Summary

HLS.js v1.4.0-rc.1 is a preview release highlighting Content Steering and error handling improvements coming in version 1.4.

This release includes support for HLS Content Steering, EXT-X-DEFINE Variable Substitution, and preliminary support for GAP tags. An updated build process and packager provides ES module and worker script output with smaller script payloads. It also includes ABR improvements for short segments and Low-Latency HLS Parts, async xhrSetup support, new load policy error handling config options, and other bug fixes and enhancements.

Changes Since The Last Release

v1.4.0-beta.2...v1.4.0-rc.1

Bug Fixes since beta 2

• Only allow large gaps to be skipped if start gap or all fragments in range are partial (#5366) @robwalch
• Content-Steering fix: Do not clear and reload bit-identical subtitle content (#5365) @robwalch
• Relax TTFB timeout on manifest request (#5364) @robwalch

New Features

• Support for HLS Content Steering (#5191) @robwalch
• GAP Tag/Attribute Support with FRAG_GAP Error (#5257) @robwalch
• Implement EXT-X-DEFINE Variable Substitution (#5161) @robwalch
• Promisify xhrSetup (#5290) @fegauthier
• Support AES-128 Encrypted Low-Latency HLS Parts (#5214) @robwalch
• Migrate to Rollup with new ESM target and UMD Worker injection (#5299) @robwalch and @tjenkinson

Enhancements and Bug Fixes

• Add playlist RTT and time-to-load given buffer ahead (#5329) @iamboorrito
• Live reload level switch and error handling improvements (#5317) @robwalch
• Support partial RENDITION-REPORT URI matches fallback (#5176) @robwalch
• Fix current quality reporting when seeking back from edge in Low-Latency streams (#5102) @robwalch
• Treat TARGETDURATION as a decimal-integer assigned a minimum value of 1 (#5159) @robwalch
• Log error and detach if MediaSource 'sourceopen' is interrupted (#5206) @robwalch
• Fix for SourceBuffer full error handling (#5332) @robwalch
• Fix M2TS probing when PAT packet is not found in first three packets (#5252) @robwalch
• Fix fallback to inline worker when exception is thrown in worker (worker.onerror) (#5270) @robwalch
• Fix initPTS change between variants (timescale or basetime change) (#5235) @robwalch
• Handle invalid signed "tfdt" decode time values (#5333) @robwalch
• Add cue id for date-range cues (#5169) @yajin2021
• Fix subtitle track selection when TextTrack kind is captions (#5297) @dstreet26
• Cleanup config on destroy since callbacks can have references to the player instance or other objects in their scope (#5279) @robwalch
• Switch from netlify to CloudFlare Pages (#5305) @tjenkinson
• Add ES5 syntax check for UMD builds (#5301) @thornbill
• Fix demo bandwidth calculation / show estimated bitrate as line in bitrate graph (#4904) @silltho
• Documentation - Add interface for AbrController (#4842) @lpommers
• Replace ESDocs generated api-docs with api-documenter markdown (#5163) @robwalch
• Fix type name error (#5295) @JackPu

Demo Page

https://6ca3a336.hls-js-dev.pages.dev/

API and Breaking Changes

If you are upgrading from version v0.14.17 or lower, see the MIGRATING guide for API changes between v0.14.x and v1.0.0.

New API Features and Deprecations since v1.3

Note all deprecations are soft deprecations, meaning that none of the deprecated options or attributes were removed from the runtime player. They will remain available for backwards compatibility until v2.0.

• Added config.workerPath
• xhrSetup can optionally return a Promise
• ERROR Event enhancements:
  • All ERROR events include an error property of type Error which references either a caught exception or an Error object instantiated at the point of failure with a friendly error message
  • Added errorAction property to ERROR events, used by error-controller to resolve errors through retries and adaptive switching
  • Added stats property to ERROR events, used to gather timing information from network errors
  • Marked ERROR event err deprecated (replaced by error)
• Added LEVEL_PARSING_ERROR to ErrorDetails triggered the playlist parser encounters invalid HLS content (Variable Substitution)
• Added FRAG_GAP to ErrorDetails triggered when encountering a Segment or Part with a GAP tag or attribute, instead of attempting to load the media marked as unavailable. Error handling will attempt to switch renditions or jump the gap if a suitable replacement is not found.
• Marked lowBufferWatchdogPeriod as deprecated (implementation missing/removed)
• Deprecated loading timeout and retry config options in favor of new LoadPolicy options
  • A warning is logged when configuring the player with the deprecated loading settings, as they are converted to the new load policy options.

Feedback

Please provide feedback via Issues in GitHub. For more details on how to contribute to HLS.js, see our CONTRIBUTING guide.