UHD, HDR, HEVC, AV1, AC-3, EC-3 & AC-4 support

4K/8K UHD video support

4K/8K UHD video allows for a new and improved viewer experience. 4K/8K UHD video is best delivered with an adaptive bitrate streaming technology, like HLS or MPEG-DASH. You can deliver 4K/8K UHD content with Radiant Media Player for on-demand, live or DVR video streaming.

4K/8K UHD content decoding requirements:

• Use of next-generation AV1 or HEVC video codecs. Do not forget to include a fallback option to AVC/H.264 video in your HLS/DASH manifest to support legacy devices that do not support AV1 or HEVC.
• High-end recent multi-core processor
• 4K/8K compatible video card
• An Internet connection that can consistently maintain an average of 20+ Mbps download speed

HDR video content

4K/8K UHD video often delivered in HDR format. You can learn more about HDR video format in our blog post. Radiant Media Player can display HDR video format provided the following conditions are met:

• The video codec (HEVC or AC1) carries HDR metadata
• The targeted device can display HDR content

HEVC support

Radiant Media Player relies on the device it runs on to provide HEVC decoding support to render HEVC content with HTML5 video. This is true for native HTML5 video rendering (e.g. native HLS on Apple devices) or through media source extensions (HLS, DASH). Currently the following environments are supported:

• iOS 11+ & iPadOS 13+ Safari
• iOS 11+ & iPadOS 13+ WebView-based mobile apps (including Ionic/Cordova apps)
• Safari 11+ for macOS High Sierra+ (including Electron apps)
• Chrome 107+ on Windows 8+, macOS Big Sur, ChromeOS and Android 5+ for devices with HEVC hardware support available
• Latest Android TV boxes/sticks with Android TV 6+
• Samsung TV with Tizen 3+ (2017+)
• LG TV with webOS 3+ (2016+)
• Fire TV 2018+

This table can give more information.

Because HEVC decoding support may not be available on all devices you will need to use a combination of HEVC & AVC encoded content to reach the whole OTT sphere. The best way to achieve this, is for your HLS/DASH manifest to hold both HEVC & AVC variants. When both HEVC & AVC variants are available in a HLS/DASH manifest the player will automatically pick the appropriate codec based on device capabilities.

AV1 support

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium of firms from the semiconductor industry, video on demand providers, and web browser developers, founded in 2015. The AV1 bitstream specification includes a reference video codec. It succeeds VP9. It can have 20% higher data compression than VP9 or HEVC/H.265 from the Moving Picture Experts Group and about 50% higher than the widely used AVC.

As of September 2022 we support AV1 video on:

• Latest Chrome, Firefox, Opera for desktop (including Electron apps)
• Latest Chrome, Samsung Internet, Opera for Android 10+
• Latest WebView-based mobile apps for Android 10+ (including Ionic/Cordova apps)
• Samsung UHD TV 2020+ (Tizen 5.5+)
• LG UHD TV 2020+ (webOS 5+)
• Latest Android TV boxes/sticks with Android TV 10+
• Fire TV 2021+

The following environments do not support AV1 but support HEVC:

• iOS, iPadOS, macOS

This table can give more information.

A guide for encoding video with AV1 codec and FFmpeg can be found here.

Player code example for DASH/AV1

<script src="https://cdn.radiantmediatechs.com/rmp/9.12.0/js/rmp.min.js"></script>
<div id="rmp"></div>
<script>
// First we create our Radiant Media Player instance
  const rmp = new RadiantMP('rmp');
  // Then we set our player settings
  const settings = {
    licenseKey: 'your-license-key',
    src: {
      dash: 'https://www.radiantmediaplayer.com/media/dash/4k-av1-avc/manifest.mpd'
    },
    width: 640,
    height: 360,
    contentMetadata: {
      poster: [
        'https://your-poster-url.jpg'
      ]
    }
  };
  rmp.init(settings);
</script>

AC-3 (Dolby Digital), EC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) & AC-4 support

Dolby AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio codec and its newer version EC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) are popular audio codecs used to convey multi-channels audio content with video content. It is possible to use AC-3 or EC-3 audio with any video codec. In order to support AC-3 or EC-3 audio the targeted device must exhibit support for it either through native HTML5 video or Media Source Extension. As of November 2022, AC-3/EC-3 audio is supported in:

• MS Edge Legacy and MS Edge 79+ for Windows 7+
• macOS Safari 11+
• iOS 12+ Safari
• Latest Android TV boxes/sticks with Android TV 6+
• Samsung TV with Tizen 3+ (2017+)
• LG TV with webOS 3+ (2016+)
• Fire TV 2018+

The best way to deliver AC-3/EC-3 audio is to use an adaptive bitrate streaming technology like HLS or MPEG-DASH. Do not forget to include a fallback to AAC in your HLS or MPEG-DASH manifest to support devices that do not support AC-3/EC-3 audio.

A note on Dolby AC-4: the successor to Dolby EC-3 is Dolby AC-4. We do support Dolby AC-4 in our player with MPEG-DASH or HLS. This should however be noted that AC-4 decoding support is not widespread as of end of 2022. The following devices should support AC-4 audio decoding:

• Samsung TV 2018+ (Tizen TV 4+)
• LG TV 2018+ (webOS 4+)