Updates

Core Player

• Added more granular DASH and HLS playback error codes.
• Added specific error codes for cases where an attempt to start playback fails.
• Reduced player setup errors by extending the setup timeout from 30 to 60 seconds.
• Created a new warning event that displays messages in the developer console, alerting developers of non-fatal errors.. Note: Documentation updates about these changes are coming soon.
• Updated the name of the Chromecast button component from button to google-cast-launcher to reflect changes made by Google to be compatible with React.
• Added a new configuration option, displayPlaybackLabel, which adds click-to-play call to action text below the play icon on the idle screen. Testing has shown a 3-5% lift in clicks to play with this feature enabled. The default text is “Play” and it can be customized or translated in the intl block with the playback option.
• Added non-fatal, console-logged warning events and error codes. See our Errors Reference for updates.
• Added a new div, which wraps the player's existing DOM structure, in order to make way for upcoming features.

Localization
For more information on the release note below, please see the Configuration Reference and the support article on how to translate player text with automated player localization.

• Added support for players to automatically translate tooltips, ARIA labels, and headings into 14 different languages, based on the language attribute declared in the HTML tag on the page. If the lang attribute is not present, the viewer’s browser language will be used, and a translation will still be provided if available. For a full list of languages supported and to request support for another language, please see the support article.
• Introduced a new object, the intl block, which accepts an array of objects of ISO language codes. Each language object accepts all the localization strings previously used in localization. Going forward, developers are encouraged to use the intl block so that a single player can be used across pages localized in any language.
• Added 12 new localizable strings, which includes “link,” “auto,” “off” and more, as well as updated the default values for a few existing strings. All hard-coded strings are now mapped to localizable strings.
• Moved the following fields into the intl block so that they can be localized by language: abouttext, advertising.admessage, advertising.cuetext, advertising.loadingAd, advertising.podmessage, advertising.skipmessage, advertising.skiptext, related.autoplaymessage, sharing.heading. These fields will be backward compatible with their original locations, but will not take advantage of the automated player localization features for those fields. All fields should be nested in the intl block as written.
• Moved localization.related to related.heading within the intl block. In a localization context, related is now an object nested inside the intl block.

Advertising

• Removed the auto-exit fullscreen functionality when using IMA with skippable ads, now that iOS 12 allows the video element (and thus the skip button to) work in fullscreen instead of the native player.
• Decluttered the seek slider by removing cue markers for non-linear (banner overlay) ads.
• In the VAST plugin, added support for the following attributes in the ad tag wrapper:
  • fallbackOnNoAd – selects any stand-alone adwhen set to true and the response contains no ad.The default is false.
  • followAdditionalWrappers – ignores wrappers received in the response when set to false. The default is true.
  • allowMultipleAds – only allows stand alone adswhen set to false. The default is true.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue where VP9 streams would not play in Edge.
• Fixed a bug causing the player to error when it was set up after zone.js, a third-party script.
• Eliminated a javascript exception thrown when failing to load the player bidding script.
• Fixed an issue where it was difficult to differentiate between the text decoration of selected and hover states for items in the settings menu, causing confusion about which option was selected.
• Fixed an issue present in IE 11 on Windows 7 where viewers were unable to mute HLS content with the Flash provider.
• Fixed an issue causing some 608/708 captions from HLS streams to render successfully.
• Fixed an issue causing an expired license key error on mobile devices in rare cases where the page is opened, but Javascript is not executed until hours or days later.

Advertising

• Fixed an issue in Freewheel where a "Loading Ad" message would appear when an ad was not loading.