In this release, several FreeWheel and Google PPS fixes have been released.

Bug Fixes

• The FreeWheel Plugin correctly sets the mode to ad request when the stream is live.
• Mute and unmute behavior in FreeWheel ad pods is now reflected correctly.
• Google Publisher Provided Signals (PPS) values are sent and encoded properly.

The JW Platform now enables you to playback media with Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption in your DRM-enabled properties. 

New Feature

You can now preview DRM-encrypted video-on-demand (VOD) media hosted in your DRM-enabled properties.

• Playback of VOD DRM media will leverage the Low Default DRM Policy. Any changes made to the policy may cause playback failure in the dashboard. 
• You may experience initial playback latency of VOD DRM media in the dashboard.

The JW Platform now enables you to translate content titles, descriptions, and other fields displayed in your app. 

New Feature

Content metadata provides viewers information about a media item, such as the title, description, and genre. From the dashboard, you can add and manage metadata translations in any language. 

Metadata translations offer several benefits:

• Expanding to a global market of viewer groups
• Improving user experience in the native languages of viewers (requires custom implementation)
• Increasing revenue opportunities through language support

The dashboard now offers new iterations of the captions and chapters editors. 

New Feature

The captions and chapters editors have been redesigned for a more intuitive flow to enhance performance and user experience. 

This latest JWP Android SDK release improves .playlistUrl support, caption scaling, player setup with .useTextureView(true), DAI event handling, and IMA ad playback.

Bug Fixes

• A .playlistUrl can be used with the Background Audio Service in a PlayerConfig.
• Captions scale correctly in full-screen portrait mode.
• The player no longer crashes on setup when configured with TextureView .useTextureView(true).
• When using DAI, the onAdPause and onAdPlay events fire only once.
• If an app implementing a player configured with .useTextureView(true) defined is backgrounded during IMA ad playback, video and audio ad playback continue after returning to the app.

We have updated the user experience for managing audio tracks, enabling you to easily edit default track information. 

New Feature

From the dashboard, you can now edit the name, language, and ISO language code of default audio tracks for both DRM and non-DRM media. 

In this release, a new property has been added to the beforePlay event.

New Feature

The beforePlay event now contains the state property that indicates the play state.

Webhook notifications for five new events are now available.

New Feature

The JWP dashboard and the Management API enable setting up webhook notifications for five new events:

• Media Created (media_created)
• Thumbnail Created (thumbnail_created)
• Thumbnail Deleted (thumbnail_deleted)
• Track Created (track_created)
• Track Deleted (track_deleted)

The latest JWP Android SDK update includes a new feature and bug fixes to improve functionality and user experience. New Chromecast support has been introduced. Updates to SDK dependencies and various bug fixes are also detailed below.

New Feature

• Chromecast now supports sending JSON data to custom receiver apps, enabling the ability to cast Widevine DRM-protected content.
• The IMA Android dependency has been updated to 3.33.0.

Bug Fixes

• When a custom receiver does not support the data sent during casting, the Android SDK will throw an error.
• In Android 14, controls work as expected in picture-in-picture (PiP) mode.
• Playback for large HLS media assets begins without a noticeable delay.
• IMA pre-roll ads no longer cause an Index out of bounds error.

JW 8.33.4 updates the ad loading screen for videos without thumbnails, migrates from the unload event, and fixes several player issues.

New Features

• The display of the ad loading screen has been updated for videos without thumbnails.
• The system has migrated from using the unload event.

Bug Fixes

• skipAdBreak works for VPAID ads in the VAST client.
• The window border now displays correctly for Tizen captions.
• DASH subtitles with multiple rows in a single cue display correctly.
• The DASH audio track menu will correctly play the selected track.