Updates

• Removed support for Flash, which was deprecated by Adobe on December 31, 2020.
• Added out of the box support for low latency HLS streams, including partials, automatic playback rate adjustment, hold back, and part hold back. The player automatically detects low latency streams and goes into that mode with no additional configuration required.
• Added support for low latency in JW Live Channels streams.
• Added support for IMSC1 captions in HLS streams.
• Added markup to discourage Google from displaying player error messages in search result snippets.
• Removed a default value for liveSyncDuration. The player will no longer add a default of 25 to item sources.
• Improved automatic latency defaults by starting HLS live streams with a latency based on the streams TARGET-DURATION or HOLD-BACK, in accordance with the HLS spec. This can still be overridden in browsers other than Safari by configuring liveSyncDuration, which used to default to 25 seconds.
• Added duration, currentTime, seekRange, and metadata.currentTime to the seek event response.
• Added targetLatency to time events. When playing live streams, the player will adjust playbackRate to meet the latency target.
• mproved stream type detection for Yospace streams, which often contain query string parameters after the file extension.
• Reduced fatal player errors caused by user agents represented as Safari that are really Chrome.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue causing the player to buffer indefinitely instead of erroring when all levels in an HLS manifest 404.
• Fixed a bug causing only one ad in a VMAP ad pod to play when the VMAP is passed via playlist.adschedule.

Known Issues

• Changed release cadence of the Biannual channel from updating to the latest version every six months to updating to a six month old version every six months. This allows Biannual channel to run a much older version for longer, and offers greater rollback options, as the other channels often are running similar versions.

Updates 

• Added a new configuration option, horizontalVolumeSlider, that when optionally set to true, makes the volume slider appear horizontally, below the scroll bar, instead of above it. 

Fixes 

• Fixed an accessibility issue where pressing the escape key while in the captions styling menu did not close the settings menu as expected.
• Fixed a bug in audio-only mode where the volume slider couldn’t be used during ad playback.
• Fixed an issue in Chrome where audio tracks were not appearing in the settings menu as expected.
• Fixed an issue where after a mid-roll ad is played, duplicate captions tracks appeared to be available in the captions menu.
• Fixed an issue in Safari where captions on HLS streams did not function properly after ad breaks.
• Fixed a bug preventing the player from automatically advancing to the next item in a playlist when controls: false is defined in the setup configuration.

New Features 

• Added a new configuration option to the advertising block, adTagParameters, an object, which supports custom parameter key value pairs with the DAI ad client.
• Added a new configuration option to the advertising block, ppid, which can be used with the Google IMA client to pass a publisher provided id to the IMA SDK.
• Added fallback support for Norwegian automated player translation. In addition to no, which is already supported, the player will now recognize html tag lang attributes of nn or nb as Norwegian as well. To customize text, please use the no object inside of the internationalization block regardless of which code is used in the page's lang attribute.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing the first frame of the video to appear before the preroll on iOS Safari.
• Fixed a bug causing different ad text messages to overlap in right to left languages at smaller breakpoints.
• Fixed an issue on Tizen devices where controls did not hide when the settings menu is open.

Updates

• Added support for Tizen on 2018+ Samsung smart TVs.
• Created a Tizen demo app to showcase our initial 2018+ beta support of this platform.
• Added a new method, jwplayer().stopCasting(), which can be called to stop a casting session on a Chromecast device.
• Added a new method, getPercentViewable, which takes no arguments and returns the visibility attribute from the player's model.
• Added support for DRM robustness. To configure the player to use this feature, specify videoRobustness and/or audioRobustness in the playlist item source in the Widevine, Playready and Clearkey object within the DRM block.

Bugs

• Fixed a bug surfacing when a viewer is behind the live edge where the button stays displayed as “Live” instead of the “Not Live” configuration.
• Fixed in issue in Google IMA where VMAPs with item properties were not being updated properly.
• Fixed an issue in the VAST client where captions do not function properly after ad breaks in Safari.
• Fixed an issue where ads may fail on the JW recommendations playlists when ad preloading is configured.

Deprecations

• Removed support for rendering 360/VR videos across all devices and streaming providers due to underutilization. The player will no longer recognize or render 360 videos as expected, though the videos will still play.

Known Issues

Affecting Tizen only:

• DASH is not yet support on Tizen; DASH streams result in a black screen when played, and some even cause the app to crash entirely.
• On Tizen devices, HLS streams intermittently result in a black screen. You can return to the previous page, but the stream doesn't play and just emit a buffer warning.
• On Tizen devices, controls do not hide when the settings menu is open (will be fixed in 8.18.1).

Service release. No new features.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug causing too many ID3 metadata events to fire.
• Fixed an issue where ID3 WXXX:URL data was parsed incorrectly.
• Fixed a bug where 608 captions caused the browser tab to freeze.
• Worked around a bug in Chrome 85 preventing videos from being cast.
• Fixed an issue causing inaccurate video completion data be sent to Google Ads Manager.

Fix

• Fixed a bug causing some HLS live streams to infinitely buffer.

• Improved the message read aloud by a screen reader when the keyboard shortcuts toggle is selected.
• Added the name of the menu the user will go back to if they leave a captions styling menu when using a screen reader.
• Fixed an issue causing some HLS streams to buffer infinitely in Chrome 74 and below.
• Fixed a bug where a linear ad will not play if loaded while a nonlinear ad is displayed.
• Fixed an issue in the control bar during Google IMA ads on iOS browsers where the fullscreen icon would appear but be unusable because IMA prevents fullscreening during ad playback. The button is now hidden.

• Fixed an issue to work around a bug in the Google IMA SDK affecting Android Chrome 84 only where unplayable linear ad MIME types were being erroneously selected.