JW Player Module Advanced

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.8.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.8.2, Viewability Features

In the industry, a video player that is at least 50% in view on the screen for greater than two seconds is considered viewable. Viewability is a key signal of engagement, which is why it has become the gold standard for publishers and advertisers alike.
JW 8.8.0 introduces the floating player, which minimizes itself to the bottom right corner of the screen when a viewer scrolls the player out of view. It ensures nearly 100% viewability and can be easily dismissed back to its original position.
Another way to increase average viewability is by automatically pausing the video when the player is out of view. Our auto pause feature can help you do just that. Both of these features are available with as little as one line of code..
Also new in JW 8.8.0 is support for the CMAF standard, as well as using our recommendations interfaces (known as the shelf and shelf widget) on any playlist, and six new languages for automatic localization.

Core Player

Made security improvements to input handling.
Added a tooltip over the play and pause icons to improve accessibility.
Added a new object, floating, which keeps the player visible when the original player location is scrolled out of view by minimizing it to the bottom right corner of the screen (and the top of the page in portrait mode on small screens). Viewers cannot hide the floating player and send it back to its original location when floating.dismissible is set to false. Learn more about floating in our documentation.
Removed a previously undocumented configuration option, floatOnScroll, which was available for a beta version of the floating player. Please use the new floating block above.
Added the ability for the viewer to drag and reposition the floating player anywhere on the screen. Dragging is disabled during ad playback.
Added a new object, autoPause, which automatically pauses the video when less than 50% in view, including when the player is no longer in the active tab. Learn more about autopause in our documentation.
Added support for CMAF format streams across all browsers.
Improved handling of relative protocol urls so that JW Player hosted protocol-relative playlist urls can play when accessing a webview that has js embed with file:// protocol. Only jwplatform playlist urls starting with // are changed to be loaded over https. URLs for other domains or for ad tags must be fully resolved in the setup configuration.
Improved the user experience by retaining the paused state after a viewer seeks while paused. Developers who have worked around this in the past by calling pause() on seek no longer need to use the API, but anyone who wishes to resume playback automatically after a seek event now must call play().
Improved clarity by hiding the settings menu gear icon in the control bar if the only submenu option is also a shortcut icon in the control bar, which applies to sharing and captions.
Added a volume slider to control bar only players, which is used to play audio. Setting a player s height to 42px automatically puts the player into control bar only mode.
Added a reference dialog for keyboard shortcuts within the player, which can be accessed via the right click menu or evoked by pressing SHIFT+?.
Added support for all playlists to use our recommendations user interfaces by setting related.displayMode to shelf or shelfWidget. Read more about this option in the configuration reference. The default interface for playlists that are not generated through our recommendations product remains as overlay.
Removed the localization option, playlist, which localized the tooltip text, overlay heading, and aria-label HTML attribute of a playlist overlay. To customize this text, please use related.heading within the intl block.
Added a shortcut to sharing in the right click menu.
Added automatic localization support for six new languages: Russian, Indonesian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Finnish. Check our support article for a full list of the 21 supported languages and to submit a request for additional languages.

Improved the casting experience by starting a casted DVR stream at the live edge instead of at the beginning of the stream.
Improved ads accessibility by not fading controls when using the keyboard to navigate and ensuring the skip button is in the correct tab order from left to right. Note that due to third-party limitations, ads rendered in iframes and through the Google IMA plugin may not be accessible.
Added a new error code, 102007 (ERROR_XHR_FILE_PROTOCOL), which fires when a player fails to set up on a page that is using the file:// protocol.

Advertising

Added inner error details to Google IMA 901 General VPAID Error errors.
Deprecated the on(adManager) event for Google IMA and Freewheel, which fires when the ad manager is loaded. on(adsManager), with an s, should be used instead.

# Fix default botr variable missing in pop-up mode

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.9.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.9.2, VAST Ad Pods

If you are one of the 50% of our customers using our VAST plugin to deliver ads, you already know that it is faster and more customizable than the IMA plugin, which relies on Google s SDK.
JW 8.9 introduces an added benefit of using our VAST plugin: ad pods. Ad pods play a sequence of ads in a single ad break.
As of this release, you can configure an ad break with a separate ad tag for each ad in the pod through a custom setup configuration without going through your ad manager.
Error events fire on a per ad basis instead of one per ad break.
8.9 also includes support for the GDPR ad tag macro, as well as some user interface improvements to the control bar and playlist overlays, which are detailed below.

Core Player

Extended all of the playlist user interface configuration options in the related block to work for all playlists (not just those of the JW Player Recommendations product).
Added a displayMode option, none, which removes a playlist interface during playback. This option is ideal if you have created your own playlist widget or interface outside of the player, since having a duplicate inside the player container is redundant. The next video button remains, and the playlist overlay that appears in between videos is configured separately, via related.oncomplete.
Added a new option to related.complete, none, which automatically advances the video to the next item in the playlist without showing an overlay in between. This is also now the default value and was already the behavior for all manual playlists.
Improved responsiveness of player so that it is resized whenever its parent container is resized.
Increased the size of the user interface when a player is larger than 1280px wide (breakpoint 7).
Decreased the number of icons in the user interface when a player is smaller than 320px wide and added a new breakpoint (-1) to support it.
Added support for Program-Date-Time metadata in Safari, making this the preferred method for SSAI and live streaming implementations across all browsers.

Removed Google+ sharing support due to the shutdown of that product.
Added support for sending events to Google Analytics custom trackers.
Added automatic player localization support for Occitan and Slovenian.
Made the tabbing behavior in and out of the volume slider consistent to improve accessibility.
Improved auto pause behavior so that it is consistent across devices.
Added the ability to configure nextupoffset to display the next up overlay at a specified percent of the way through the video, rather than at a fixed number of seconds from the beginning or end of the video.
Improved float-on-scroll responsiveness with more precise player visibility detection.
Added a next up notification to small players.

Advertising

Added support to pass a GDPR macro in an ad tag using either the VAST or IMA plugin.
Added support for ad pods in an ad schedule using our VAST plugin. When an ad schedule is configured with an array of breaks that all contain the same offset, the player will automatically create a pod and play the ads in succession before returning to the content. Each ad in the pod may have a separate ad tag, and events such as errors will fire separately for each ad.

In the VAST plugin, filtered out 3gpp creatives due to lack of codec support in some environments.
Fixed an issue in the IMA plugin where programmatically calling skipAd before an ad becomes skippable would not skip the ad, but cause the media to start playing in the background.
Updated the following Ad Error codes to better reflect the root causes of the error:
60004 is now 10402 (Creative timeout)
60001 is now 10303 (No ads response)
50004 is now 51901 (VPAID general error)
234003 is now 10405 (Request for MP4 creative returns a 404)
242404 is now 10403 (Request for HLS creative returns a 404)

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.10.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.10.3, Minor Enhancements

Your feedback has been invaluable as we continue to enhance the player. With 8.10, we are making small scale updates and fixes such as adding aspect ratio to the setConfig API and an option to also pause ads with our autopause video feature.

Core Player

Added support for updating aspectratio, width, height, and stretching configuration options via the setConfig() API.

Advertising

Added support for Ad Placement Type (placement). The options are: article, banner, feed, floating, interstitial, slider, or instream. By default, the player will set instream players to instream and outstream players to article. These defaults can be overridden to reflect the appropriate placement type.
Added the ability to autopause ads based on player viewability by setting pauseAds: true in the autoPause block.
Added support for displaying VAST icons contained in ad tags.
Added support for calling jwplayer().skipAd() with VPAID ads.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.11.0 :

^ Upgrade to JW Player 8.11.4, VAST 4.1 Macro Support

JW 8.11 features five new ad tracking pixel macros supported in VAST 4.1. These macros are designed to provide more information about the ad play to the ad server, ranging from GDPR consent to the page url. Web player support for Open Measurement via the verification node is still under development by the IAB and will be implemented once available.

Core Player

Improved accessibility on iOS in Safari by inheriting all captions styles set on the device.
Added automated translation support for Greek.
Added internationalization support for all fields in the keyboard shortcuts menu released in JW8.8.0, as well as automated translations for all 24 supported languages.
Improved float on scroll behavior on mobile so that the player sticks to the top when it reaches that position, rather than first scrolling out of view and popping back into place. With this change, the float on scroll feature is truly float on scroll on desktop, but more accurately behaves as sticky on mobile.

Advertising

In VAST, added support for the [DEVICEUA] tracking pixel or __device-ua__ in the ad tag, which sends the user s device agent. Also added the ad tag support in Google IMA.
In VAST, added support for the [PAGEURL] tracking pixel, which sends the page where the ad is intended to play.
in VAST, added support for the [REGULATIONS] and [GDPRCONSENT] macros, which tell the ad server if GDPR regulations are being used and if consent has been granted, respectively.
IN VAST, added support for the [ADSERVINGID] macro, which adds the AdServingId value to the tracking pixel, which is parsed from the AdServingId node.

# Ad Placement Type missing in backend.

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Changelog JW Player Module Advanced 5.12.0 :

^ 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 Module Advanced 5.13.0 :

^ 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.