Streaming Video & Ads for Browser release notesRSS

Highlights

• Added MediaTailor SSAI tracker initialization on loadstart after source load detection.
• Added DAI stream manager support through the stream-manager event.
• Improved bitrate reporting with:
  • Playback bitrate (AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH/BANDWIDTH)
  • Manifest max bitrate
  • Segment download bitrate
  • Network throughput bitrate

Improvements

• Refined ad and content event handling to avoid duplicate or incorrect content events while ads are active for following events:
  • Pause/Resume
  • Seek Start/End
  • Buffer Start
• Improved end-of-content handling for ad-enabled playback paths during IMA and Freewheel scenarios.
• Added safer fallback logic for tech wrappers (Hls.js, Shaka, contrib-hls) when bitrate data is unavailable in VHS.

Technical notes

• Tracker metadata and playback context methods remain aligned with Video.js/Brightcove integrations:
  • Retrieves the title, ID, and duration from mediainfo when available.
  • Retrieves source and rendition data from the active tech component when available.
• Updated the Listener registration and unregistration to include ad and stream manager lifecycle events.

This release introduces three new bitrate metrics for granular playback observability, QoE (Quality of Experience) support, and Shaka Player 5.x compatibility while maintaining backward compatibility with Shaka 4.x.

New bitrate metrics

Three new attributes are now available to provide deeper insight into streaming performance:

Additionally, contentBitrate uses track.videoBandwidth (video-only bitrate) to differentiate it from other metrics that report combined video and audio bandwidth.

Quality of Experience (QoE) support

QoE aggregate events are now supported via video-core. Enable them by setting qoeAggregate: true in the config:

const options = {
  info: {
    beacon: 'xxxxxxxxxx',
    applicationID: 'xxxxxxx',
    licenseKey: 'xxxxxxxxxxx',
  },
  config: {
    qoeAggregate: true,
    qoeIntervalFactor: 2,
  },
};

const tracker = new ShakaTracker(player, options);

The following KPIs are tracked automatically:

Shaka Player 5.x compatibility

The tracker is now compatible with both Shaka Player 4.x and 5.x:

• getPlayerVersion() resolves version across both major versions.
• onError() handles both Shaka player errors (e.detail) and HTML video element errors (e.target.error).
• Sample files updated for Shaka 5.x (removed deprecated shaka.polyfill.installAll(), updated player instantiation).

Upgrade guide

Run the following following to update:

$
npm install @newrelic/video-shaka@4.0.3

To enable QoE, add qoeAggregate: true to your config options as shown above.

Dependencies

Requires @newrelic/video-core v4.1.1 or later for QoE support.

Bug fixes

Improved contentBitrate calculation

Issue: The contentBitrate attribute reported the target bitrate from the manifest instead of the actual measured throughput during playback.

Fix: Updated the bitrate calculation method to use getAverageThroughput() from dash.js. This captures the measured average throughput, providing a more accurate, real-time representation of the content consumption rate during playback.

Implementation details

• Primary logic: Uses player.getAverageThroughput('video') to retrieve measured throughput
• Fallback logic:
  • Uses manifest bitrate if throughput measurement is unavailable
  • Improves accuracy of video quality monitoring and analytics
• Impact:
  • More accurate bitrate reporting in New Relic video monitoring
  • Better visibility into actual network conditions and video quality
  • Improved debugging capabilities for playback issues

What's new

This release introduces three new bitrate metrics providing comprehensive quality analysis for MPEG-DASH streaming, along with important improvements to existing bitrate calculations and dash.js v4/v5 compatibility.

New features

New bitrate metrics

• contentManifestBitrate: Maximum combined (video + audio) bitrate from the MPD manifest. Represents the highest possible stream variant available.

• contentMeasuredBitrate: Network estimated by the player's Adaptive BitRate (ABR) algorithm, based on measured download throughput. Use this metric to analyze ABR decision-making.

• contentDownloadBitrate: Effective download throughput calculated from video segment request data (bytesDownloaded × 8 / downloadTime). This Provides real-time network performance monitoring.

Changes

Updated bitrate calculations

• contentBitrate: Returns the video-only bitrate from the active track and excludes audio. Previous versions included combined bitrate.

• contentRenditionBitrate: Returns the combined video and audio bandwidth of the active rendition to provide a complete quality picture.

Compatibility improvements

• getDashBitrate(): Fixed v4 compatibility issue. Version check now occurs before calling v5-only APIs, preventing errors on dash.js v4.x installations.
• getManifestBitrate(): Introduced a smart version detection that uses getRepresentationsByType() on dash.js v5+ and falls back to getBitrateInfoListFor() on v4.x.

Bug fixes

• Removed duplicate getPlayhead() method definition
• Removed console.log statement from getTrack() error handler

Bitrate metrics overview

Bug fixes

Fixed contentBitrate to accurately report stream bitrate

Issue: The contentBitrate attribute used estimatedBandwidth (the network capacity estimate) as its primary source, which didn't accurately represent the actual bitrate of the playing video stream.

Solution: Updated the bitrate calculation to prioritize streamBandwidth from Shaka Player statistics, which provides the actual content bitrate of the current video variant as defined in the manifest.

Impact: The contentBitrate attribute correctly reports the bitrate (in bits per second) of playing video stream rather than the estimated network bandwidth. This provides more accurate telemetry data for video quality monitoring and analytics.

Technical details

• Changed the priority order in getContentBitratePlayback() method
• Uses the stats.streamBandwidth as the primary source for content bitrate
• Updated the DATAMODEL.md documentation to reflect the accurate definition

Bug fixes

• Removed github token (f5f9ade)

Enhancements

Improved error logging

Improved error logging by mapping Shaka errors to the following attributes: errorCode, errorPlatformCode, errorMessage, errorStackTrace, errorSeverity.

This enhancement ensures cleaner, more structured error data in New Relic by extracting only the essential error attributes from Shaka Player errors, removing unwanted properties like the data array.

Updates

Fixed CONTENT_ERROR Event

Attached the error EventListener to the player instead of its tag, following Shaka's specifications, to fix the CONTENT_ERROR event.

Bug fixes

Content Bitrate detection enhancement

We've significantly improved the getBitrate() method with comprehensive Video.js technology support:

Key improvements

• VHS (Video HTTP Streaming) API support: Added native support for HLS and DASH content bitrate detection
• Enhanced bandwidth calculation: Implemented audio + video bitrate combination for accurate total bandwidth reporting
• Extended tech support: Added fallback support for popular streaming libraries:
  • Shaka Player
  • HLS.js
  • DASH.js
• Improved reliability: Enhanced bitrate detection accuracy across different streaming technologies
• Dynamic bitrate updates: Fixed issue where bitrate values remained static throughout video playback

Feature

Added IMA Ad tracking capability

• Improved Ad tracking capability for the agent with IMA ad tracking.