vault/dash-js: A reference client implementation for the playback of MPEG DASH via Javascript and compliant browsers

Build status (CircleCI):

Migration from v3.x to v4.0

If you are migrating from dash.js v3.x to dash.js v4.x please read the migration document found here.

Overview

A reference client implementation for the playback of MPEG DASH via JavaScript and compliant browsers. Learn more about DASH IF Reference Client on our wiki.

If your intent is to use the player code without contributing back to this project, then use the MASTER branch which holds the approved and stable public releases.

If your goal is to improve or extend the code and contribute back to this project, then you should make your changes in, and submit a pull request against, the DEVELOPMENT branch. Read our CONTRIBUTION.md file for a walk-through of the contribution process.

All new work should be in the development branch. Master is now reserved for tagged builds.

Demo and reference players

All these reference builds and minified files are available under both http and https.

Samples

Multiple dash.js samples covering a wide set of common use cases.

Reference players

The released pre-built reference players if you want direct access without writing any Javascript.

The nightly build of the /dev branch reference player, is pre-release but contains the latest fixes. It is a good place to start if you are debugging playback problems.

CDN hosted files

The latest minified files have been hosted on a global CDN and are free to use in production:

In addition, all the releases are available under the following urls. Replace “vx.x.x” with the release version, for instance “v3.1.0”.

Documentation

Full API Documentation is available describing all public methods, interfaces, properties, and events.

For help, join our Slack channel, our email list and read our wiki.

Tutorials

Detailed information on specific topics can be found in our tutorials:

Getting Started

The standard setup method uses javascript to initialize and provide video details to dash.js. MediaPlayerFactory provides an alternative declarative setup syntax.

Standard Setup

Create a video element somewhere in your html. For our purposes, make sure the controls attribute is present.

<video id="videoPlayer" controls></video>

Add dash.all.min.js to the end of the body.

<body>
  ...
  <script src="yourPathToDash/dash.all.min.js"></script>
</body>

Now comes the good stuff. We need to create a MediaPlayer and initialize it.


var url = "https://dash.akamaized.net/envivio/EnvivioDash3/manifest.mpd";
var player = dashjs.MediaPlayer().create();
player.initialize(document.querySelector("#videoPlayer"), url, true);

When it is all done, it should look similar to this:

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Dash.js Rocks</title>
        <style>
            video {
                width: 640px;
                height: 360px;
            }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <video id="videoPlayer" controls></video>
        </div>
        <script src="yourPathToDash/dash.all.min.js"></script>
        <script>
            (function(){
                var url = "https://dash.akamaized.net/envivio/EnvivioDash3/manifest.mpd";
                var player = dashjs.MediaPlayer().create();
                player.initialize(document.querySelector("#videoPlayer"), url, true);
            })();
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

Module Setup

We publish dash.js to npm. Examples of how to use dash.js in different module bundlers can be found in the samples/modules directory.

MediaPlayerFactory Setup

An alternative way to build a Dash.js player in your web page is to use the MediaPlayerFactory. The MediaPlayerFactory will automatically instantiate and initialize the MediaPlayer module on appropriately tagged video elements.

Create a video element somewhere in your html and provide the path to your mpd file as src. Also ensure that your video element has the data-dashjs-player attribute on it.

<video data-dashjs-player autoplay src="https://dash.akamaized.net/envivio/EnvivioDash3/manifest.mpd" controls>
</video>

Add dash.all.min.js to the end of the body.

<body>
  ...
  <script src="yourPathToDash/dash.all.min.js"></script>
</body>

When it is all done, it should look similar to this:

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Dash.js Rocks</title>
        <style>
            video {
                width: 640px;
                height: 360px;
            }
        </style>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <video data-dashjs-player autoplay src="https://dash.akamaized.net/envivio/EnvivioDash3/manifest.mpd" controls>
            </video>
        </div>
        <script src="yourPathToDash/dash.all.min.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

Quick Start for Developers

Install Core Dependencies
- install nodejs
Checkout project repository (default branch: development)
- git clone https://github.com/Dash-Industry-Forum/dash.js.git
Install dependencies
- npm install
Build, watch file changes and launch samples page, which has links that point to reference player and to other examples (basic examples, captioning, ads, live, etc).
- npm run start

Other Tasks to Build / Run Tests on Commandline.

Build distribution files (minification included)
- npm run build
Build and watch distribution files
- npm run dev
Run linter on source files (linter is also applied when building files)
- npm run lint
Run unit tests
- npm run test
Generate API jsdoc
- npm run doc

Troubleshooting

In case the build process is failing make sure to use an up-to-date node.js version. The build process was successfully tested with node.js version 20.10.0.

License

dash.js is released under BSD license