Fix

• Improved memory management.

General Changes

• JWPlayerView has been decoupled from the JWPlayer API, which enables your layouts to inflate quickly and provide a responsive user experience on screens that have a JWPlayerView. 
• JW Android SDK 4.0 uses fully native controls, which simplified control customization by using ViewModels. 
• Updated Java package root to be com.jwplayer. 
• Added support for Picture-in-Picture, Related feeds, and JW Recommendations. 
• Thumbnail preview is shown as the user seeks across the content if a thumbnail track is specified for a PlaylistItem 
• Improved accessibility support for screen readers. 
• Added helper classes to better support Background Audio. 
• Minimum OS is set to API 21. 

User Interface

• Created new menu system for new design and updated seek bar thumbnail style, Casting menu, error code screen, Next Up card, and Live interface. 

Ads

• JW Android SDK 4.0 supports IMA, IMA DAI, and JWP VAST. 
• Added support for background loading of the next playlist item and VAST ads. 
• Added ads cue points for IMA. 
• Added feature to make IMA ad request before the ad break. 
• Added AdErrorEvent and AdImpressionEvent to help the customers to track ad related events. 

API Updates

• Created a JWPlayerCompat class that contains all of the addOnXListener() and removeOnXListener() methods. 
• Added CaptionsListEven, ErrorEvent, and SetupErrorEvent to help the customers to track the list of captions and all error related events. 
• Renamed AdSource to AdClient. 
• Renamed ImaAdvertising to ImaAdvertisingConfig. 
• Renamed ImaDaiAdvertising to ImaDaiAdvertisingConfig. 
• Renamed ImaVMAPAdvertising to ImaVmapAdvertisingConfig. 
• Renamed VMAPAdvertising to VmapAdvertisingConfig. 

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where TalkBack would not read the controlbar contents correctly. 
• Fixed an issue where the player does not maintain the selected resolution when replaying a video. 

Deprecated features

• VPAID and FreeWheel support. 
• CSS support. 
• Caption Styling Configuration. 

Fixes

• Fixed an issue preventing video thumbnails from playing when the playlist item is loaded with jwplayer().load().
• Removed harmless console errors outputted after the VAST ad client loads the OMID SDK.
• Fixed a bug preventing the picture in picture icon released in 8.21.0 from inheriting styling set in the skin.controlbar.icons configuration.
• Fixed an issue where the value for playReason after a playlist item automatically advances to the next video was erroneously interaction.

New Features

• Added support for playback in Picture in Picture mode across all supported browsers, including ads, captions, and playlists. Firefox and Internet Explorer do not support this feature.
• Configuration: Added a new configuration option, pipIcon, which defaults to enabled and adds a Picture in Picture icon and right click menu options to supported desktop browsers only. Setting this option to disabled will remove this icon, which you can also hide with CSS. On mobile devices, we have elected not to add an icon to our controls, but rather, PiP can be enabled through the operating system's native gestures and user interface on both iOS and Android.
• Added automatic localization support for the Picture in Picture icon tooltip and right click menu option across all supported languages, which can also be customized via the intl block with pipIcon.
• Javascript API: added a new event, adLoadedXML, which fires when the VAST ad client loads an ad tag. The response contains the same object properties as other ad events, such as adBreakId, adPlayId, adPosition, client, tag, etc, as well as an XML parameter that exposes the XML downloaded from the tag.
• Improved recovery of live DASH streams that buffer infinitely by implementing segment timeouts.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug preventing TTML1 captions from being displayed in DASH streams.
• Fixed an accessibility issue where the focus did not return to the settings menu icon after closing the settings menu.
• Fixed typos in German and Swedish player automatic localization translation files. We thank you for your feedback and encourage submissions via the form on our support page.
• Fixed a bug causing seek events to copy their play reason from the preceding play event.
• Fixed an issue in the IMA ad client with VMAP ad schedules where ad events incorrectly report the ad position as pre on mid-roll and post-roll ads.

New Releases

• Multikey support is now available for all DRM providers via our CPIX API. See the documentation for more details.
• Beta release for Studio DRM Token v2

Updates

• Following the resolution of the Chrome 91 bug by Google IMA, we reverted the workaround released yesterday in 8.20.9. Version 8.20.10 is identical to 8.20.8. Stay tuned for 8.21.0 next week, which includes Picture in Picture support.

Updates

• We identified an increase in VAST 402 errors coming from Google IMA as a result of the Chrome 91 update last week. Error rates rise when advertising.vpaidmode is set to insecure or is undefined, as the player's default is insecure. While the errors are not specific to JWP, we are doing everything possible to mitigate the issue and have reached out to the third parties involved to do the same. While we wait for the issue to be resolved, we are temporarily releasing a player update that forces the vpaidmode setting to be set to enabled for all players that set up only on Chrome 91 environments on both desktop and mobile (unless vpaidmode was already set to disabled), which will help restore fill rates. No other browsers or Chrome versions will be affected, and this change is only for the Google IMA ad client. We are not applying this setting across the board since secure mode is known to decrease fill rates because VPAID ads that utilize Friendly iFrames will stop working. As soon as we have confirmation that the issue is resolved, we will revert this change. As such, we do not recommend customers set vpaidmode to enabled in their own ad schedules or modify client side configurations, as this setting would be applied across browsers, whereas our workaround is specific to the affected browser and version only. Thank you for your patience and collaboration.

New Features

• Added a new configuration option to the advertising block, omidAccessModeRules, an object, which supports passing OMID access mode rule regex to Google Ad Manager via the Google IMA ad client.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the Google IMA ad client where post-rolls ads would not play if the playlist item also had a pre-roll that resulted in an empty ad response.
• Fixed an issue causing the audio to go out of sync on some HLS streams after a while.
• Fixed a bug causing audio in backgrounded apps to pause when a muted video is played.
• Fixed a bug causing the buffer icon to show on top of some ads when OMID is enabled.
• Fixed an issue causing unexpected increase use of memory and browser crashing on Windows operating systems with some live streams.
• Fixed a bug causing unintended seeking on iOS Safari when the viewer scrolls the page after intentionally seeking in the video.
• Fixed a bug causing the player to mute while adjusting the volume.

New Release

New cluster based in Milan has been released and is serving traffic for the duration of the Euro 2020 Championship

NOTE: VUDRM was rebranded as Studio DRM following the acquisition of Vualto by JW Player in May 2021. Any remaining references to VUDRM in our documentation or in the Studio DRM Admin portal should be assumed to refer to Studio DRM.

Fixes

• Fixed bugs preventing Apple Voiceover controloptionspace commands from working with the player.
• Fixed a bug causing accidental interaction with links and buttons beneath the player when it is floating.
• Fixed an issue preventing the email link from working in the sharing menu.