Android SDK 4.27.0 adds caption styling and positioning APIs, fullscreen exit reasons, and new offline DRM capabilities. This release also improves offline-download reliability, upgrades AndroidX Media3 to 1.10.1, and fixes issues affecting captions, Chromecast, fullscreen playback, advertising, and media controls.

New Features

• New CaptionsConfig APIs let you customize caption font, size, text color, background and window colors, edge style, and placement.
• New caption positioning options let you configure caption box width, horizontal position, alignment, and vertical placement.
• FullscreenExitReason lets apps identify how fullscreen was exited.
• Offline DRM now supports process-scoped MediaDrmCallback registration, retrieving the remaining duration of an offline license, refreshing renewable licenses without re-downloading media, and improved license handling when downloads are removed or replaced.
• AndroidX Media3 has been upgraded from version 1.10.0 to 1.10.1.

Bug Fixes

• Captions no longer appear too small in letterboxed portrait layouts.
• Offline downloads no longer crash on Android 14 and later and now resume after a requirements wait, process restart, or reboot when supported by the Android version.
• Fixed potential crashes when selecting captions shortly after connecting to Chromecast or requesting fullscreen after the player had been destroyed.
• Fixed advertising issues affecting Google DAI pause and resume events, fullscreen VAST playback, and mid-roll playback after seeking while paused.
• The lock-screen scrubber no longer advances while playback is paused.
• Improved Picture-in-Picture and media-button broadcast receiver handling.
• Added missing consumer rules for optional dependencies that could cause minified host-app builds to fail.

Offline downloads on Android 14 and later

Apps using offline downloads and targeting API level 34 or later must declare android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE and android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE_DATA_SYNC.

For additional technical details, see the Android Changelog.

Vertical Video now responds to layout changes after load in Single player and Full screen display modes.

New Feature

Single player and Full screen display modes now scale with their containing element while maintaining a 9:16 aspect ratio as layout dimensions change. This includes viewport and orientation changes on mobile.

Learn more about configuring the Vertical Video experience.

You can now connect ad performance to the content, placements, and player experiences that generate impressions and revenue.

New Feature

JWX Ad Server customers can now analyze ad performance using additional media, placement, and player dimensions in Ad Serving analytics.

The following dimensions are available in Custom Reports and Ad Serving Sessions Data Sharing datasets:

• Media and Placement to analyze ad performance by content and inventory placement
• Player Name and Experience Type to compare performance across player experiences
• Ad Slot Type to analyze impressions and revenue by ad position

These dimensions are available in Data Sharing at daily and monthly granularity. Media dimensions use the same content fields as Playback Analytics, making it easier to connect content performance with monetization data.

Player Name is unavailable for Strategy Rules inventory. Ad Slot Type is null when the slot type cannot be determined.

Learn more about Ad Serving Data.

iOS SDK 4.28.0 adds custom VoiceOver labels and hints and new fullscreen exit reasons. This release also improves IMA ad handling during Chromecast sessions, supports VMAP-returning pre-roll tags, and fixes player initialization, language controls, and caption rendering.

New Features

• Custom accessibility labels and hints let you control how VoiceOver announces a playlist item's title and description without changing the visible text.
• New fullscreen dismiss callbacks identify whether the viewer used the dedicated dismiss button or fullscreen toggle, or your app dismissed fullscreen programmatically.

Bug Fixes

• Ending a Chromecast session while the player is off-screen no longer resumes local playback. IMA breaks suppressed during casting no longer block content playback or completion.
• Single pre-roll ad tags that return a VMAP schedule now play correctly.
• Calling stop() during player initialization no longer freezes the app.
• The language button is now available when a stream has multiple audio tracks, even when it has no captions.
• Captions now use the intended system font instead of Times New Roman.

Advertising behavior while casting

Client-side IMA ad breaks that become ready during an active Chromecast session are now suppressed. They do not play on the sender or count impressions, and this behavior cannot be disabled.

Ad server requests still occur for suppressed breaks, so requests and fills may have no corresponding impressions. VAST and Google DAI behavior is unchanged.

For additional technical details, see the iOS Changelog.

Media API v2 now returns a 400 parse error when a request contains a malformed or unsupported query parameter instead of dropping the invalid portion and returning results.

Bug Fix

Media API v2 query parameter validation: Requests to Media API v2 endpoints that include a malformed or unsupported query parameter now return a 400 response with a parse error message. 

Previously, the invalid portion of the query was dropped and the API returned a 200 with results that did not reflect the intended filter. Responses now match what was actually requested, and errors surface at the point of the request rather than silently returning unfiltered results.

Media uploaded through the CMAF VOD workflow can now be transcoded automatically into a complete rendition ladder. You no longer need to create custom renditions separately for each audio and video rendition.

New Features

CMAF VOD offers the following new transcoding capabilities:

• Automatic rendition creation: Each upload uses a transcoding config to generate its rendition ladder automatically.

• Default transcoding config: Every site receives a default config based on the standard Traditional VOD template. It creates:

  • AVC video renditions at 1080p, 720p, 540p, 480p, 360p, and 270p, capped at 60 fps
  • AAC-LC stereo audio up to 192 kbps
  • An AAC-LC or E-AC3 5.1 surround track up to 512 kbps when the source contains multichannel audio
• Source-aware transcoding: JWX preserves the source frame rate, including fractional frame rates, and maintains the orientation of vertical video. Sources are never upscaled. For example, a 720p source produces renditions at 720p and below.
• Custom transcoding configs: Work with your JWX account team to create a custom config. You can set it as the site default for all uploads or apply it to an individual media item by providing its config ID when creating the media through Management API v2. If no config is assigned to the media item, JWX uses the site default.
• Manual rendition creation: Your account team can create an empty config that bypasses automatic rendition creation. You can then create each rendition through the custom rendition endpoints.
• Rendition edits after automatic creation: A transcoding config does not lock the rendition ladder. After JWX creates the renditions, you can delete an existing rendition or use the custom audio and video rendition endpoints to add individual renditions alongside those created automatically.
• Transcoding config endpoints: New Management API v2 endpoints let you list a site’s transcoding configs and retrieve a specific config by ID, allowing you to confirm its settings before uploading media.
• Premium transcoding: Non-AVC codecs, 4K video, and audio loudness normalization require a premium transcoding entitlement and incur additional costs. If the entitlement is removed, JWX continues creating renditions with standard features and ignores any premium settings instead of failing the transcoding job.

This update helps you:

• Create complete rendition ladders without configuring each rendition individually
• Standardize transcoding across your site
• Customize transcoding for specific workflows or media items
• Retain full control over renditions, whether they are created automatically or manually.

To learn more, see the CMAF VOD overview.

NOTE: Automatic rendition creation is currently available only through the Management API v2. Support for uploading through the JWX dashboard will be added in a future release.

iOS SDK 4.27.0 adds configurable live playback latency. This release also upgrades the Google IMA SDK and improves ad reporting, player reconfiguration, playback controls, casting, lock-screen controls, and iOS 26 interface behavior.

New Features

• A new liveSyncDuration property lets you configure how far behind the live edge playback targets.
• The Google IMA SDK has been upgraded from version 3.22.1 to 3.32.0. Integrations using Google IMA must use version 3.28.10 or later.

Bug Fixes

• IMA prerolls are correctly reported as PRE instead of MID when playback is reloaded after a context switch on iOS 26.
• Calling loadPlayerConfiguration during an active IMA ad no longer prevents onAdImpression from firing for the new preroll.
• Standard IMA ad requests now include vpmute and vpa values that reflect the player’s mute and autoplay state.
• DAI configurations now correctly apply maxRedirects, debugMode, ppid, and sessionID from the configured DAI settings.
• Consecutive playback-rate changes now preserve the most recently requested value.
• The progress bar no longer briefly displays a completed state before autostart playback begins.
• Video descriptions now appear in the portrait controls overlay on initial load on iOS 26.
• The Chromecast interface now displays the correct position and duration after disconnecting from a paused casting session.
• Viewers can now scrub through VOD content from the lock screen or Control Center. Scrubbing remains disabled for live streams and during ad breaks.

We’ve introduced a new display mode that lets you present a playlist of vertical videos directly in a full-screen experience on a dedicated publisher page.

New Feature

When configuring a Vertical Video experience, you can now select Full screen as the Display mode. Viewers can browse and play videos directly in the full-screen experience without first opening the playlist from a carousel or single-player presentation.

Learn more about configuring the Vertical Video experience.

Android SDK 4.26.0 adds configurable live playback latency and modernizes core playback and advertising components. This release also improves playlist replay, Picture-in-Picture, DAI, Chromecast, and caption behavior.

New Features

• A new PlaylistItem.liveSyncDuration property lets you configure how far behind the live edge playback targets.
• The core playback architecture has been upgraded to AndroidX Media3 (ExoPlayer) 1.10.0, including media source creation, and side-loaded caption handling.
• The Google IMA SDK has been upgraded to version 3.39.0, with added timeout protection for ad requests.

Bug Fixes

• Playlist items configured with startTime now apply the value only to initial playback. Repeated playback begins from the start of the item.
• The player UI is correctly hidden when the system automatically enters Picture-in-Picture mode.
• Content can automatically enter Picture-in-Picture mode when an app is backgrounded on Android 12 and later.
• Skipping a playlist item during a DAI ad no longer causes the player to crash.
• Captions remain available after connecting to a Chromecast device and can be disabled during casting.

Vertical video discovery labels now automatically display in English, Spanish, or French, with CSS overrides available for other languages or custom wording.

New Feature

The vertical video discovery experience automatically displays labels in English, Spanish, or French based on the page’s <html lang> attribute and the viewer’s browser language. If neither identifies a supported language, the labels default to English.

You can also use CSS custom properties to provide labels in another language or customize individual labels. These overrides apply across all display modes and replace the built-in translation for each overridden label.

Learn more about vertical video localization.