Preload support with no view attached

[juliorodriguezcastano]

Hi I have read about preload MediaPlayer method in 2.x versions but this method seems to have been removed on v4.x
I would like preloading segments with no attached view. Is this currently possible?

[dsilhavy]

@juliorodriguezcastano You are right, we removed this in v4.x because it introduced complexity in the code while its usage was very limited. Can you explain what you need this feature for? The only use case I can think of is playback on devices with a single decoder on which you want to do ad replacement (e.g HbbTV broadcast/broadband ad insertion)

[juliorodriguezcastano]

@dsilhavy this is my case, I am implementing hbbtv apps and many devices ie LG tvs when are playing one video if attachView is called the video playing is stopped.
The objective is to switch dash(live) -> video mp4 -> dash(live) so I would like to preload dashjs video for recovering immediately when mp4 is finished in order to avoid waiting for recovering or use splash screens.

[dsilhavy]

Understood, that is not possible with 4.x right now. You would need to use 3.x for this.

[bknill]

I also wanted to use this functionality for preloading multiple manifests then loading to try and get seamless playback between videos.

[JibberJim]

The BBC are still using preload for the low delay playback between items like @bknill , and it's on our list of things that need adding before we take the next version, there are still enough situations where multiple video elements simply isn't viable.

[dsilhavy]

@juliorodriguezcastano Please create an issue (feature request) for that.

@JibberJim Is the BBC actively working on adding preload to 4.x?

[JibberJim]

Unfortunately we've got a lot of other stuff on at the moment, so whilst it's on our list, we're not yet close to starting it - we're building out an entirely new rest of player around dash which is taking up all our resources, so it's just us not taking 4 at the moment. Can't say when that will change I'm afraid.