MediaSource in Workers Demo

Demo MSE usage from DedicatedWorker context

Authors:

• Matt Wolenetz @ Google

References

• MSE-in-Workers Spec Issue
• Explainer
• Chromium's Implementation-Tracking Issue

Demo description

• Demonstration of how usage of Media Source Extensions API from a dedicated worker context can avoid "buffering jank" when the main window context is very busy, even though the media element playing the buffered media is still on that main thread.
• Presents a side-by-side comparison of two players, one fetching and buffering to its media element solely on the main window context, and the other player relying on a dynamically created dedicated worker to fetch and buffer the same media into a MediaSource owned by that worker's context, attached to the main window context's media element via a transferred-to-main MediaSourceHandle object set on the media element's srcObject attribute.
• A scenario where the main thread is under heavy contention is achieved by frequently busy-waiting on it while both players are fetching, buffering and playing. Furthermore, asynchronous appendBuffer operations are performed (on each of the main and worker MSE demos) in small chunks to enable rapid appearance of "buffering jank" on the player being buffered via MSE on the main thread versus a much better experience on the player being buffered via MSE on the worker thread, even though the media stream is short.
• In practice, main thread (aka Window context) contention can result from many sources, though commonly it is from complex and frequent task execution demands made by the application on the Window execution context, and is made worse when the platform has less execution capacity available. The DOM and associated application javascript operate in the Window execution context. DedicatedWorkers run in a concurrent execution context with respect to the Window execution context. Even with concurrent buffering and smoother playback by using MSE on a dedicated worker context, observe that the video element for the MSE-in-Worker player can still have poor controls response time when the Window context is under high contention. This is because that element (and its controls) can only execute on the Window context and their event handlers can have high scheduling latency.

Usage

• Chrome has MSE-in-Workers enabled by default beginning with version 108.0.5334.0.
• If using Chrome 105.0.5180.0 through 108.0.5333.0, enable the experimental MSE-in-Workers support:
  • with cmdline option enabling the two required features: --enable-blink-features=MediaSourceInWorkers,MediaSourceInWorkersUsingHandle (preferred approach),
  • or enable via chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-web-platform-features: select Enabled and then Relaunch. (Warning: this latter option enables other experimental features, including AudioVideoTracks which is not yet supported with MediaSourceInWorkers and would cause sad-tab when querying a worker SourceBuffer's audioTracks or videoTracks, as could happen if you inspect a worker SourceBuffer in this demo using devtools.)
• Clone this repo and host its contents in a sandbox webserver.
• Try the demo by navigating to the mse-in-workers-demo.html page on your server.

Test Media

Created test-5seconds.webm using the following:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=duration=5:size=1920x1080:rate=30 test-5seconds.webm

Update History

• July 27, 2022: Updated to use transferred MediaSourceHandle set on srcObject for worker MediaSource attachment, replacing legacy object URL attachment that is no longer supported in specification for Dedicated Worker MediaSource object attachments to main thread media elements. Previous approach using legacy object URLs for attachment was used by the demo for Chromium versions beginning 88.0.4300.0 and ending 105.0.5180.0.
• Aug 2, 2022: Updated to indicate the first Chrome versions having this feature enabled by default.
• Sep 9, 2022: Updated to change known-working Chrome versions due to feature reverted back to experimental in 105 and 106 due to breaking change (handle getter throwing exception in Window context caused old MSE app libs that enumerate properties to fail.)
• Sep 21, 2022: Updated to note that the feature in Chrome 107 now also needs the experimental flags.
• Oct 3, 2022: Updated to note that the feature is now on-by-default in Chrome beginning with 108.0.5334.0.