Instant On

Enabling instant on means that one or more channels are preloaded. When users select a channel or switch channels, the content plays immediately. The buffering is complete by the time the user starts watching.

Without Instant On, TVSDK initializes the media to be played but does not start buffering the stream until the application calls play. The user sees no content until buffering is complete. With Instant On, you can launch multiple media player (or media-player item loader) instances, and TVSDK starts buffering the streams immediately. When a user changes the channel and the stream has buffered properly, calling play on the new channel starts playback immediately.

Although there are no limits to the number of MediaPlayer and MediaPlayerItemLoader instances that TVSDK can run, running more instances consumes more resources. Application performance can be affected by the number of instances that are running. For more information about MediaPlayerItemLoader, see Load a media resource in the media player.

For more information about MediaPlayerItemLoader, see Load a media resource using MediaPlayerItemLoader.

Add a QoS Provider instance to mediaPlayerItemLoader

• Create and attach a QoS Provider to a mediaPlayerItemLoader instance

  // Create an instance of QoSProvider
  private QOSProvider _qosProvider = new QOSProvider(this._context);
  
  // Attach the QoSProvider instance to the mediaPlayerItemLoaderInstance
  // (before calling load API on mediaPlayerItemLoader instance)
  _qosProvider.attachMediaPlayerItemLoader(this._loader);
  

  Once the playback starts, use the _qosProvider to get timeToLoad and timeToPrepare QoSdata. The remaining QoS metrics can be retrieved by using the QoSProvider attached to the mediaPlayer.

  For more information about MediaPlayerItemLoader, see Load a media resource using MediaPlayerItemLoader.

Configure buffering for Instant On

TVSDK provides methods and statuses to allow you use Instant On with a media resource.

1. Confirm that the resource has loaded, and the player is prepared to play the resource.

2. Before calling play, call prepareBuffer for each MediaPlayer instance.

   prepareBuffer enables Instant On, and TVSDK starts buffering immediately and dispatches the BUFFERING_COMPLETED event when the buffer is full.

   TIP

   By default, prepareBuffer and prepareToPlay set up the media stream to start playing from the beginning. To start at another position, pass the position (in milliseconds) to prepareToPlay.

   @Override
   public void onStatusChanged(MediaPlayerStatus status) {
       switch (status) {
           case INITIALIZED:
               // This example starts 5 seconds into the stream.
               mediaPlayer.prepareToPlay(5000);
               break;
           case PREPARING:
               break;
           case PREPARED:
               mediaPlayer.prepareBuffer();
               break;
           ...
       }
   }
   

3. When you receive the BUFFERING_COMPLETE event, start playing the item or display visual feedback to indicate that the content is completely buffered.

   NOTE

   If you call play, playback should begin immediately.