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Creating a minimal demo app

In this section we start from an empty React Native template, include a dependency to react-native-theoplayer, and deploy it on an Android or iOS device.

A user interface is added using the @theoplayer/react-native-ui package.

Table of Contents

Setting up a new project

In the following steps we will be using npm as the Node.js package manager.

First initialize a new project with a React Native app template:

$ npx react-native init rntheodemo --template=react-native-template-typescript
$ cd rntheodemo

Alternatively use a template that also provides support for tvOS, as it will create a dependency to react-native-tvos, a fork of the main React Native branch:

$ npx react-native init rntheodemo [email protected]
$ cd rntheodemo

Next, include the dependency to react-native-theoplayer.

$ npm i
$ npm i react-native-theoplayer

or optionally specifying a specific version of the package:

$ npm i react-native-theoplayer@<version>

Note: depending on your node version, an extra --legacy-peer-deps option has to be added:

$ npm i react-native-theoplayer --legacy-peer-deps

Finally, replace the App.tsx with this minimal code:

import React from 'react';
import {Platform, View} from 'react-native';
import {PlayerConfiguration, SourceDescription, PlayerEventType, THEOplayer, THEOplayerView} from 'react-native-theoplayer';

const playerConfig: PlayerConfiguration = {
  license: undefined,     // insert THEOplayer React Native license here
};

const source: SourceDescription = {
  sources: [
    {
      src: "https://cdn.theoplayer.com/video/elephants-dream/playlist-single-audio.m3u8",
      type: "application/x-mpegurl"
    },
  ],
};

const onReady = (player: THEOplayer) => {
  player.autoplay = true
  player.source = source;
  player.addEventListener(PlayerEventType.ERROR, console.log);
}

const App = () => {
  return (
    <View style={{position: 'absolute', top: 0, left: 0, bottom: 0, right: 0}}>
      <THEOplayerView config={playerConfig} onPlayerReady={onReady}/>
    </View>
  );
};

export default App;

When configuring a stream that is hosted on another server than cdn.theoplayer.com, a license for the React Native SDK needs to be obtained through the 'Licenses' built in the THEOplayer portal or request a free trial license.

license_portal

Getting started on Android

After completing the initial project setup, which is shared for all platforms, the following Gradle buildConfig fields can be used in your gradle.properties file to override or set various Android-specific react-native-theoplayer options:

# Version of the (Android) THEOplayer SDK, if not specified, the latest available version is set.
#THEOplayer_sdk=5.0.3

# Override Android sdk versions
#THEOplayer_compileSdkVersion = 33
#THEOplayer_minSdkVersion = 21
#THEOplayer_targetSdkVersion = 33

# Toggle player event logging using tag 'VideoPlayer' (default: false)
#THEOplayer_logPlayerEvents = true

# Toggle playerView event logging using tag 'ReactTHEOplayerView' (default: false)
#THEOplayer_logViewEvents = true

# Toggle media session event logging (default: false)
#THEOplayer_logMediaSessionEvents = true

# Enable THEOplayer Extensions (default: disabled)
#THEOplayer_extensionGoogleIMA = true
#THEOplayer_extensionGoogleDAI = true
#THEOplayer_extensionCast = true
#THEOplayer_extensionMediaSession = true

# Optionally limit timeUpdate rate, which could improve performance.
# Possible values: (default: UNLIMITED)
# - com.theoplayer.TimeUpdateRate.UNLIMITED
# - com.theoplayer.TimeUpdateRate.LIMITED_ONE_HZ
# - com.theoplayer.TimeUpdateRate.LIMITED_TWO_HZ
# - com.theoplayer.TimeUpdateRate.LIMITED_THREE_HZ
#THEOplayer_timeUpdateRate = com.theoplayer.TimeUpdateRate.LIMITED_TWO_HZ

For optimal performance, make sure to build your app in release mode, and optionally limit the number of timeupdate events send by the player as shown in the config above. A timeupdate event typically triggers a number of React Native component updates and could affect performance in negative way.

Getting started on iOS and tvOS

To define which extra THEOplayer integrations need to be loaded for additional features (currently: IMA ads and/or chromecast) a config file needs to be added to you application folder:

Create a json file [YourApplicationFolder]/react-native-theoplayer.json, or [YourApplicationFolder]/theoplayer-config.json, on the same level as the node_modules folder (both alternatives offer the same functionality).

Edit the file to reflect the features required for your application. The following example adds Google IMA, Chromecast and Sideloaded textTracks to the setup. If one of these is out of your applications scope, you can leave it out to reduce the app's size. When using only basic functionality, leave the features array empty. Example:

{
	"ios": {
		"features": [
			"GOOGLE_IMA",
			"CHROMECAST",
			"SIDELOADED_TEXTTRACKS"
		]
	}
}
  • GOOGLE_IMA: adds an additional dependency to the THEOplayer-Integration-GoogleIMA cocoapod that delivers the IMA functionality
  • CHROMECAST: adds an additional dependency to the THEOplayer-Integration-GoogleCast cocoapod that delivers the chromecast functionality
  • SIDELOADED_TEXTTRACKS: adds an additional dependency to the THEOplayer-Connector-SideloadedSubtitle cocoapod that delivers the sideloaded texttracks functionality

Once the project has been setup correctly, set the source to a valid HLS stream, eg.

const source = {
  sources: [
    {
      src: 'https://cdn.theoplayer.com/video/elephants-dream/playlist.m3u8',
      type: 'application/x-mpegurl',
    },
  ],
};

Some RN templates miss a specific Swift version setting for tvOS. To fix this add a custom build setting to your tvOS app target:

SWIFT_VERSION 5.0

Run pod install in your app's ios folder

pod install

When working with a 4.x tvOS THEOplayer SDK

When using a 4.x SDK, you need an additional change for tvOS, since the tvOS SDK needs to be prepared before it can be used in a RN context. First, include TheoplayerSDK into your project's AppDelegate:

#if TARGET_OS_TV
#import <THEOplayerSDK/THEOplayerSDK-Swift.h>
#endif

Next, prepare the THEOplayer right after the creation of the rootViewController in your AppDelegate's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:

#if TARGET_OS_TV
  [THEOplayer prepareWithFirstViewController: [UIViewController new]];
#endif

Getting started on Web

Make sure to first complete the initial project setup, which is shared for all platforms. Deploying a web app requires a little more work. The example uses react-native-web to support web-based platforms, which translates React Native components to React DOM components. In addition, the project relies on webpack to create the bundle that is loaded in the hosting web page.

We refer to the example application and its code for a full demonstration.

libraryConfiguration

When passing the PlayerConfiguration object while creating the player, the libraryConfiguration parameter specifies where the THEOplayer web worker files are located. The worker files are dynamically loaded and necessary to play-out MPEG-TS based HLS streams. By default it is set to the location where npm installed THEOplayer ('./node_modules/theoplayer').

Building and running the app

Finally, build and deploy the app. Make sure an emulator is available, or there is a physical device connected to deploy to.

$ npm run android
$ npm run ios
$ npm run web

Adding a user interface

The react-native-theoplayer package does not contain a user interface by default. There is however a separate package that builds a UI on top of the THEOplayerView component, @theoplayer/react-native-ui.

We refer to the documentation of @theoplayer/react-native-ui on how to install and use it.