Expose HLS master playlist as part of the object returned via ExoPlayer.getCurrentManifest

[rileymacdonald]

I'm upgrading from ExoPlayer r1.5.9 to r2.2.0. How can I receive a reference to the HlsMasterPlaylist when loading HLS content? I'm assuming this is the only way to get a reference to the variants; Previously when using ExoPlayer r1.x, the onSingleManifest() callback returned an HlsPlaylist which could be cast to a HlsMasterPlaylist in order to get a reference the variants (which now appears to be List<HlsUrl> variants;):

new ManifestFetcher.ManifestCallback<HlsPlaylist>() {
    public void onSingleManifest(HlsPlaylist playlist) {
        (HlsMasterPlaylist) playlist // ...
    }
}

This callback appears to have been removed in r2.x.

Here is an example of the ExoPlayer instance I'm using:

ExoPlayer player = ExoPlayerFactory.newInstance(
    Renderer[
        new MediaCodecVideoRenderer(appContext, MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT),
        new MediaCodecAudioRenderer(MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT),
        new TextRenderer(...),
        new MetadataRenderer(...)
    ],
    new DefaultTrackSelector(new AdaptiveVideoTrackSelection.Factory(
        new DefaultBandwidthMeter()
    ) 
    new DefaultLoadControl(
        new DefaultAllocator(true, C.DEFAULT_BUFFER_SEGMENT_SIZE)
    )
);

Here is an example of the MediaSource I'm using:

MediaSource mediaSource = new HlsMediaSource(
    uri,
    new DefaultDataSourceFactory(
        appContext, 
        userAgent, 
        new DefaultBandwidthMeter(), 
    handler, 
    adaptiveMediaSourceEventListener)

player.prepare(mediaSource);

Is there a listener which exposes the variants I require from HlsMasterPlaylist? Is there documentation explaining these types of changes from r1.x to r2.x which I can reference? I hope I've provided enough information to answer this question. Thanks.

[ojw28]

We should probably expose this via ExoPlayer.EventListener.onTimelineChanged. Currently we're exposing the media playlist only. Although what information do you actually need to pull out of the HlsMasterPlaylist? It's fairly likely the information you need is exposed somewhere else, just not in HlsMasterPlaylist form.

[rileymacdonald]

I'm looking to pull the variant/rendition count for reporting reasons. If this information is available somewhere else I won't need the HlsMasterPlaylist.

[ojw28]

You could try using EventListener.onTracksChanged. The trackGroups variable will hold information about the tracks we've determined are present in the media. It becomes a little complicated because the representation of tracks here splits out muxed streams, but if you're dealing with reasonably simple cases it should be possible to derive the numbers you're looking for from the groups.

Else you'll probably have to wait for us to expose the master playlist through onTimelineChanged. Marking this as an enhancement to track doing this.

[rileymacdonald]

Thanks! I was able to loop over the TracksGroupArray from onTracksChanged() and fetch the desired video formats to determine the variant count and details about the renditions I required.

[AquilesCanta]

For the record. We are changing the API in the next push:

onTimelineChanged and getCurrentManifest will now return an HlsManifest, which holds a reference to the master playlist and the current window snapshot.