Shaka Player is an open-source JavaScript library for adaptive media. It plays adaptive media formats (such as DASH and HLS) in a browser, without using plugins or Flash. Instead, Shaka Player uses the open web standards MediaSource Extensions and Encrypted Media Extensions.

Shaka Player also supports offline storage and playback of media using IndexedDB. Content can be stored on any browser. Storage of licenses depends on browser support.

Our main goal is to make it as easy as possible to stream adaptive bitrate video and audio using modern browser technologies. We try to keep the library light, simple, and free from third-party dependencies. Everything you need to build and deploy is in the sources.

For details on what's coming next, see our development roadmap.

Maintained branches

See maintained-branches.md for the up-to-date list of maintained branches of Shaka Player.

Platform and browser support matrix

Browser	Windows	Mac	Linux	Android	iOS >= 9	iOS >= 17.1	iPadOS >= 13	ChromeOS	Other
Chrome	Y	Y	Y	Y	Native	Native	Native	Y	-
Firefox	Y	Y	Y	untested⁵	Native	Native	Native	-	-
Edge	Y	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Edge Chromium	Y	Y	Y	untested⁵	Native	Native	Native	-	-
IE	N	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Safari	-	Y	-	-	Native	Y	Y	-	-
Opera	Y	Y	Y	untested⁵	Native	-	-	-	-
Chromecast²	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Tizen TV³	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
WebOS⁶	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Hisense⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Vizio⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Xbox One	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Playstation 4⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Playstation 5⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
Titan OS⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y
TiVo OS⁷	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Y

NOTES: - ²: The latest stable Chromecast firmware is tested. Both sender and receiver can be implemented with Shaka Player. - ³: Tizen 2017 model is actively tested and supported by the Shaka Player team. Tizen 2016 model is community-supported and untested by us. - ⁵: These are expected to work, but are not actively tested by the Shaka Player team. - ⁶: These are expected to work, but are community-supported and untested by us. - Official support for LG WebOS TV: https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1330 - ⁷: These are expected to work, but are community-supported and untested by us.

NOTES for iOS and iPadOS: - We support iOS 9+ through Apple's native HLS player. We provide the same top-level API, but we just set the video's src element to the manifest/media. So we are dependent on the browser supporting the manifests. - Since iPadOS 13 MediaSource Extensions is supported - Since iPadOS 17 and iOS 17.1 ManagedMediaSource Extensions is supported

Manifest format support matrix

Format	Video On-Demand	Live	Event	In-Progress Recording
DASH	Y	Y	-	Y
HLS	Y	Y	Y	-

You can also create a manifest parser plugin to support custom manifest formats.

DASH features

DASH features supported: - VOD, Live, and In-Progress Recordings (dynamic VOD content) - MPD@timeShiftBufferDepth for seeking backward in Live streams - Multi-period content (static and dynamic) - Xlink elements (actuate=onLoad only, resolve-to-zero, fallback content) - All forms of segment index info: SegmentBase@indexRange, SegmentTimeline, SegmentTemplate@duration, SegmentTemplate@index, SegmentList - Multi-codec/multi-container manifests (we will negotiate support with the browser and choose the best ones) - Encrypted content (including custom ContentProtection schemas, PSSH in the manifest) - Key rotation - Trick mode tracks - WebVTT and TTML - CEA-608/708 captions - Multi-codec variants (on platforms with changeType support) - MPD chaining - MPD Patch updates for SegmentTemplate with $Number$, SegmentTimeline with $Number$ and SegmentTimeline with $Time$

DASH features not supported: - Xlink with actuate=onRequest - Manifests without any segment info: https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1088 - Multiple trick mode tracks for the same resolution at varying framerates or bitrates - Timescales so large that timestamps cannot be represented as integers in JavaScript (2^53): https://github.com/shaka-project/shaka-player/issues/1667 - Modifying elements with an @schemeIdUri attribute via MPD Patch - Xlink dereferencing with MPD Patch

HLS features

HLS features supported: - VOD, Live, and Event types - Low-latency streaming with partial segments, preload hints, delta updates and blocking playlist reload - Discontinuity - ISO-BMFF / MP4 / CMAF support - MPEG-2 TS support - WebVTT and TTML - CEA-608/708 captions - Encrypted content with PlayReady, Widevine and WisePlay - Encrypted content with FairPlay (Safari on macOS and iOS only) - AES-128, AES-256, AES-256-CTR and AES-256-GCM support on browsers with Web Crypto API support - SAMPLE-AES and SAMPLE-AES-CTR (identity) support on browsers with ClearKey support - Key rotation - Raw AAC, MP3, AC-3 and EC-3 (without an MP4 container) - I-frame-only playlists (for trick play and thumbnails) - #EXT-X-IMAGE-STREAM-INF for thumbnails - Interstitials - Container change during the playback (eg: MP4 to TS, or AAC to TS) - Chapters (#EXT-X-SESSION-DATA tag with the ID com.apple.hls.chapters)

HLS features not supported: - X-SNAP attribute in interstitials

Supported HLS tags

For details on the HLS format and these tags' meanings, see https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-pantos-hls-rfc8216bis

Multivariant Playlist tags

• #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:<attribute-list> <URI>
• #EXT-X-MEDIA:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-IMAGE-STREAM-INF:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-SESSION-DATA:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-SESSION-KEY:<attribute-list> EME Key-System selection and preloading
• #EXT-X-START:TIME-OFFSET=<n>
• #EXT-X-CONTENT-STEERING:<attribute-list> Content Steering
• #EXT-X-DEFINE:<attribute-list> Variable Substitution (NAME,VALUE,QUERYPARAM attributes)

Media Playlist tags

• #EXTM3U
• #EXTINF:<duration>,[<title>]
• #EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:<type
• #EXT-X-ENDLIST
• #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE=<n>
• #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION=<n>
• #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY
• #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY-SEQUENCE=<n>
• #EXT-X-BYTERANGE=<n>[@<o>]
• #EXT-X-MAP:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-KEY:<attribute-list> (KEYFORMAT="identity",METHOD=SAMPLE-AES is only supports with MP4 segments)
• #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-START:TIME-OFFSET=<n>
• #EXT-X-SERVER-CONTROL:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-PART-INF:PART-TARGET=<n>
• #EXT-X-PART:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-SKIP:<attribute-list> Delta Playlists
• #EXT-X-DATERANGE:<attribute-list> Metadata
• #EXT-X-DEFINE:<attribute-list> Variable Import and Substitution (NAME,VALUE,IMPORT,QUERYPARAM attributes)
• #EXT-X-GAP
• #EXT-X-PRELOAD-HINT:<attribute-list>
• #EXT-X-BITRATE

MOQT Streaming Format (MSF) (Experimental)

Features supported: - Media over QUIC Transport draft-14 and draft-16 - MOQT Streaming Format draft-0 and CMSF draft-0 - Audio, Video and Text - ABR (only navigator.connection change event) - DRM support for Widevine, PlayReady, FairPlay and ClearKey, using the CMSF ContentProtection - MP4 / CMAF support - Live - For browsers that support WebTransport certificate fingerprints (e.g., Chrome), you can use self-signed certificates without installing them.

Features not supported: - VOD - MOQT Streaming Format catalog updates

Note: This module is experimental and is only included in the experimental build.

MPEG-5 Part2 LCEVC Support

Only supported on browsers with Media Source Extensions SourceBuffer support

• MPEG-5 Part2 LCEVC decoding support (decoding provided by lcevc_dec.js, must be separately included)

• Integration documentation : docs

• More on MPEG-5 Part2 LCEVC

DRM support matrix

Browser	Widevine	PlayReady	FairPlay	WisePlay	ClearKey⁶
Chrome¹	Y	-	-	-	Y
Firefox²	Y	-	-	-	Y
Edge³	-	Y	-	-	-
Edge Chromium	Y	Y	-	-	Y
Safari	-	-	Y	-	-
Opera	Y	-	-	-	Y
Chromecast	Y	Y	-	-	Y
Tizen TV	Y	Y	-	-	Y
WebOS⁷	untested⁷	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
Hisense⁷	untested⁷	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
Vizio⁷	untested⁷	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
Xbox One	-	Y	-	-	-
Playstation 4⁷	-	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
Playstation 5⁷	-	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
Huawei⁷	-	-	-	untested⁷	untested⁷
Titan OS⁷	untested⁷	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷
TiVo OS⁷	untested⁷	untested⁷	-	-	untested⁷

Other DRM systems should work out of the box if they are interoperable and compliant to the EME spec.

NOTES: - ¹: Only official Chrome builds contain the Widevine CDM. Chromium built from source does not support DRM. - ²: DRM must be enabled by the user. The first time a Firefox user visits a site with encrypted media, the user will be prompted to enable DRM. - ³: PlayReady in Edge does not seem to work on a VM or over Remote Desktop. - ⁶: ClearKey is a useful tool for debugging, and does not provide actual content security. - ⁷: These are expected to work, but are community-supported and untested by us.

Manifest	Widevine	PlayReady	FairPlay	WisePlay	ClearKey
DASH	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
HLS	Y	Y	Y ¹	Y	Y

NOTES: - ¹: By default, FairPlay is handled using Apple's native HLS player, when on Safari. We do support FairPlay through MSE/EME, however. See the streaming.useNativeHlsForFairPlay configuration value.

Media container and subtitle support

Shaka Player supports: - ISO-BMFF / CMAF / MP4 - Depends on browser support for the container via MediaSource - Can parse "sidx" box for DASH's SegmentBase@indexRange and SegmentTemplate@index - Can find and parse "tfdt" box to find segment start time in HLS - WebM - Depends on browser support for the container via MediaSource - Can parse [cueing data][] elements for DASH's SegmentBase@indexRange and SegmentTemplate@index - Not supported in HLS - MPEG-2 TS - Can be played on any browser which supports MP4 - Can find and parse timestamps to find segment start time in HLS - WebVTT - Supported in both text form and e