Change video track (Quality) on HLS stream #676

endlessmind · 2015-07-31T03:20:17Z

When playing HLS streams (like twitch live streams), the player will adopt the the best possible quality, as expected. But I would like to be able to let the users select from available qualities, like in the YouTube app. (If the users don't need the best possible quality and/or have a limited data plans)

But I can't find any way to actually set the video quality manually.
How does the YouTube app accomplice this?

Will the "Steps toward full multi-track support."-commit to the dev-branch be of any use for this kind of functionality?

ojw28 · 2015-07-31T09:26:31Z

Full multi-track support should make this easier, because once we have that it should be relatively easy to have the video renderer advertise multiple tracks, like: AUTO,1080,720,480 (or whatever).

YouTube use DASH, where track selection is supported (albeit not in a particularly easy way) using MultiTrackChunkSource. SmoothStreaming playbacks can also make use of MultiTrackChunkSource. Once we have proper multi-track support this class will probably go away.

crossle · 2015-07-31T10:04:04Z

+1

b95505017 · 2015-08-09T19:16:10Z

Currently I post a message into HlsChunkSource and change two things:

adaptiveMode = ADAPTIVE_MODE.NONE;
selectedVariantIndex = index;

endlessmind · 2015-08-13T12:20:34Z

Can you provide more details on this?
Also, where do you pull the variant-list from?

b95505017 · 2015-12-03T16:45:00Z

Any development news or plans for this issue?

Unlimity · 2015-12-15T09:39:27Z

Looking forward to this feature.

This is equivalent to DashTrackSelector and SmoothStreamingTrackSelector. This is a step toward allowing HlsChunkSource to expose multiple tracks, which is a requirement for supporting WebVtt. This change also enables WebVtt extractor instantiation. Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=111698833

There are multiple issues with HlsSampleSource's use of LoadControl that become apparent when you attempt to use the same LoadControl for loads by another source. * In the "limbo" state HlsSampleSource doesn't start any new loads, but doesn't update the LoadControl to tell it that it doesn't want to load anything either. This can prevent another source from starting the loads that it needs to make to complete preparation, causing playback to become stuck. * The LoadControl isn't updated properly when the EOS is reached. This can cause playback to become stuck near the end of the media. * If HlsSampleSource is released from being in the "limbo" state, it doesn't unregister itself with the control. Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=111942009

Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=111945466

See the documentation of buildTracks for the gory details. Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=112149293

ojw28 · 2016-01-14T17:23:06Z

It's now possible to select between the available variants in ExoPlayer. The demo app will also list the available variants and allows selection between them (during playback tap the screen and press the "Video" button to see the available variants, or the "Audio" button if your playing audio only).

ojw28 · 2016-01-14T17:23:37Z

Note that this is on the dev branch (and will make it into the next release).

b95505017 · 2016-01-14T17:25:46Z

Can't wait to try all of them! Thanks!

crossle · 2016-01-15T12:30:18Z

How to seamless switch? @ojw28

ojw28 · 2016-01-15T12:36:13Z

We support adaptive mode where we'll seamlessly switch based on the available bandwidth, and we now also support manual selection. We do not support seamless manual selection.

b95505017 · 2016-01-16T17:28:57Z

I tried the demo with some live playlist, and have several ideas:

Sometimes player stuck at buffering after setSelectedTrack for a long time, not sure it's network or player issue.
It would be nice without re-buffering if switch to auto or switching from same MediaFormat in auto to new track.
Could we set a flag to force switching to lower quality if current bandwidth is too bad to serve the manual selection.

ojw28 · 2016-01-18T10:53:19Z

Thanks for your observations.

I see the first issue, and we'll take a look and fix that.
We don't have current plans to support the second It's pretty non-trivial. Consider the case where the player has buffered a large amount of some manually selected low quality stream. If auto is then selected, it may take so long to switch up that the selection appears to have not done anything. To mitigate that you can proactively throw away some of the buffer containing the low quality stream, but then things start getting complicated from an implementation perspective. It's also debatable how useful the feature would be. If someone has switched from auto to a manual selection then presumably they did so because auto wasn't working well for them. So presumably switching back to auto again is something few people would choose to do.
We have a longer term plan to do something that achieves more or less the same thing as in your third bullet point. Basically, we'll at some point allow selection of a subset of streams that should be considered in auto mode.

This makes sense until we need to support seeking in the live window. Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=112402026

ojw28 · 2016-01-22T10:35:17Z

There's a separate issue tracking switching in Live (#1174), so let's use that for tracking.

When a seek is performed, renderers currently perform the actions that they need to take in two places: Some changes are performed in seekTo implementations. Other changes are performed when discontinuities are read from the source. In HLS we need to perform what is effectively a seek originating in the source. To support this, this CL allows discontinuities read from the source to modify the playback position. All actions that renderers perform as a result of a seek are moved to be performed when a discontinuity is received. Best way to understand CL: - Look at SampleSource interface change and then at the concrete implementations, to make sure they've been changed properly. - Look at SampleSourceTrackRenderer change. - Look at concrete renderers. The general pattern is that code previously performed in seekTo and READ_DISCONTINUITY is merged into onDiscontinuity(). Note: This will be further untangled in V2. Issue #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=112720746

littlebob · 2016-04-06T02:42:00Z

Hello @ojw28
I see that seamless manual selection is not supported now.
any plan to have this feature?
If not, any idea for how one can implement this and creates a pull request? Thanks

ojw28 · 2016-04-08T10:46:30Z

No immediate plans, no.

ojw28 · 2016-04-08T10:48:34Z

In ExoPlayer V2, when it's done, HLS will use a FormatEvaluator to adapt between the variants during playback, as is already the case for DASH and SmoothStreaming. At that point you'll be able to implement this functionality using a custom FormatEvaluator implementation. For now in V1, you'd need to look at modifying HlsChunkSource.

natez0r · 2016-07-11T19:38:51Z

@ojw28 any idea when we can expect to be able to use FormatEvaluator for HLS? Is there a timetable for V2?

toanvc · 2017-02-16T16:18:06Z

@ojw28 : is there any ways in v2 to implement this on HLS? I didn't see FormatEvaluator anymore.

ojw28 · 2017-02-17T00:52:14Z

All track selection is converged into TrackSelector and TrackSelection in V2, and works in the same way for DASH, SmoothStreaming and HLS. The demo app allows you to select from the available streams in all cases. I suggest you take a look at the trackselection package if you're interested in the internal details.

toanvc · 2017-02-17T04:17:57Z

@ojw28 : Thanks for response! I saw AdaptiveVideoTrackSelection and I did it successfully.
I have questions: when I used

DEFAULT_MAX_INITIAL_BITRATE = 800000;

in my setting as the same value in AdaptiveVideoTrackSelection, but it seems always choose the low bitrate from my stream (my stream support the lowest is 2000000 and the highest is 4000000).
After I changed that value to

DEFAULT_MAX_INITIAL_BITRATE = Integer.MAX_VALUE;

my player run with adaptive bitrate and played with highest bitrate in fast internet connection.
The question is, can I use Integer.MAX_VALUE for my default maxInitialBitrate setting? And what's maxInitialBitrate exactly does? I'm confused with its' meaning in the comment codes

The maximum bitrate in bits per second that should be assumed when a bandwidth estimate is unavailable.

Thanks!

ojw28 · 2017-02-17T04:21:44Z

You're doing the right thing. There's a known issue specifically for HLS where the initial selection isn't being applied correctly. This is tracked by #2353.

toanvc · 2017-02-17T04:42:41Z

@ojw28 Thank you so much! You guys are doing great ExoPlayer.
Look forward for the next version with fixing that bug.

ojw28 added the enhancement label Jul 31, 2015

ojw28 mentioned this issue Jul 31, 2015

How to get the current bitrate and resolution of HLS Video? #646

Closed

ojw28 mentioned this issue Aug 21, 2015

Allow manual quality selection for HLS playbacks #728

Closed

ojw28 mentioned this issue Sep 1, 2015

Ability to switch audio track during playback #514

Closed

ojw28 mentioned this issue Oct 30, 2015

Is there a way to manualy switch between rendition quality in adaptive HLS streaming? #907

Closed

ojw28 mentioned this issue Jan 3, 2016

FormatEvaluator for changing video quality in HLS , #1088

Closed

ojw28 added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2016

HlsChunkSource: Expose stuff for WebVtt/Variant selection.

59cf3e0

Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=111945466

ojw28 added a commit that referenced this issue Jan 14, 2016

Enable track selection + WebVTT for HLS.

2690f56

See the documentation of buildTracks for the gory details. Issue: #151 Issue: #676 ------------- Created by MOE: https://github.com/google/moe MOE_MIGRATED_REVID=112149293

ojw28 closed this as completed Jan 14, 2016

ojw28 reopened this Jan 18, 2016

ojw28 closed this as completed Jan 22, 2016

AquilesCanta mentioned this issue Feb 20, 2017

Ways to tune adaptive switching for HLS? #2477

Closed

abhishekredspace mentioned this issue Jun 21, 2017

Switch rendition if the rendition which Exoplayer has chosen is not available #2981

Closed

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Change video track (Quality) on HLS stream #676

Change video track (Quality) on HLS stream #676

endlessmind commented Jul 31, 2015

ojw28 commented Jul 31, 2015

crossle commented Jul 31, 2015

b95505017 commented Aug 9, 2015

endlessmind commented Aug 13, 2015

b95505017 commented Dec 3, 2015

Unlimity commented Dec 15, 2015

ojw28 commented Jan 14, 2016

ojw28 commented Jan 14, 2016

b95505017 commented Jan 14, 2016

crossle commented Jan 15, 2016

ojw28 commented Jan 15, 2016

b95505017 commented Jan 16, 2016

ojw28 commented Jan 18, 2016

ojw28 commented Jan 22, 2016

littlebob commented Apr 6, 2016

ojw28 commented Apr 8, 2016

ojw28 commented Apr 8, 2016

natez0r commented Jul 11, 2016

toanvc commented Feb 16, 2017

ojw28 commented Feb 17, 2017

toanvc commented Feb 17, 2017

ojw28 commented Feb 17, 2017

toanvc commented Feb 17, 2017

Change video track (Quality) on HLS stream #676

Change video track (Quality) on HLS stream #676

Comments

endlessmind commented Jul 31, 2015

ojw28 commented Jul 31, 2015

crossle commented Jul 31, 2015

b95505017 commented Aug 9, 2015

endlessmind commented Aug 13, 2015

b95505017 commented Dec 3, 2015

Unlimity commented Dec 15, 2015

ojw28 commented Jan 14, 2016

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crossle commented Jan 15, 2016

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