Streaming Video & Ads for Browser release notesRSS

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

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

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.

Bug fixes

Ad Bitrate for CSAI and DAI

Added methods to calculate Google IMA Ad bitrate for CSAI and DAI

Feature

Standalone agent

• Decoupled from Browser Agent: The video agent now operates independently with its own harvesting logic. This separation reduces overhead and ensures that video data is collected and sent to New Relic without being tied to the browser agent's data collection schedule.