
  // Request failed!
}

// v3.0:
const operation = player.getNetworkingEngine().request(type, request);

// The operation can also be aborted on some condition.
onSomeCondition(() => {
  operation.abort();
});

// Use operation.promise to get the response.
try {
  const response = await operation.promise;
} catch (error) {
  if (error.code == shaka.util.Error.Code.OPERATION_ABORTED) {
    // Request aborted!
  } else {
    // Request failed!
  }
}

See shaka.net.NetworkingEngine for details.

AbrManager plugin changes

In v3.0, we added a method to the shaka.extern.AbrManager interface called playbackRateChanged(rate). This allows implementations to consider the current playback rate in their ABR decisions.

Backward compatibility will be provided until v4.0. Applications with custom AbrManager plugins SHOULD update to add this method to their implementations.

See shaka.extern.AbrManager for details.

TextDisplayer plugin changes

The Cue objects consumed by TextDisplayer have changed in v2.5 and v3.0.

Cue.writingDirection has been split into Cue.writingMode and Cue.direction to fix bugs in the handling of these attributes
Cue.size now defaults to 0, which should be interpreted as "auto" (fit to text).

All application-specific TextDisplayer plugins MUST be updated. v3.0 does not have backward compatibility for this!

In addition, the following new fields have been added and MAY be used by TextDisplayer plugins:

Cue.backgroundImage
Cue.border
Cue.cellResolution
Cue.letterSpacing
Cue.linePadding
Cue.opacity

See shaka.extern.Cue for details.

Built-in network scheme plugin changes

Some of the built-in network scheme plugins have changed their API. Instead of registering the class itself, they now register a static parse() method on the class. Any applications with scheme plugins that delegate to these built-in plugins MUST update to call the new methods.

This affects the following classes:

// v2.5:
function MySchemePlugin(uri, request, requestType, progressUpdated) {
  return shaka.net.DataUriPlugin(
      uri, request, requestType, progressUpdated);
}
shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.registerScheme('data', MySchemePlugin);

// v3.0:
function MySchemePlugin(uri, request, requestType, progressUpdated) {
  return shaka.net.DataUriPlugin.parse(
      uri, request, requestType, progressUpdated);
}

Manifest parser plugin API changes

v3.0 introduced many changes to the shaka.extern.Manifest structure. Any application with a custom shaka.extern.ManifestParser or which uses shaka.Player#getManifest MUST be upgraded for compatibility with v3.0.

If your application meets either of these criteria, please refer to Shaka Player Manifest Upgrade Guide for detailed instructions on upgrading.