Preload all audio tracks for a smooth switching of the audio in Multview Stream

Feature Requests
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1

I confirm this is a Feature Request and NOT a support/technical query. Please use your Bitmovin Dashboard for raising support tickets.

on

Which product is your request related to?

Player

Description

In the case of server side multi view solution for the live games, we have a single composed stream that has 4 views in the frame and each view belongs to an individual game. In this case, we have multiple audio tracks in the playlist and each audio track belongs to one of the streams.

When user tries to change the focus from first view to second, application switches the audio track. We are noticing a glitch at this point- video freezes couple of seconds and initially audio and video are not in sync. Playback is fine after 3 to 4 seconds.

We are suspecting that this glitch is due to player starts downloading the segments of new audio track after user switches the audio track. Looks like there is a delay here before A/V is in sync.

Our query: Is it possible to force the player downloading segments of all the audio tracks? We are thinking this will improve the experience during audio switching. any recommendations here?

2

Hi Pavan!

Thanks for reaching out. While the player doesn’t currently support loading multiple audio tracks in parallel, there’s a tweak since player version 8.251.0 that
should noticeably improve the audio switching experience for your multiview use case:

DISABLE_AUDIO_BUFFER_CLEARING_ON_TRACK_SWITCH (default: false)

If enabled, the player preserves some of the already-loaded audio ahead of the playhead when an audio track switch is triggered, instead of clearing the entire audio buffer immediately. This buffered audio of the current track continues to play until data for the new track has been fetched, and the switch can happen. This aims to avoid a playback interruption you’d otherwise see during the switch.

Example configuration:

const playerConfig = {
  key: ‘YOUR-PLAYER-KEY’,
  tweaks: {
    DISABLE_AUDIO_BUFFER_CLEARING_ON_TRACK_SWITCH: true,
  },
};

Caveats:

  • With this tweak enabled, the audio track switch may happen with a short delay, as the player needs to fetch data for the new track to be played.

Give it a try and let us know if it helps with the multiview scenario.

Best regards

Jameson