Advanced features

Playback control

Autoplay

// After the player is initialized, manually mute the player.

var player = new Aliplayer({

"id": "player-con",
// Your streaming URL. Example: example.aliyundoc.com/video/****.mp4.
"source":"<your URL>",

"width": "100%",

"height": "500px",

"autoplay": true,

"preload": true,

"controlBarVisibility": "hover",

"useH5Prism": true

}, function (player) {

player.mute()

// Alternatively, you can call the setVolume method to set the player volume to 0.

}

);

Continuous playback

Customize the appearance and components of the player

ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web allows you to customize the appearance of the player such as the player skin and specify whether to display the components of the player and the display area of each component. These components include user interface (UI) components of the control bar and the error UI.

• UI components of the control bar

  You can specify whether to display the UI components and the display area of each component by setting the skinLayout attribute. For more information, see Configure the skinLayout attribute.

  • The following code provides the default configurations of the HTML5 player provided by ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web:

    skinLayout:[
       {name: "bigPlayButton", align: "blabs", x: 30, y: 80},
        {name: "H5Loading", align: "cc"},
        {name: "errorDisplay", align: "tlabs", x: 0, y: 0},
        {name: "infoDisplay"},
        {name:"tooltip", align:"blabs",x: 0, y: 56},
        {name: "thumbnail"},
        {
          name: "controlBar", align: "blabs", x: 0, y: 0,
          children: [
            {name: "progress", align: "blabs", x: 0, y: 44},
            {name: "playButton", align: "tl", x: 15, y: 12},
            {name: "timeDisplay", align: "tl", x: 10, y: 7},
            {name: "fullScreenButton", align: "tr", x: 10, y: 12},
            {name:"subtitle", align:"tr",x:15, y:12},
            {name:"setting", align:"tr",x:15, y:12},
            null
          ]
        }
      ]

  • The following code provides the default configurations of the Flash player provided by ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web:

    skinLayout:[
        {name:"bigPlayButton", align:"blabs", x:30, y:80},
        {
          name:"controlBar", align:"blabs", x:0, y:0,
          children: [
            {name:"progress", align:"tlabs", x: 0, y:0},
            {name:"playButton", align:"tl", x:15, y:26},
            {name:"nextButton", align:"tl", x:10, y:26},
            {name:"timeDisplay", align:"tl", x:10, y:24},
            {name:"fullScreenButton", align:"tr", x:10, y:25},
            {name:"streamButton", align:"tr", x:10, y:23},
            null
          ]
        },
        {
          name:"fullControlBar", align:"tlabs", x:0, y:0,
          children: [
            {name:"fullTitle", align:"tl", x:25, y:6},
            {name:"fullNormalScreenButton", align:"tr", x:24, y:13},
            {name:"fullTimeDisplay", align:"tr", x:10, y:12},
            null
          ]
        }
    ]

• Error UI

  ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web provides a default error UI. You can also customize the error UI by using one of the following two methods. For more information, see Customize the error UI for the HTML5 player.

  • Modify the CSS file of the default error UI

    You can customize the error UI based on the default error UI. You can modify the CSS file to change the background color, font, and position and specify whether to display the error message.

  • Define a new error UI

    To define a new error UI, you must subscribe to error events.

• Configure the player skin

  If the UI provided by ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web cannot meet your business requirements, you can modify the CSS file to customize the player skin.

  Configure the skin for an HTML5 player

  Note For more information about the configurations, see the CSS file aliplayer-min.css of the player. The following sample code provides an example on how to configure a large play button. For more information, see Configure the player skin.

  .prism-player .prism-big-play-btn {
    width: 90px;
    height: 90px;
    background: url("//gw.alicdn.com/tps/TB1YuE3KFXXXXaAXFXXXXXXXXXX-256-512.png") no-repeat -2px -2px;
  }

  Configure the skin for the Flash player

  Store the skin.png and skin.xml files in the http://[domain]/[path]/ directory. In addition, set the skinRes parameter to http://domain/path/skin for the player.

  Note The following sample code provides an example on how to configure a large play button. For more information, see Configure the player skin.

  <SubTexture name="bigPlayDown" x="2" y="94" width="90" height="90"/>
  <SubTexture name="bigPlayOver" x="94" y="2" width="90" height="90"/>
  <SubTexture name="bigPlayUp" x="2" y="2" width="90" height="90"/>

Customize the video thumbnail

Each video that you upload to ApsaraVideo VOD has a thumbnail. ApsaraVideo VOD provides multiple methods for you to change the thumbnail. Before you upload a video, you can specify an image or a video snapshot as the thumbnail. You can change the thumbnail after the video is uploaded. You can customize the video thumbnail by using one of the following methods:

• Customize the video thumbnail in the ApsaraVideo for VOD console. For more information, see Set the video thumbnail.
• Customize the video thumbnail by setting the cover parameter of the player.

  var player = new Aliplayer({
   "id": "player-con",
   "source":"//player.alicdn.com/video/aliyunm****.mp4",
    "cover":"Thumbnail URL",
  },
   function () { } 
  );

Video snapshot

ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web of a version later than V2.1.0 allows you to capture snapshots during playback. The captured snapshots can be of the image or JPEG type. You must configure settings for enabling the snapshot feature. When a snapshot is captured, the player returns Base64-encoded binary image data of the snapshot and the point in time at which the snapshot is captured in the source video.

Enable the snapshot feature

• Enable the snapshot feature for an HTML5 player
  Notice You cannot capture snapshots of Flash Video (FLV) videos that are played in Safari. The snapshot button does not appear even if you enable the snapshot feature. Canvas is the element that enables the snapshot feature for an HTML5 player. You must add a header that is used to configure cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) for the playback domain. For more information, see Configure CORS.
  Add the settings of the snapshot UI to the skinLayout attribute. The following sample code provides an example:

      skinLayout:[
      {name: "bigPlayButton", align: "blabs", x: 30, y: 80},
      {
        name: "H5Loading", align: "cc"
      },
      {name: "errorDisplay", align: "tlabs", x: 0, y: 0},
      {name: "infoDisplay"},
      {name:"tooltip", align:"blabs",x: 0, y: 56},
      {name: "thumbnail"},
      {
        name: "controlBar", align: "blabs", x: 0, y: 0,
        children: [
          {name: "progress", align: "blabs", x: 0, y: 44},
          {name: "playButton", align: "tl", x: 15, y: 12},
          {name: "timeDisplay", align: "tl", x: 10, y: 7},
          {name: "fullScreenButton", align: "tr", x: 10, y: 12},
          {name:"subtitle", align:"tr",x:15, y:12},
          {name:"setting", align:"tr",x:15, y:12},
          {name: "volume", align: "tr", x: 15, y: 10},
          {name: "snapshot", align: "tr", x: 5, y: 12},
        ]
      }
    ]

  To enable the snapshot feature for an HTML5 player, you must configure CORS for videos to allow anonymous requests. The following sample code provides an example:

    extraInfo:{
      crossOrigin:"anonymous"
    }

• Enable the snapshot feature for a Flash player
  Notice You cannot capture snapshots during the playback of Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) streams.

  To enable the snapshot feature for a Flash player, you must set the snapshot parameter to true.

Set the snapshot size and quality

// Set the width to 300, the height to 200, and the quality to 0.9.
// The unit of height and width is pixel. You can set the quality to a value ranging from 0 to 1. Default value: 1.
player.setSanpshotProperties(300,200,0.9)

Subscribe to the snapshoted event

player.on("snapshoted", function(data) {
     console.log(data.paramData.time);
     console.log(data.paramData.base64);
     console.log(data.paramData.binary);
 });

Text watermark

snapshotWatermark:{
    left:"100",
    top:"100",
    text:"test",
    font:"italic bold 48px arial",
    strokeColor:"red",
    fillColor:'green'
  }

Features for long videos

Adaptive bitrate streaming for HLS streams

To play videos in multiple bitrates, you must set the source parameter to a multi-bitrate streaming URL, which is called a master playlist. In addition, you must set the isVBR parameter to true. The adaptive bitrate streaming feature supports automatic definition switching based on the network environment. You can also manually switch the definition as needed.

Obtain the streaming URL

Obtain the streaming URL of the video in multiple bitrates: player._hls.levels[player._hls.currentLevel].

varplayer = newAliplayer({
 "id":"player-con",
 "source":"Multi-bitrate streaming URL",
 "isVBR":true,
 },
 function () { } 
);

The following figure shows the definition switching option after configuration.

External subtitles

You can add external subtitles by using a subtitle template in a template group that is configured in the ApsaraVideo VOD console. No manual configurations are required for ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web. You can add external subtitles only if you play videos based on video IDs and playback credentials.

Multiple audio tracks

No manual configurations are required for ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web. The following figure shows the effect of multiple audio tracks in the player.

Multiple languages

By default, ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web supports Chinese and English and automatically switches to Chinese or English based on the language settings of the browser. In addition, ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web allows you to customize other languages. ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web also allows you to play video resources in multiple regions based on ApsaraVideo VOD. You can play video resources stored in regions of Southeast Asia and Europe based on video IDs and playback credentials.

Usage notes for the language parameter

var player = new Aliplayer({
    id: "player-con",
    source: "",
    width: "100%",
    height: "500px",
    autoplay: true,
    language: "en-us",
  }, function (player) {
    console.log("The player is created.");
  });

Create a player with UI elements in English

var player = new Aliplayer({
 "id": "player-con",
 "source": "",
 "language": "en-us" // A value of zh-cn indicates the Chinese language. A value of en-us indicates the English language. 
 },
 function (player) {}
);

Customize a language for the player

If you want the player to support UI elements in languages except for Chinese and English, you must specify the language by using the languageTexts attribute, which contains a list of key-value pairs. The value of the language attribute indicates the key, and the JSON value indicates the UI elements to be translated into the specified language. The following sample code provides an example:

var player = new Aliplayer({
 "id": "player-con",
 "source": "",
 "language": "The specified language",// Specify a language in the STRING type.
"languageTexts":{
    "CustomLanguage":{
        "Pause":"Pause"
        // Other parameters. For more information, visit https://player.alicdn.com/lang.json? spm=a2c4g.11186623.0.0.5a746515vnwUSi&file=lang.json
            }
        }
    },
    function (player) {} 
);

ApsaraVideo Player SDK for web allows you to play videos stored in the China (Shanghai), Germany (Frankfurt), and Singapore (Singapore) regions of the ApsaraVideo VOD service. You can play videos based on video IDs and playback credentials or Security Token Service (STS). The player parses the region information and obtains the streaming URL of the video in this region of the ApsaraVideo VOD service.

• Playback based on video IDs and playback credentials: The player parses the region information from the playback credential to obtain the streaming URL of the video. In this case, you do not need to specify the region in the configurations.
• STS-based playback: You can specify the region in which the video you want to play resides by setting the region parameter. Valid values of the region parameter: cn-shanghai, eu-central-1, and ap-southeast-1. Default value: cn-shanghai. The following sample code provides an example:

  var player = new Aliplayer({
      id: "player-con",
      width: "100%",
      height: "500px",
      autoplay: true,
      language: "en-us",
      vid : '1e067a2831b641db90d570b6480f****',
      accessKeyId: '',
      securityToken: '',
      accessKeySecret: ''
      region:'eu-central-1, // The Germany (Frankfurt) region.
    }, function (player) {
      console.log("The player is created.");
    });

Time shifting of live streaming by using an HTML5 player

• Enable time shifting
  • You must enable time shifting in ApsaraVideo Live. For more information, see Time shifting.
  • The following table describes the attributes that you must set to enable time shifting for a player.

    Attribute	Description
    isLive	Set the value to true.
    liveTimeShiftUrl	The URL that is used to query the time shifting information.
    liveStartTime	The start time of live streaming.
    liveOverTime	The end time of live streaming.
    liveShiftSource	The HLS URL for time shifting. Note This attribute is set only for FLV live streams.
    liveShiftMinOffset	A specific period of time is required for generating TS segments during time shifting. If you seek to a position that is extremely close to the current live streaming time, TS segments fail to be generated and a 404 error is reported. A minimum period of time must be specified between the seek position and the current live streaming time. You can set this parameter to specify the period of time in seconds. Default value: 30. A segment is generated every 10 seconds. This ensures that at least three segments exist.

• Time shifting UI
  The time shifting UI consists of a progress bar, which displays time in the area that supports time shifting.

  Note The time area displays the current playback time, end time of live streaming, and current live streaming time from left to right.
• Change the end time of live streaming
  You can call the liveShiftSerivce.setLiveTimeRange method to change the start and end time of live streaming. The UI changes along with the changes. The following sample code provides an example:

  player.liveShiftSerivce.setLiveTimeRange("",'2018/01/04 20:00:00')

• FLV for live streaming and HLS for time shifting

  To reduce latency, we recommend you use FLV for live streaming and HLS for time shifting.

  Configurations of ApsaraVideo Player SDK:

  • source: the FLV URL for live streaming.
  • liveShiftSource: the HLS URL for time shifting.

  The following sample code provides an example:

  {
   source:'http://localhost/live****/example.flv',
   liveShiftSource:'http://localhost/live****/example.m3u8',
  }