Monitor Bitmovin player

Features

The following data can be collected by the Mux Data SDK when you use the Bitmovin Player Web SDK, as described below.

Supported Features:

• Engagement metrics
• Quality of Experience Metrics
• Web metrics such as Player Startup Time, Page Load Time, etc
• Available for deployment from a package manager
• Customizable Error Tracking
• Preroll Ads metrics
• Ads metadata
• Custom Beacon Domain

1Install @mux/mux-data-bitmovin

Include the Mux JavaScript SDK on every page of your web app that includes video.

<!-- Include bitmovin-mux after the core Bitmovin javascript file -->
<script src="https://cdn.bitmovin.com/player/web/8/bitmovinplayer.js"></script>
<script src="https://src.litix.io/bitmovin/5/bitmovin-mux.js"></script>

2Initialize Mux Data

Get your ENV_KEY from the Mux environments dashboard.

Call bitmovin.player.Player like you normally would. Call initBitmovinMux with the player reference and the SDK options.

<div id="my-player"></div>
<script>
  // Record the player init time
  const playerInitTime = initBitmovinMux.utils.now();
  // Configure the player as appropriate for your verion
  const conf = {
      // Insert player configuration here
  };
  // It is preferred to retrieve the reference from the return of
  // the initialization rather than on a player callback so that
  // Mux can track events as soon as possible.
  // For 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x this may look different
  const container = document.getElementById('my-player');
  const source = {
     // Insert source config here
  };
  var player = new bitmovin.player.Player(container, conf);
  player.load(source);

  initBitmovinMux(player, {
    debug: false,
    data: {
      env_key: 'ENV_KEY', // required
      // Metadata
      player_name: '', // ex: 'My Main Player'
      player_init_time: playerInitTime // ex: 1451606400000
      // ... and other metadata
    }
  });
</script>

3Make your data actionable

The only required field in the options that you pass into @mux/mux-data-bitmovin is env_key. But without some metadata the metrics in your dashboard will lack the necessary information to take meaningful actions. Metadata allows you to search and filter on important fields in order to diagnose issues and optimize the playback experience for your end users.

Pass in metadata under the data on initialization.

initBitmovinMux(player, {
  debug: false,
  data: {
    env_key: 'ENV_KEY', // required
    // Site Metadata
    viewer_user_id: '', // ex: '12345'
    experiment_name: '', // ex: 'player_test_A'
    sub_property_id: '', // ex: 'cus-1'
    // Player Metadata
    player_name: '', // ex: 'My Main Player'
    player_version: '', // ex: '1.0.0'
    player_init_time: '', // ex: 1451606400000, can use `initBitmovinMux.utils.now()`
    // Video Metadata
    video_id: '', // ex: 'abcd123'
    video_title: '', // ex: 'My Great Video'
    video_series: '', // ex: 'Weekly Great Videos'
    video_duration: '', // in milliseconds, ex: 120000
    video_stream_type: '', // 'live' or 'on-demand'
    video_cdn: '' // ex: 'Fastly', 'Akamai'
  }
});

For more information, view Make your data actionable.

4Changing the video

There are two cases where the underlying tracking of the video view need to be reset:

1. New source: When you load a new source URL into an existing player.
2. New program: When the program within a singular stream changes (such as a program change within a continuous live stream).

Note: You do not need to change the video info when changing to a different source of the same video content (e.g. different resolution or video format).

New source

If your application plays multiple videos back-to-back in the same video player, you need to signal when a new video starts to the Mux SDK. Examples of when this is needed are:

• The player advances to the next video in a playlist
• The user selects a different video to play

See metadata in Make your data actionable for the full list of video details you can provide. You can include any metadata when changing the video but you should only need to update the values that start with video_.

It's best to change the video info immediately after telling the player which new source to play.

// player is the instance returned by the `bitmovin.player.Player` function
player.mux.emit('videochange', {
  video_id: 'abc345',
  video_title: 'My Other Great Video',
  video_series: 'Weekly Great Videos',
  // ...
});

New Program

In some cases, you may have the program change within a stream, and you may want to track each program as a view on its own. An example of this is a live stream that streams multiple programs back to back, with no interruptions.

In this case, you emit a programchange event, including the updated metadata for the new program within the continuous stream. This will remove all previous video data and reset all metrics for the video view, creating a new video view. See Metadata for the list of video details you can provide. You can include any metadata when changing the video but you should only need to update the values that start with video.

Note: The programchange event is intended to be used only while the player is currently not paused. If you emit this event while the player is paused, the resulting view will not track video startup time correctly, and may also have incorrect watch time. Do not emit this event while the player is paused.

// player is the instance returned by the `bitmovin.player.Player` function
player.mux.emit('programchange', {
  video_id: 'abc345',
  video_title: 'My Other Great Video',
  video_series: 'Weekly Great Videos',
  // ...
});

5Advanced options

Disable cookies

By default, Mux plugins for HTML5-based players use a cookie to track playback across subsequent page views. This cookie includes information about the tracking of the viewer, such as an anonymized viewer ID that Mux generates for each user. None of this information is personally-identifiable, but you can disable the use of this cookie if desired. For instance, if your site or application is targeted towards children under 13, you should disable the use of cookies.

This is done by setting disableCookies: true in the options passed to the Mux plugin.

initBitmovinMux(player, {
  debug: false,
  disableCookies: true,
  data: {
    env_key: "ENV_KEY",
    // ...
});

Over-ride 'do not track' behavior

By default, @mux/mux-data-bitmovin does not respect Do Not Track when set within browsers. This can be enabled in the options passed to Mux, via a setting named respectDoNotTrack. The default for this is false. If you would like to change this behavior, pass respectDoNotTrack: true.

initBitmovinMux(player, {
  debug: false,
  respectDoNotTrack: true,
  data: {
    env_key: "ENV_KEY",
    // ...
  }
});

Customize error tracking behavior

By default, @mux/mux-data-bitmovin will track errors emitted from the video element as fatal errors. If a fatal error happens outside of the context of the player, you can emit a custom error to the mux monitor.

// player is the instance returned by the `bitmovin.player.Player` function
player.mux.emit('error', {
  player_error_code: 100,
  player_error_message: 'Description of error'
});

When triggering an error event, it is important to provide values for player_error_code and player_error_message. The player_error_message should provide a generalized description of the error as it happened. The player_error_code must be an integer, and should provide a category of the error. If the errors match up with the HTML Media Element Error, you can use the same codes as the corresponding HTML errors. However, for custom errors, you should choose a number greater than or equal to 100.

In general you should not send a distinct code for each possible error message, but rather group similar errors under the same code. For instance, if your library has two different conditions for network errors, both should have the same player_error_code but different messages

Error translator

If your player emits error events that are not fatal to playback or the errors are unclear and/or do not have helpful information in the default error message and codes you might find it helpful to use an error translator or disable automatic error tracking all together.

function errorTranslator (error) {
  return {
    player_error_code: translateCode(error.player_error_code),
    player_error_message: translateMessage(error.player_error_message),
  };
}

initBitmovinMux(player, {
  debug: false,
  errorTranslator,
  data: {
    env_key: "ENV_KEY",
    // ...
  }
});

If you return false from your errorTranslator function then the error will not be tracked. Do this for non-fatal errors that you want to ignore. If your errorTranslator function itself raises an error, then it will be silenced and the player's original error will be used.

Disable automatic error tracking

In the case that you want full control over what errors are counted as fatal or not, you may want to consider turning off Mux's automatic error tracking completely. This can be done by passing automaticErrorTracking: false in the configuration object.

initBitmovinMux(player, {
  debug: false,
  automaticErrorTracking: false,
  data: {
    env_key: "ENV_KEY",
    // ...
  }
});

Ads tracking with @mux/mux-data-bitmovin

Mux supports Bitmovin's VAST advertising client for pre-, mid-, and post-roll ads. Simply configure these plugins as you would normally, and Mux will track ads automatically. No additional configuration is needed.

The metrics for preroll request and response times, as well as number of requests, are pending an update to Bitmovin's API. Everything else will operate normally, but those metrics may be missing.

Release Notes

Current release

v5.8.1

• Update mux-embed to v4.18.0

Previous releases

v5.8.0

• Support player_error_context in errorTranslator

• Update mux-embed to v4.17.0

v5.7.0

• Adds support for new and updated fields: renditionchange, error, DRM type, dropped frames, and new custom fields

• Update mux-embed to v4.16.0

v5.6.0

• Expose utils on SDK initialization function to expose utils.now() for player_init_time

• Update mux-embed to v4.15.0

v5.5.5

• Update mux-embed to v4.14.0

v5.5.4

• Update mux-embed to v4.13.4

v5.5.3

• Update mux-embed to v4.13.3

v5.5.2

• Update mux-embed to v4.13.2

v5.5.1

• Fixes an issue with accessing the global object
• Update mux-embed to v4.13.1

v5.5.0

• Upgraded internal webpack version

• Update mux-embed to v4.13.0

v5.4.8

• Publish package to NPM

v5.4.7

• Update mux-embed to v4.12.1

v5.4.6

• Update mux-embed to v4.12.0

v5.4.5

• Provide a more friendly error message if the Bitmovin instance is not available
• Update mux-embed to v4.11.0

v5.4.4

• Update mux-embed to v4.10.0

v5.4.3

• Update mux-embed to v4.9.4

v5.4.2

• Use common function for generating short IDs
• Update mux-embed to v4.9.3

v5.4.1

• Update mux-embed to v4.9.2

v5.4.0

• Support Bitmovin module-based player

v5.3.6

• Update mux-embed to v4.9.1

v5.3.5

• Update mux-embed to v4.9.0

v5.3.4

• Update mux-embed to v4.8.0

v5.3.3

• Update mux-embed to v4.7.0

v5.3.2

• Update mux-embed to v4.6.2

v5.3.1

• Update mux-embed to v4.6.1

v5.3.0

• Bump mux-embed to 4.6.0

v5.2.0

• Update mux-embed to v4.2.0
• Fix an issue where views that resulted from programchange may not have been tracked correctly
• Fix an issue where if destroy was called multiple times, it would raise an exception

v5.1.0

• Update mux-embed to v4.1.1
• Fix an issue where player_remote_played would not be reported correctly

v5.0.0

• Update mux-embed to v4.0.0
• Support server-side device detection

v4.0.0

• remove support for version 5 of the Bitdash player
• allow passing of global bitmovin object, rather than requiring it be on window

v3.1.1

• fix an issue where manifests with EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME could cause issues with video startup time

v3.1.0

• bugfix for aderror tracking

v3.0.1

• fix ad tracking on latest releases of the Bitmovin v7 and v8 players
• improve ad tracking for Bitmovin v8

v3.0.0

• bump mux-embed dependency to 3.0.0