Quality Monitor Plugin User's Guide

Purpose

The purpose of this guide is to be a reference for you as you get started with the latest version of the Quality Monitor Plugin for the JW Player.

Introduction

The Qualitymonitor plugin for the JW Player is used to monitor the status of the bitrate switching / dynamic streaming functionalty of the player. This functionality is triggered by loading multiple quality levels of one video into the player. It will then monitor certain quality metrics and play the optimal stream is served for every viewer.

For more info about this functionality, please refer to the dedicated sections in the HTTP resp. RTMP streaming guides:

• HTTP bitrate switching
• RTMP dynamic streaming

Screenshot

Here's a screenshot of a JW Player with the qualitymonitor plugin:

The plugin consists of two sections. The biggest one is the overlay at the top of the video that lists and charts the current quality metrics. Additionally, the plugin contains a small messaging area in the middle of the screen, for printing player messages that relate to the video quality.

Metrics

The Qualitymonitor plugin monitors the following metrics:

• The bandwidth of the current connection, in kilobits per second (green).
• The number of frames dropped per second (red).
• The width of the video screen (blue).
• The currently playing quality level (white). The required width and bandwidth of this level is shown between parentheses.

Messages

In addition to these four metrics, the plugin displays two quality related messages in the middle of the screen:

• The moment an actual quality transition occurs (in green text).
• The moment a quality level gets blacklisted or un-blacklisted, as a result of too many framedrops (in red text).

Note the framedrop detection and resulting (un)blacklisting of levels is only supported in JW Player 5.3+. For JW Player 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2, the framedrop chart will simply remain at 0.

Configuration Options

Embedding the qualitymonitor plugin is a matter of setting amending its name to the player's plugins option. The plugin contains no configuration options itself.

Here is a basic embed code example of a player using the qualitymonitor plugin, using the JW Embedder .

<p id="container">The player will be placed here</p>

<script type="text/javascript">
 jwplayer("container").setup({
   file: "/static/dynamic_stream.xml",
   flashplayer: "/static/player.swf",
   height: 270,
   plugins: {
     "qualitymonitor": {}
   },
   width: 480
 });
</script>

Skinning

This plugin offers no skinning functionalities.

Changelog

Version 2.1

• Added fix to support playlists loaded through the JavaScript API.
• Some updates around formatting of the chart labels.

Version 2.0

• Switched from the 4.x to the 5.x plugin API. As of now, the plugin cannot be loaded in the JW Player v4.
• Added support for monitoring framedrops in the chart, and level (un)blacklisting events in the center message.
• Colored the various quality metrics in the chart, to easily distinct between them.
• Made the chart stop drawing when the video is paused or stopped.