JW Player Plugin Advanced

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.12.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.12.4, Captions Styling

JW Player is committed to ensuring your videos are accessible to all of your visitors. We are invested in inclusive practices that comply with laws and standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Our web player is accessible by keyboard and screen reader, and supports and renders all popular captions formats.
JW Player 8.12 continues this commitment with an out of the box interface for end-users to style captions directly within the player s settings menu. Laws in the United States mandate that certain content providers, such as broadcasters, include captions with all of their videos. Prior to this release, our captions API made it possible to custom build a styler on top of the player, but 8.12 offers a fully supported replacement that saves you time spent building and maintaining your own. We expose all nine FCC compliant attributes and values.
Each video consumer can customize the look of captions to suit their visual needs including colors, size, and characters through font choices and edge style. Plus, this feature works out of the box on all players, so no configuration is required! It styles all captions formats, as well as subtitles. This menu is automatically available on all desktop devices whenever captions are part of the media. It will be hidden on tablets and phones, where captions styled are inherited from the user s device, which also provides a captions styling interface.

Core Player

Added support for viewers to change the way captions are styled from within the settings menu on desktop devices. Automated player translation support for all of the new text introduced in the menus and options will be available in 8.12.2.
Added a new configuration option, liveSyncDuration, for live HLS streams, which enables players to attempt to start live streams at a specified latency target between 5-30 seconds instead of the default 25 seconds. This value also affects where the live button seeks to when behind the edge.
Reduced 232403 errors caused by loading stale levels that return a status 403 in JW Player-hosted HLS streams.

Advertising

Added VAST 4.1 compliant support for the advertiser node in ad tags in both the VAST and Google IMA plugins.
Added an available -list suffix to our playlist item-level macros that will result in the macro replacement not URI encoding commas.
Added a new ad rule in the VAST plugin, deferAds, which does not play ads whenever a player is playing in an inactive tab, and resumes on the last unplayed ad when the tab becomes active again. Learn how to configure this rule in our documentation.
Improved creative selection in the VAST by using bandwidth estimation to choose a rendition with the most appropriate bitrate when there are multiple options with the same dimensions.
Improved creative selection in the Google IMA plugin by passing bandwidth estimation to the ads manager.
Added support for playlist-level configuration of Freewheel where the freewheel object can now be nested within an individual playlist item object.
Added localization support and automated translations for all text in the captions styling menu (26 new fields in all).

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.13.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.13.3, Player Bidding Powered by Prebid.js

JW 8.13 includes a major technical upgrade to our Video Player Bidding (VPB), with the goal of maximizing your total ad yield in mind. This release introduces the use of Prebid.js,—considered the gold-standard in header-bidding frameworks,—to conduct client-side auctions.
Its broad support in the ad-tech ecosystem and JW Player s investment in contributing to the open source project will enable exciting new features in the coming months. Our Prebid-powered player bidding solution will also increase demand through the support of additional monetization partners and bring new insights into the advertisers buying your inventory.

Core Player

Extended the Javascript API to allow for asynchronous blocking between playlist items. Loading, preloading, ads, and playback of the next playlist item can be blocked until async operation, wrapped in a promise, resolves.
Exposed metadataCueParsed events in Safari when ID3 tags are parsed.
Reduced total player library size by 9.4%.
Added support to load and parse HLS manifest metadata in Safari when an HLS stream contains #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME tags.
Added a new boolean configuration option, loadAndParseHlsMetadata, which can be set to false to disable metadata parsing in Safari, which will lower manifest requests.
Increased the number of seconds before a video completes where the next playlist item s content begins to load from two to five in order to better accommodate asynchronous operations and reduce rebuffering.

Advertising

Enabled Prebid.js to power client side auctions and migrated existing JW Video Player Bidding demand partners to use Prebid s adapters.
Created a new event, adWarning in the VAST plugin, which fires when a non-fatal ad error occurs that does not prevent fill.
Created warning 70001 for VAST error code 1002, which occurs when a VMAP does not contain tracking events for the ad break.
Added a new boolean configuration option, withCredentials to the advertising block, which when set to false will make just one ad call, one without credentials. By default, this option is set to true, which explicitly makes ad requests with credentials.
Added support to prioritize ad schedules configured within an individual playlist item over any other ad schedule in Google IMA and Freewheel.
Added Video Player Bidding support for Index Exchange.
Reduced human error in setting up player bidding on the client side by making the accepted values in advertising.bidders case insensitive.
Added case insensitivity to directional AdChoices logo positioning values (top, right, left, bottom) coming from ad responses. Before, incorrect casing would always result in a top-left positioned AdChoices logo.

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.16.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.16.0 Emsg metadata in MPEG-DASH streams,

Our metadata API events allow developers to listen for timed metadata embedded in the media file to signal the start and stop of an ad. This release adds support for parsing Event Message box events, or esmg, which carries ID3 metadata, often used in DASH streams.

Updates

Added support for triggering the on(meta) and on(metadataCueParsed) methods based on in-band emsg timed metadata.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.15.0, Connecting AMP Components

Google s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) have become ubiquitous for digital publishers, which is why we are excited to release AMP improvements in JW 8.15 and to our official AMP component, amp-jwplayer.
AMP is an open source HTML-based web component framework that enables media companies to easily create web pages that are compelling, smooth, and load near instantaneously. Developers will find that amp-jwplayer is now compatible with other AMP components, including amp-analytics, which allows video player data to be sent to any supported analytics platform, and amp-video-docking, which allows the player to stick to the page.

Updates

The VAST ad client, added support for the jwpseg macro from within VAST tags contained within a wrapper.
Improved playback resilience and error handling with some bad VPAID ad creatives.
Improved compatibility with the AMP framework and quality assurance capabilities of our amp-jwplayer component.
To supplement documentation we maintain on amp.dev, we created JW Player developer documentation on embedding an AMP player and working with AMP analytics.
Added a configuration option, playlistIndex, which enables a playlist to be loaded and start playback from any item within it, not just the first. The default of this option is a 0 index.

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.14.0, Service Release

We are looking forward to updates later this year where we will be improving our Google AMP component and adding Samsung TV app support. In the meantime, this minor release contains under the hood service improvements, as well as small updates and bug fixes to ensure the player is the best it can be.

Updates
Core Player

Added a new property, cueType, to the addCues event, which adds a custom CSS class that can be used for additional cue styling in the format of .jw-cue-type-{cueType}.
Added a new CSS class .jw-cue-type-ads to ad cues so they can be styled separately from other cues, such as chapter markers.
Added support for 608 caption track names defined in the parent manifest via #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=CLOSED-CAPTIONS tags.

Advertising

To the VAST client, added support for the VAST 4.1 viewableImpression node, which adds a tracking pixel to the page when the adImpression event fires based on whether the ad is viewable at that time.

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.17.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.17.0 Floating API

Few features have been as big of a sensation among our customers as the floating player, a configuration option released in 8.8.0. Ad viewability rates and view engagement increase when the player remains in view as a viewer scrolls, and can be enabled with the click of a button in the player builder in our dashboard or configured with a single line with JSON in the setup block.
Over the past year, you’ve shared ideas for other floating experiences including: when the page first loads, when the viewer reaches a certain point in an article, or on interaction (i.e.with a button). So, we have taken that feedback to create a new API to start and stop floating on command in 8.17.0.

Updates

Added a method, setFloating(), which starts and stops the player from floating, and getFloating(), which returns the current floating status.
Added a new configuration option in the floating object, mode, which defaults to notVisible, which is current behavior for floating when the original container would be out of view. always can be used to start floating and never stop unless updated with the API, and never can be used to not float, unless updated by API.
Made some big improvements to the way we do scheduling in the Google IMA client:
We now make ad request for each ad break, rather than creating a VMAP for the entire schedule for each playlist item.
The adRequest event has been changed to fire each time we make ad request to IMA SDK.
Added a new adLoaded event, which fires when IMA's LOADED event fires.
Deprecated the ability to use the playlistItem event to update an ad schedule. By the time that event fires, the schedule for the playlist item has already been created, so the change does not have an effect. Please use setPlaylistItemCallback to properly update the ad schedule.

Improved the message read aloud by a screen reader when the keyboard shortcuts toggle is selected.
Added the name of the menu the user will go back to if they leave a captions styling menu when using a screen reader.

# Fix the pathway files language at installation

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.18.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.18.0 2018+ Tizen Support Beta

The future of TV viewership is OTT, and along with our comprehensive app offering, we are re excited to announce beta support for embedding video players in Tizen apps on 2018+ Samsung smart TVs. Tizen is a web-based platform that is already capturing significant market share worldwide. Our beta offering works out of the box on these devices using the same web player library and setup configuration you know and love.

Updates

Added support for Tizen on 2018+ Samsung smart TVs.
Created a Tizen demo app to showcase our initial 2018+ beta support of this platform.
Added a new method, jwplayer().stopCasting(), which can be called to stop a casting session on a Chromecast device.
Added a new method, getPercentViewable, which takes no arguments and returns the visibility attribute from the player s model.
Added support for DRM robustness. To configure the player to use this feature, specify videoRobustness and/or audioRobustness in the playlist item source in the Widevine, Playready and Clearkey object within the DRM block.

Deprecations

Removed support for rendering 360/VR videos across all devices and streaming providers due to underutilization. The player will no longer recognize or render 360 videos as expected, though the videos will still play.

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.19.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.19.0 Apple Low Latency HLS Support

At last, streaming live video no longer sacrifices latency, or the delay between a moment captured on camera to when it is displayed to viewers.
In 2020, Apple, which developed the HLS format, amended its spec and added support for low latency in Safari across devices, and since then, the JW Player team has worked ceaselessly to bridge support across other browsers through our open-source maintainership of hlsjs.
We are excited to announce full, out of the box support for LL-HLS support in 8.19.0.

Updates

Core Player

Removed support for Flash, which was deprecated by Adobe on December 31, 2020.
Added out of the box support for low latency HLS streams, including partials, automatic playback rate adjustment, hold back, and part hold back. The player automatically detects low latency streams and goes into that mode with no additional configuration required.
Added support for low latency in JW Live Channels streams.
Added support for IMSC1 captions in HLS streams.
Added markup to discourage Google from displaying player error messages in search result snippets.
Removed a default value for liveSyncDuration. The player will no longer add a default of 25 to item sources.
Improved automatic latency defaults by starting HLS live streams with a latency based on the streams TARGET-DURATION or HOLD-BACK, in accordance with the HLS spec. This can still be overridden in browsers other than Safari by configuring liveSyncDuration, which used to default to 25 seconds.
Added duration, currentTime, seekRange, and metadata.currentTime to the seek event response.
Added targetLatency to time events. When playing live streams, the player will adjust playbackRate to meet the latency target.
Improved stream type detection for Yospace streams, which often contain query string parameters after the file extension.
Reduced fatal player errors caused by user agents represented as Safari that are really Chrome.
Added a new configuration option, horizontalVolumeSlider, that when optionally set to true, makes the volume slider appear horizontally, below the scroll bar, instead of above it.

New Features

Added a new configuration option to the advertising block, adTagParameters, an object, which supports custom parameter key value pairs with the DAI ad client.
Added a new configuration option to the advertising block, ppid, which can be used with the Google IMA client to pass a publisher provided id to the IMA SDK.
Added fallback support for Norwegian automated player translation. In addition to no, which is already supported, the player will now recognize html tag lang attributes of nn or nb as Norwegian as well. To customize text, please use the no object inside of the internationalization block regardless of which code is used in the page s lang attribute.

Known Issues

Due to a bug in 8.17.0+ affecting some player bidding customers, we will not update the biannual player release channel on its scheduled February 3 date. Instead, we will update it off schedule, on or before 8.20.0 in March. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Removed files from JW player media directory

- jwplayer.flash.swf
- provider.flash.js
- provider.hlsjs-progressive.js
- jwplayer.vr.js

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.20.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.19.0 OMID Ads in VAST

Pioneered by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Open Measurement standard for video on the web is a giant leap forward in reducing the dependency on VPAID ads for viewability measurement.
Open Measurement gives publishers transparency and control to manage the third-party verification scripts rather than running them through the ad creatives themselves, where they cannot be accessed.
Our 8.20.0 release brings out of the box OMID-compliant XML support for this industry-wide specification through our VAST ad client.
Google is expecting to include full OMID support soon, which will be available through our Google IMA client as soon as it s available.

Updates

    Added support for OMID ads in the VAST client. No configuration is required; the player automatically handles verification when the XML is returned.
    To the VAST client, added the adVerifications node to the adImpression event response, which returns the parsed content of that element in an object.
    Added a new configuration option to the advertising object, allowedOmidVendors, which accepts an array and is supported in the VAST client. If not set or set as an empty array, all vendors can run. If set, only the resources from the listed vendors can run. All failures to run verification will be noted accordingly to the ad server.
    Improved stalling when there is significant drift from the edge of live streams.

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.21.0 :

+ Support and tested with Joomla 4

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.21.2 Picture in Picture

Picture in picture minimizes videos to a corner of the screen, allowing you to multitask in any other app or browser tab.
Picture in Picture, or PiP, as it s often shortened to, works at the operating system level, as compared to our floating player,
which only minimizes to a corner of the current browser tab and is not viewable when backgrounded.
We have added out of the box support across Chrome and Safari on desktop and mobile devices.

New Features

    Added support for playback in Picture in Picture mode across all supported browsers, including ads, captions, and playlists. Firefox and Internet Explorer do not support this feature.
    Configuration: Added a new configuration option, pipIcon, which defaults to enabled and adds a Picture in Picture icon and right click menu options to supported desktop browsers only. Setting this option to disabled will remove this icon, which you can also hide with CSS. On mobile devices, we have elected not to add an icon to our controls, but rather, PiP can be enabled through the operating system s native gestures and user interface on both iOS and Android.
    Added automatic localization support for the Picture in Picture icon tooltip and right click menu option across all supported languages, which can also be customized via the intl block with pipIcon.
    Javascript API: added a new event, adLoadedXML, which fires when the VAST ad client loads an ad tag. The response contains the same object properties as other ad events, such as adBreakId, adPlayId, adPosition, client, tag, etc, as well as an XML parameter that exposes the XML downloaded from the tag.
    Improved recovery of live DASH streams that buffer infinitely by implementing segment timeouts.

# Fix allowedOmidVendors configuration option.
# Fix omidSupport configuration option.

 

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.22.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.22.2 Summer Updates

We continue to iterate on the web player based on your feedback.
We are making some small scale updates and fixes for the summer in 8.22 while we gear up for bigger releases, like a planned expansion of the parameters we support in our Google AMP component.

Updates

    Updated our Shaka dependency to 3.2
    Added 15+ new 246xxx error codes related to DASH DRM failures.
    In the VAST client, we now define the creative type as video when making ad requests with OMID-enabled players, which should improve measurement accuracy.
    Improved settings menu ARIA labeling for accessibility by removing the ariahaspopup attribute and changing the role attribute on many elements to better suit the screen reader experience.
    Improved accessibility of the seek slider by adding the aria-valuenow attribute and ensuring the current time is read aloud by screen readers for both VOD and live streams.
    
    Updated the About This Video modal (accessible via the right click menu) to include stats for nerds, including information about the stream including media ID, buffer health, resolution, and more.
    Configuration: Added a new configuration option, allowFullscreen, which defaults to true. When set to false, fullscreen functionality is completely disabled in the player including tapping, clicking, keyboard shortcuts, and API access.
    Javascript events: Added a new method, setAllowFullscreen, which through updating the boolean, disables or re-enables the above fullscreen behavior.
    Updated the Freewheel Ad Manager SDK dependency to v6.43.
    Improved player and page security by whitelisting allowed HTML markup elements that may render in media title and description fields; links, scripts, and Javascript functions are no longer rendered.

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Changelog JW Player Plugin Advanced 4.23.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.23.1 AMP Component Customization

AMP Component Customization

We have been thrilled by your positive feedback about and increased usage of our JW Player AMP component since we last released major updates to it in player version 8.15.0 in June 2020, when we added support for common video attributes and compatibility with other AMP components.
Developers have historically been limited by what they could customize within the AMP framework since it restricts third-party vendors and scripts to loading inside of iframes. This release helps developers achieve parity with on-page Javascript embeds by adding support for new attributes in AMP that enable extensive customization. Whether you want to append ad tags with page metadata, customize the player controls with CSS, or inject a full setup configuration using JSON, our AMP component now comes with out of the box support to create the player you need. We also added compatibility with the amp-consent component.
To learn more, check out our documentation on amp.dev

AMP Component Updates

Updated our amp-jwplayer documentation on amp.dev including all the attributes mentioned in the release notes.
To the amp-jwplayer component, added support for a new attribute, data-config-json, which accepts a full JSON configuration using any key values listed in the web player configuration reference, with the exception of media, which should use the media ID or playlist ID attribute, and the floating player, which should use the amp-video-docking component and the dock attribute on the player element.
Added support for appending the iframe source url before player setup, to support token signing for example, with new attributes data-player-param-* and data-player-querystring.
Added an attribute, data-ad-cust-params, which supports a JSON string of custom parameters that will be appended to the end of an ad tag on ad request.
Added an attribute, data-config-skin-url, which accepts a url to an externally-hosted CSS file that will be loaded inside of the iframe, and can be used to target JW Player elements. You can also load this file as skin.url in your JSON setup configuration using data-config-json. See our documentation on how to create your own CSS file.
Added an attribute, data-config-plugin-url, which accepts a url to an externally-hosted Javascript file that will be loaded inside of the iframe, and can be used to apply custom Javascript to the player.
Added support for populating ad tag macros in AMP with a new attribute, data-ad-macro-*. The following macros are supported:
An attribute used to override the default value of macros in ad tags. Supported macros include: domain, referrer,page-url, item-{custparam}, and item-{custparam}-list. For example, setting data-ad-macro-domain=jwplayer.com would ensure the requested ad tag populates the domain parameter with the defined page url. See our ad tag macro documentation for more information.
In AMP, added support for the amp-consent component, which a way for publishers to collect and store user s consent through a UI and is a way to block AMP components based on the user’s consent. Added a new attribute, data-block-on-consent, which if set blocks the player from loading until the consent state is resolved. The consent data will then be passed to the player's iframe as query parameters for use with advertising implementations. See the amp-consent blocking behaviors documentation for possible values that this attribute accepts.
Fixed an issue in amp-jwplayer where play events erroneously fired when an ad played.
Remove existing logic which was manually sending additional pause events during ads with AMP, which are no longer needed.

General Improvements

Added the aria-expanded attribute to the settings menu button to improve accessibility.
When hovering over the timeline where there are chapter markers, the chapter s name and the current time will always be shown.
For accessibility, added aria-expanded attributes to the buttons in the captions styling submenu.
Improved the experience for mp4 videos under 90 seconds that are single items so that when set to repeat, the looping is seamless.