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How to Embed MPEG-DASH Stream from wowza into JW Player 7.2.4

Hi,

Can you please give me an example of how to embed an mpeg-dash vod / live into JWPlayer 7.2.4?

Thank you.

13 Community Answers

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Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Hi, there.

My name is Alex and I am one of the Support Engineers at JW Player. I will be more than happy to assist you with your questions.

As long as you have a Premium account, or higher, you should be able to embed MPEG-DASH streams by using the streams’s URL as the value of the file option found in the embed code on our Basic Video Embed.

So, for example, if your DASH stream’s URL is http://www.example.com/content.mpd, you would use the following embed code:

playerInstance.setup({
  file: "http://www.example.com/content.mpd"
});

Of course, you may want to add any other configuration options that you may want to this code, but that is all you would need to do.

Please let me know if you need any more help or have any other questions.

Thank you!

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ben.kittow

User  
0 rated :

Hi.
I am also having diffculty in getting DASH working.
My file: url is in this format:
file: "http://wowza.rgsit.com/vod/_definst_/mp4:111453/20150219141411.mp4/manifest.mpd"

The odd thing is that if I use the Shaka player, as standalone, then it works. However, I cannot get it to work using JWPlayer 7.2.4. I have confirmed that the provider.shaka.js file is reference through jwplayer.js, so I am now stuck.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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ben.kittow

User  
0 rated :

Update:
Interestingly, it will work in MS Edge. My version of Firefox is 44.0.2.
Is there a known issue with FF and Dash, perhaps?

Many thanks,

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registry

User  
0 rated :

Hello,
we need to abandon flash player, and we know that firefox now support mpeg-dash streaming.
We need to add this support of html5 mpeg-dash on Firefox too.
JwPlayer 7 use Shaka provider for DASH playback, and I've read on shaka docs that Firefox 44 is supported for dash: https://shaka-player-demo.appspot.com/docs/tutorial-porting.html

There's news?

Thanks

Up Down

Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
1 rated :

Hi, there.

Firefox’s support of DASH has been very flaky from version to version, so we are currently actively blocking DASH content in Firefox until it stabilizes, which as one of you pointed out, is starting to happen. It is currently on our roadmap to test DASH in Firefox for inclusion in 7.4.0, which should be out within a month or two. This is not a promise that it will be included, but we will take a look at it.

Currently, our player only officially supports DASH content in the following browsers:

  • Chrome for Desktop and Android
  • IE 11 for Windows 8.1, or higher

Please let me know if you need any more help or have any other questions.

Thank you!

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Nathan Mitchiner

User  
0 rated :

I am very interested in this thread as well and with DASH support for FF across all platforms. I am curious, though, I have a test Windows 7 machine with FF 45.0.1. How are you getting the video on the following page to play in the browser without Flash and without DASH I presume?

https://support.jwplayer.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1403727-what-is-jw-player-

We (NIEHS) are currently using Wowza 4+ with JW Player 6.12 for all of our live and on=demand federal needs and will soon be upgrading to JW Player 7+. At the moment, I can't find a viable solution to play video content from our Wowza Server via JW Player on FF without having Adobe Flash Player installed. Any suggestions would be great appreciated since the above video sample link does seem to work on FF w/out Flash.

Many Thanks!
NM

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Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
1 rated :

Hi, Nathan.

The video on the “What is JW Player?” page is not a DASH stream – it’s an HLS stream which does play back in Firefox. DASH playback is not currently supported in Firefox and I do not have a timeframe for a change in that.

You are correct that, as of right now, both of the streaming formats that our player supports in Firefox, RTMP and HLS, require Flash for playback. RTMP will always be this way because the format itself is based off of Flash. However, in the upcoming release of JW Player 7.4, we will begin the process of supporting HLS playback in browsers without the use of Flash. However, only Chrome will be supported with this new feature as of 7.4. The feature will eventually come to Firefox but I am unsure of a timeframe.

Please let me know if you need any more help or have any other questions.

Thank you!

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Nathan Mitchiner

User  
0 rated :

Wow, thanks for the quick reply and confirmation, Alex. I really appreciate it.

So, with that said, how are you still currently playing the following video on this page in FF on PC in HLS WITHOUT the Flash Player if you say 7.3.6 doesn't have that support yet?

https://support.jwplayer.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1403727-what-is-jw-player-

I only ask because when I right click on that video in my Win 7 FF (now 45.0.2) I am not presented with an Adobe Flash Player callout window but an HTML5 Powered by JW Player 7.3.6 window?

Perhaps I am doing something wrong on my end with our JW Player and Wowza instance because I can't get any of our VOD content to display on the same Win 7 FF instance. Every time I log into my jwplayer dashboard and paste one of our Wowza video URLs into the JW Player for testing in this format - http://main.niehs.gov.URL:1935/vod/_definst_/smil:sample-file.smil/playlist.m3u8, I get an "Error loading player: No playable sources found message" from your jwplayer.com dashboard.

My Wowza VOD application has MPEG-DASH, Apple HLS, Adobe RTMP, and RTSP/RTP enabled as well. The same sample link format from above loads perfectly fine in your jwplayer.com dashboard when I test it on a FF instance that does have flash installed.

Is it because I am trying to point to an adaptive url and not a straight mp4 file by chance?

Thanks so much for your patience with me. I am still trying to figure all of this out.

Best
NM

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Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Hi, Nathan.

Do you not have Flash Player installed, or have otherwise disabled it in Firefox? I ask because that embed has a MP4 fallback that plays when Flash Player is unavailable. The embed code is as follows:

var playerInstance = jwplayer("myElement");
playerInstance.setup({
playlist: [{
	image: '//assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com/thumbs/Wferorsv-720.jpg',
	title: "JW Player Video Test",
	sources: [{
    file: "//content.jwplatform.com/manifests/Wferorsv.m3u8"
  },{
    file: '//content.jwplatform.com/videos/Wferorsv-twSo9iFz.mp4'
  }]
}],
primary: 'flash'
});

Having Flash unavailable would also cause you to receive a “No Playable Sources” error when viewing that HLS stream in your Account Dashboard.

Please let me know if you need any more help or have any other questions.

Thank you!

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Nathan Mitchiner

User  
0 rated :

Thanks so much for clearing everything up. I really appreciate it and that code makes perfect sense now.

With that said, can you confirm the following and correct me if I am wrong with any of the statements / wording below?

First, in summary with regards to streaming live and VOD with HLS, JW Player 7.3.6 absolutely still requires the Adobe Flash Player at the moment for desktop playback in all browsers (FF, Chrome, IE, Edge) with the exception of Safari...which can play HLS native?

Second, there is a roadmap to allow for native HLS support without Flash starting with Chrome in the upcoming 7.4 release with potentially other browser support (IE, Edge, FF) to follow in the future?

Third, the current best practice for desktop browser HLS playback is to have a direct http://....mp4 file fallback that plays via HTML5 in the JW Player if Flash isn't present?

Fourth, is it possible that DASH will fix all of these browser problems in the future and that streaming DASH from Wowza to JW Player will be the preferred method for desktop and mobile instead of the current HLS protocol?

Fifth, can you clarify HTML5 video playback support in general in terms of JW Player....meaning that, for instance, if JW Player is playing back native HLS video in Safari without Flash, is that considered HTML5 playback or if JW Player is playing an mp4 file directly in FF without Flash installed is that also considered HTML5 playback? I think I am just getting confused with HLS vs HTML5 and if they are independent of each other. Again, still trying to get my head wrapped around all of this.

Thanks again for your continued patience and support. We are very happy with our current Wowza + JW Player combo but just want to continue to put ourselves in the best possible position moving forward to ensure our federal live broadcasts and VOD content can be seen by as many browsers and devices as possible.

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Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
1 rated :

Hi, Nathan.

First, in summary with regards to streaming live and VOD with HLS, JW Player 7.3.6 absolutely still requires the Adobe Flash Player at the moment for desktop playback in all browsers (FF, Chrome, IE, Edge) with the exception of Safari…which can play HLS native?

You are correct, with the exception of Edge. Edge supports HLS natively, as well.

Second, there is a roadmap to allow for native HLS support without Flash starting with Chrome in the upcoming 7.4 release with potentially other browser support (IE, Edge, FF) to follow in the future?

I don’t have a release date for 7.4, but it should be some time in April. It’s currently in its third beta version. The HTML5 via HLS feature will hit Chrome with that release. Next up would be Firefox and, as of right now, that is tentatively scheduled for 7.5, but things could obviously change. We would obviously attempt to tackle IE after that.

Third, the current best practice for desktop browser HLS playback is to have a direct http://….mp4 file fallback that plays via HTML5 in the JW Player if Flash isn’t present?

Yes.

Fourth, is it possible that DASH will fix all of these browser problems in the future and that streaming DASH from Wowza to JW Player will be the preferred method for desktop and mobile instead of the current HLS protocol?

Yes and no. We do believe DASH is the future and we are actually in the process of integrating the ability to generate DASH streams when you upload content to our platform. However, browser support is still quite limited and we are reliant on Google, who provides the code we need to render DASH stream, in addition to the browser manufacturers to introduce browser support for DASH in other browsers. Also, to be honest, I do not foresee DASH being supported in Safari for iOS anytime soon because HLS is actually Apple’s specification. Never say never, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see DASH support on mobile stay where it currently is (Chrome for Android).

Fifth, can you clarify HTML5 video playback support in general in terms of JW Player….meaning that, for instance, if JW Player is playing back native HLS video in Safari without Flash, is that considered HTML5 playback or if JW Player is playing an mp4 file directly in FF without Flash installed is that also considered HTML5 playback? I think I am just getting confused with HLS vs HTML5 and if they are independent of each other. Again, still trying to get my head wrapped around all of this.

In terms of the ways in which our player can render content, there are only two – HTML5 and Flash. We consider any way we can render content without the use of Flash to be using HTML5. The ability to render content in HTML5 could either be done via native browser support or some other magic that we can introduce into the player.

HLS and HTML5 are independent of each other. HLS is a format, while HTML5 would be a considered a rendering mode. It would be the same as comparing MP4 and Flash.

I hope this helps!

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Nathan Mitchiner

User  
0 rated :

Took me long enough but I think I am FINALLY getting it. Thanks again for all of the patience and quick / thorough responses.

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Alex

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Not a problem, Nathan!

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