New Feature

Broadcast Live streams provisioned with DRM can now be added as an externally hosted media item in DRM-enabled properties.

NOTE: It is not recommended to externally host media in a DRM-enabled property except if it is an encrypted Broadcast Live stream.

In this release, we've added the ability to pass parameters into the ad request for FreeWheel and corrected a caption selection issue.

New Features

• FreeWheel global parameters (afid, sfid, vcid) can now be passed into the ad request through the Freewheel plugin.
• You can append additional FreeWheel MRM ad server capabilities to the `flag` parameter and pass them in the ad request through the Freewheel plugin.

See our FreeWheel ad break recipes for examples of how to include these new parameters. 

Bug Fix

• On iOS mobile web, caption selection is no longer impacted after exiting full-screen mode during live streams.

New Features

Playlist list page has migrated to React and users should experience:

• Faster page load times.
• Improved usability with an enhanced Create button.
• Improved usability with an enhanced Playlist ID column.

Bug Fix

Long media titles are now visible when hovering over text in the Playlist Preview, Manual Playlist media search slide-out, and Series module.

Deprecation

For entitled users in the JWP dashboard, new Trending playlists can be created using Dynamic playlists with trending sort. Existing Trending playlists will continue to be accessible and updatable.

Developers who write in Objective-C can programmatically make the JWPlayerView full screen or dismiss full screen. Also in iOS 4.8.0, we make some captions improvements and released several fixes.

New Features

• A new API has been added to the JWPlayerObjCViewController allowing developers who write in Objective-C to programmatically make the JWPlayerView full screen or dismiss full screen.
• JWPlayer.loadPlaylist has been improved to accept a URL pointing to a playlist on the JWP Dashboard.
• The size of captions now scale with the height of the JWPlayerView.
• Caption position responds more accurately and reliably to resizing of the JWPlayerView.

Bug Fixes

• Memory footprint during JW VAST ad playback has been optimized and improved.
• Layout constraint errors and warnings have been fixed in the Playlist / Recommendation menu.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue causing a DAI live Dash stream to not enter ads mode
• Fixed an issue on smaller viewports causing auto pause:false to not work in combination with autostart: viewable
• Fixed an issue with .stopCasting() function not working
• Fixed an issue causing some Dash streams to stop playback after a few minutes
• Fixed an issue with our Google Analytics plugin causing play, pause and seeks events from firing
• Fixed an issue where floating did not function when settings was controls:false
• Fixed styling issue with our Tizen controller and tooltips.
• Fixed an issue on Tizen with the time-slider not functioning properly

In Android 4.8.0, we created a new getter for caption rendering and addressed several bugs.

New Features

• A new getter, JWPlayer.isCaptionsRendering(), has been created that checks if the caption rendering is on/off.
• Captions scale with the player size. When playing the video on a larger surface, the size of the captions will scale according based on the new height of the JWPlayerView.
• Caption position responds more accurately and reliably to resizing of the JWPlayerView.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue when not using background audio, even with autostart enabled, playback would not begin when the player is backgrounded.
• Fixed an issue when replacing or removing a JWPlayerFragment would not tear down correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the ad does not play when the fragment was visible (either on the back stack or in the background).

With the release of v4.7.1, we have fixed several bugs.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Apple’s supplied caption styles were not being rendered as expected.
• Fixed an issue where the player was not able to play local MP4 files when the internet connection is lost.
• Fixed an issue where the audio track selection wasn’t working as expected.

With the release of v4.7.1, we have upgraded ExoPlayer as part of our updates and fixed several bugs.

New Features

• Upgraded ExoPlayer to 2.18.1
• Optimized ProGuard rules
• Added PauseReason on PauseEvent

Bug Fixes

• Preventing debuggable webView visibility in web inspector.
• Fixed crashes from Nullable mediaurl on ExoMediaPlayerController.
• Fixed crashes from IMA ads when muteAd API is called.
• Fixed LifecycleOwner from JWPlayerSupportFragment to prevent plays on background after removed.
• Fixed an issue with IMA DAI TagParameters not being sent.

New Feature

Google SEO Optimization can now be set up on the JWP Dashboard:

• This new player configuration automatically populates the necessary structured data used by Google search crawlers to index videos in Google Search with Key Moments.
• This player configuration can be controlled in the JWP Dashboard or directly in the Player Configuration.
• For customers who want to implement Key Moments within their own VideoObject structured data, our Google SEO Optimization support page has guidance on how to fill out the necessary parameters to deep link to specific timestamps with JWP.

Bug Fix

Fixed an issue where Starter accounts were unable to update their player settings.

New Features

• Custom Reports now has a last run time displayed near the Run Report button.
• Custom Reports now has a clickable link for Media in the results table. This link navigates users to the Media Details page when Group By - Content - Media is selected.
• Custom Reports Preview button was relabeled Run Report.
• Custom Reports now has a gear icon in the results table that allows columns to be hidden so full values are viewable.
  
  Read additional information on creating custom reports.