shaka-player

What is shaka-player?

Shaka Player is an open-source JavaScript library for adaptive media streaming. It supports DASH and HLS formats and provides a wide range of features for media playback, including DRM support, offline storage, and live streaming.

What are shaka-player's main functionalities?

Basic Playback

This code demonstrates how to set up basic video playback using Shaka Player. It initializes the player with a video element and loads a DASH manifest.

const video = document.getElementById('video');
const player = new shaka.Player(video);

player.load('https://example.com/manifest.mpd').then(function() {
  console.log('The video has now been loaded!');
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.error('Error loading video', error);
});

DRM Support

This code demonstrates how to configure Shaka Player to support DRM (Digital Rights Management). It sets up license servers for Widevine and PlayReady and loads a DASH manifest.

const video = document.getElementById('video');
const player = new shaka.Player(video);

player.configure({
  drm: {
    servers: {
      'com.widevine.alpha': 'https://example.com/widevine_license',
      'com.microsoft.playready': 'https://example.com/playready_license'
    }
  }
});

player.load('https://example.com/manifest.mpd').then(function() {
  console.log('The video with DRM has now been loaded!');
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.error('Error loading video with DRM', error);
});

Offline Storage

This code demonstrates how to use Shaka Player's offline storage feature. It initializes the storage module and stores a DASH manifest for offline playback.

const video = document.getElementById('video');
const player = new shaka.Player(video);
const storage = new shaka.offline.Storage(player);

storage.store('https://example.com/manifest.mpd').then(function(content) {
  console.log('The content has been stored offline!', content);
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.error('Error storing content offline', error);
});

Live Streaming

This code demonstrates how to set up live streaming using Shaka Player. It initializes the player with a video element and loads a live DASH manifest.

const video = document.getElementById('video');
const player = new shaka.Player(video);

player.load('https://example.com/live.mpd').then(function() {
  console.log('The live stream has now been loaded!');
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.error('Error loading live stream', error);
});

Other packages similar to shaka-player

video.js

Video.js is a popular open-source HTML5 video player that supports a wide range of video formats and provides a plugin architecture for extending its functionality. Compared to Shaka Player, Video.js has a larger community and more plugins available, but it does not natively support DASH or HLS streaming.

hls.js

Hls.js is a JavaScript library that brings HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) to browsers with support for MSE (Media Source Extensions). It is specifically designed for HLS streaming, whereas Shaka Player supports both DASH and HLS. Hls.js is a good choice if you only need HLS support.

dash.js

Dash.js is an open-source reference client for the playback of MPEG-DASH content. It is maintained by the DASH Industry Forum and provides extensive support for DASH streaming. Compared to Shaka Player, Dash.js is more focused on DASH and may not have as many features for HLS or DRM.

README

Shaka Player is an open-source JavaScript library for adaptive media. It plays adaptive media formats (such as DASH and HLS) in a browser, without using plugins or Flash. Instead, Shaka Player uses the open web standards MediaSource Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions.

Our main goal is to make it as easy as possible to stream adaptive bitrate video and audio using modern browser technologies. We try to keep the library light, simple, and free from third-party dependencies. Everything you need to build and deploy is in the sources.

Shaka Player supports any browser that supports the necessary web standards. It is actively tested with:

• Chrome on Linux, Mac, Windows, Android, and ChromeOS
• Chromecast
• Firefox on Linux, Mac, and Windows
• Microsoft Edge
• IE 11
• Safari
• 2017 Tizen TV
• Widevine
• PlayReady

Shaka Player supports:

• Streaming formats:
  • DASH
  • HLS
• protected content:
  • Widevine
  • PlayReady
  • Clear Key
  • any other EME-compliant DRM system
• media formats:
  • ISO-BMFF / MP4
  • WebM (depends on browser support)
  • MPEG2-TS (depends on browser support)
  • WebVTT
  • TTML
• Chromecast
• offline playback:
  • clear content (all browsers)
  • protected content (depends on browser support)

Please note that Shaka Player cannot support iOS or IE11 on Windows 7 due to a lack of MediaSource Extensions on those platforms.

Important Links

• hosted demo (sources in demo/)
• hosted builds on cdnjs
• mailing list (join for release announcements or to discuss development)
• hosted API docs
• tutorials

Compiled Mode

Shaka Player is meant to be deployed after being compiled. The tools you need to compile the sources and documentation are included in the sources: Closure Compiler, Closure Linter, and JSDoc.

If you are integrating Shaka Player into another Closure-based project, our build process will generate externs for Shaka Player itself.

If you installed Shaka Player via npm, the sources have already been compiled for you and the externs have been generated.

See:

• dist/shaka-player.compiled.js (compiled bundle)
• dist/shaka-player.compiled.externs.js (generated externs)

In order to build, you simply need python v2.7 (for the build scripts) and JRE 7+ (for the compiler). Just run ./build/all.py and look for the output in dist/shaka-player.compiled.js. The output can be included directly in a <script> tag or loaded via a number of JavaScript module loaders.

To build the documentation, you will also need nodejs. Just run ./build/docs.py and look for the output in docs/api/.

Uncompiled Mode

Shaka Player can also be run in uncompiled mode. This is very useful for development purposes.

To load the library without compiling, you will need to generate a Closure "deps file" by running ./build/gendeps.py. Then, you'll need to bootstrap your application with three <script> tags:

  <script src="third_party/closure/goog/base.js"></script>
  <script src="dist/deps.js"></script>
  <script src="shaka-player.uncompiled.js"></script>

If you installed Shaka Player via npm, the deps file has already been generated for you.

Testing

You will need a few third-party dependencies to run automated tests. These dependencies are managed through npm and Shaka's package.json. If you cloned Shaka from github, simply run npm install from your git working directory to install these dependencies locally.

Run the tests in your platform's browsers using ./build/test.py. If you are familiar with the karma test runner, you can pass additional arguments to karma from build/test.py. For example:

./build/test.py --browsers Opera

Or:

./build/test.py --browsers Chrome,Firefox --reporters coverage

You can skip slow-running integration tests with --quick.

Contributing

If you have improvements or fixes, we would love to have your contributions. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for more information on the process we would like contributors to follow.

FAQ

For general help and before filing any bugs, please read the FAQ.

Changelog

2.2.4 (2017-10-23)

Bugfixes:

• Don't enforce seek range while paused in live streams (stays paused)
  • https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/982
• Fix start time in live streams
  • https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1069
• Fix handling & transmission of errors from cast receiver to sender
  • https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1065

Docs:

• Added a tutorial for the offline storage and playback APIs
  • https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1037