Wistia

Package: @playdeck/provider-wistia.

Which source values each provider accepts, what each provider's own options are, and a worked example wherever the source forms need one. These are detectSource's rules, not a provider's own documentation, because a form a provider publishes is not a form this library reads. The refused forms are named alongside the accepted ones: a setup guide that lists a form the detector turns down is worse than one that lists fewer. Every claim here was checked by running the detector, not by reading it.

Nothing here is an install step. @playdeck/react depends on all five provider packages and imports each one dynamically, so a YouTube or Vimeo source needs no extra package, no registration and no configuration — only a source value detectSource recognises. When it does not recognise one, the player publishes the refusal naming the value it turned down; see What a refusal reads like.

Hosts are wistia.com, wistia.net and any subdomain of either — matched on the suffix, because the account subdomain is per-customer and cannot be enumerated. A media id is [A-Za-z0-9]+, and the accepted paths are /medias/<id>, /embed/medias/<id> and /embed/iframe/<id>. Wistia is the one host set where a non-embed path is not refused outright: it serves media files itself, so a Wistia URL that is not an embed shape is read by file extension before failing. providerOptions.wistia accepts controls, dnt, playerColor, swatch, poster and transparentLetterbox.

The source prop

Player.Root's source takes what detectSource takes: a URL string, or an explicit source object. A string is resolved to a provider by its host and path; an object names its provider itself. Both are validated, and a value that fails never reaches a provider.

controls, loop, startTime and endTime are Playdeck's own props on Root and work the same on every provider (ADR-0004). Everything one provider alone has goes in providerOptions, keyed by provider.

Shared rules for a source string

These run before any host is looked at, and they refuse a string outright.

The two whitespace rules overlap but are not the same rule, and they do not report the same way. A trailing space is caught by the trim() comparison and reads as not readable; a trailing control character is invisible, gets past that comparison, and reads as will not play — see What a refusal reads like. If a URL that looks correct is refused, an invisible character copied in with it is the first thing to check.

Scheme-less forms are accepted for every provider: protocol-relative (//host/clip.mp4), root-relative (/clip.mp4) and relative (clip.mp4). A protocol-relative URL is resolved against https: and it is the resolved value that is carried forward, never the //host/… the caller wrote.

blob: is refused for a string because no source type has been resolved yet. It is accepted inside an explicit { type: 'video' } object, and only there — see Explicit source objects.

A poster before the provider attaches

Player.Root's poster="provider" asks the attached provider for its own still, which means it only ever resolves once a provider has attached. Under loading="interaction" that never happens before the viewer's first click — the provider stays dormant, nothing fetched and no embed mounted, exactly as loading="interaction" promises — so poster="provider" shows nothing for the whole window a dormant player spends on screen. A still for that window has to come from somewhere that does not need the provider.

YouTube. @playdeck/provider-youtube exports resolveYouTubePosterUrl(source): synchronous, makes no request, and reads no browser global, so it is safe to call before any provider attaches, including on the server. It parses with the same detectSource this page's YouTube section describes — a URL in any form listed above, or an explicit { type: 'youtube', videoId } object — and returns null for anything else, including a source another provider would claim. Pass the result straight into poster:

import * as Player from '@playdeck/react';
import { resolveYouTubePosterUrl } from '@playdeck/provider-youtube';

// `poster="provider"` resolves once a provider has attached, so it never
// resolves for a `loading="interaction"` root: the provider stays dormant
// until the viewer's first click, by design (the same guarantee `Player.Root`
// gives every dormant source -- nothing fetched, no embed mounted). A still
// for that window has to come from somewhere that does not need the
// provider. `resolveYouTubePosterUrl` is exactly that: synchronous, makes no
// request, and reads the same `source` a running YouTube adapter would.
const source = 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ';

// `null` for anything that is not a YouTube source `resolveYouTubePosterUrl`
// recognises -- `?? undefined` is what hands `Player.Root` "no poster" rather
// than the string `"null"`.
export const YouTubeClipDormantUntilInteraction = () => (
  <Player.Root
    loading="interaction"
    poster={resolveYouTubePosterUrl(source) ?? undefined}
    source={source}
  >
    <Player.Viewport>
      {/* No children: `Player.Poster` falls back to `Root`'s own `poster`
          prop, the same default image a resolved `poster="provider"` would
          render. */}
      <Player.Poster />
      <Player.Media />
      <Player.ActivationButton aria-label="Play" />
    </Player.Viewport>
  </Player.Root>
);

The still this resolves to is hqdefault.jpg — generated for every upload, unlike maxresdefault.jpg, which only exists for an upload at a resolution high enough to have one and 404s silently on every other video, so it is not named here as a reliable alternative. hqdefault.jpg is itself a 4:3 image with the real frame letterboxed inside it wherever the source is a wider aspect ratio — expect bars, not a full-bleed still.

Vimeo and Wistia. Neither provider derives a poster from an id alone — Vimeo's still comes from its oEmbed response, Wistia's from its own oEmbed — so there is no pure helper for either: resolving one means a request, and making that request while a loading="interaction" root is still dormant would break the one promise that loading mode makes (no provider request before a click). That request path is also not one this library takes on itself — see .out-of-scope/media-url-address-policy.md for why a new non-browser fetch stays out of scope.

The pattern instead is to resolve the still once, at build time (a script, a CI step, a server action — anywhere that is not the dormant player), and pass the fixed URL into poster the same way the YouTube example above does:

// Run ahead of time, wherever the rest of a page's content is prepared —
// never from the player itself.
const response = await fetch(
  `https://vimeo.com/api/oembed.json?url=${encodeURIComponent(vimeoUrl)}`
);
const { thumbnail_url: posterUrl } = await response.json();

Wistia's own oEmbed endpoint (https://fast.wistia.com/oembed) answers the same shape. Both are the requests this library already makes itself when a consumer opts into runtime poster="provider" resolution — packages/provider-vimeo/src/oembed-availability.ts and packages/provider-wistia/src/poster-availability.ts — reused here ahead of time instead of at attach. Neither oEmbed response promises a fixed size: the thumbnail dimensions vary by video and, for Vimeo, by the request itself, so treat whatever width and height come back as the still's real size rather than assuming one.

Explicit source objects

An object skips host and path detection and names its provider itself. The same validation runs, and the same shared allowlist runs over every src it carries, so javascript: and data: cannot reach a provider by taking this path.

{ type: 'video' } is the one place a blob: URL is accepted, which is how an in-page object — a MediaSource, a picked File — is handed over. An hls source refuses blob: because its manifest loader fetches the URL itself.

Anything else — a missing field, an id in the wrong shape, a value that is neither a string nor an object — is refused as invalid-source.

Supplying your own provider

Player.Root's providers prop registers a source kind beyond the five above, keyed by the name it goes by: a detect/load pair per kind, and the map may hold more than one.

providers={{
  example: {
    detect: (url) => /* a source object of this kind, or undefined */,
    load: () => /* a Promise of the factory that builds the adapter */
  }
}}

detect takes a URL string — exactly what source is when it is not an explicit object — and either turns it into this kind's own source object, or declines by returning undefined. load is a lazy factory: calling it is what performs this kind's own dynamic import, the same way this package's own await import('@playdeck/provider-hls') never runs for a page that plays nothing but MP4. What it resolves to is a second function, called with the mount point, the detected source and this kind's own providerOptions bag, that builds and returns the running ProviderAdapter — the same interface @playdeck/core documents, and every built-in loader already produces.

A detect that throws declines too, exactly as if it had returned undefined: the throw is caught, treated as this registration declining, and detection moves on to the next one. It is not silently lost — it is reported asynchronously, the same way a throwing subscriber already is elsewhere in this package, so it stays visible without being able to escape render and reach your own error boundary. Write detect defensively regardless — for example, new URL(url).pathname throws for a value that is not a valid URL — but a bug there degrades to that source going undetected rather than crashing the player.

Detection tries the five built-in kinds first — a supplied kind can never intercept a URL, or an explicit object, a built-in host already claims — and only on a built-in refusal walks providers' own entries, in the order they were given, using the first whose detect accepts the URL. hls, video, youtube, vimeo and wistia are reserved names: a providers entry keyed by one of them is skipped outright, on both the string path and the explicit-object path, before its detect is ever called or its entry is ever looked up — not only inert once a resolved source of that type reaches this package's own built-in loader, which dispatches on type first regardless of which registration produced it.

An explicit object of a supplied kind — { type: 'example', clipId: '…' } — resolves without ever calling detect: detect takes a URL string, and an object handed to source has already declared its own kind through its type field, so it is validated directly instead, the same way an explicit object of a built-in kind (the table above) skips that kind's own host and path detection. A type matching no registered providers key is refused, same as any other unrecognised source. Unlike the built-in video and hls kinds, a supplied kind's own values are never rewritten — there is no known field on an arbitrary shape to normalise a protocol-relative //host/... value on. If that form matters to your provider, normalise it yourself before handing the object to Player.Root.

Before anything else runs, the object is copied into a plain structure this package builds itself, and load's factory receives that copy rather than the object you passed. The copy takes every own, enumerable, string-keyed value your object carries — reading each one exactly once, so a getter cannot answer differently the second time it is read — at a nesting depth capped well past anything a real integration needs, and a total size capped the same way: if the same object is referenced from more than one place in your source, the copy carries it once per reference rather than once overall, so a shape that shares a lot of structure with itself counts against that total more than once. Only plain objects, arrays, strings, finite numbers, booleans, null and undefined are admitted: a Map, a Set, a bigint, a function, a class instance, a symbol-keyed field, nesting past the depth cap, or a source past the total size cap refuses the whole source as invalid-source, the same way an unrecognised type does, and never throws — nor does a value whose own shape makes reading it throw, such as a getter that throws or a Proxy with a hostile trap; that is refused the same way. A non-enumerable own property is silently left out of the copy rather than refusing the source — it never reaches load's factory either way.

The same shared allowlist runs ahead of every supplied detect and every explicit object of a supplied kind, exactly where it runs ahead of every built-in host inside detectSource — a source whose scheme the allowlist refuses (javascript:, data:, and anything else not covered by Shared rules for a source string) never reaches a supplied detect, and a string carrying one nested anywhere inside an explicit object — not just a top-level field — refuses the whole object the same way. This is why detect is typed as it is: nothing this package writes ever reads a field of the source detect returns as a URL, so once past that gate a supplied kind is trusted the same way its own load factory already is.

providerOptions takes a further key for each supplied kind, alongside the four built-in ones, compared for equality the same way — so an inline object literal does not tear the provider down and rebuild it every render, the same guard that keeps an inline hls build option from rebuilding the engine. Deliberately not a link: this section is shared by every provider page, and ## The other three providers, where build is documented, is split per provider and so carries no anchor on most of them (#528's link check is what catches that).

Every string in a supplied kind's own providerOptions entry passes the same shared allowlist before load's factory is ever called, exactly as the detected source already does. A refused value — javascript:, data:, or anything else Shared rules for a source string refuses — is omitted from the bag the factory receives, exactly as if you had not set that option, and reported the same way any other refused prop is. A number or boolean option is never checked and always arrives untouched. Your registration's own factory is not expected to guard this itself.

controls, loop, startTime and endTime reach a supplied kind not at all: Root folds each into whichever of the youtube, vimeo and wistia bags the detected source belongs to, and a supplied kind has none of those three, so the four props are silent no-ops on it — the divergence ADR-0004 asks be declared rather than left to be discovered. A registration that wants to answer one of them takes it as a key in its own Options bag instead, read off its own providerOptions entry the way youtube, vimeo and wistia read theirs.

import * as Player from '@playdeck/react';
import type {
  ProviderAdapterFactory,
  ProviderRegistration
} from '@playdeck/react';

// A source kind this package ships no loader for. Everything past this point
// is the shape any consumer's own provider takes: a source object of its own,
// and a lazy factory that turns it into a running ProviderAdapter — the same
// interface `@playdeck/provider-hls` and the other four built-in packages
// already produce.
type ExampleSource = { readonly type: 'example'; readonly clipId: string };
type ExampleOptions = { readonly quality?: 'sd' | 'hd' };

// Declared rather than implemented: this file exists to type-check the shape
// `providers` takes, not to ship a real adapter. A real one attaches to the
// mount point, drives playback, and reports state back through the same
// ProviderAdapter interface `createNativeProvider` and friends implement.
declare const createExampleAdapter: ProviderAdapterFactory<
  ExampleSource,
  ExampleOptions
>;

const exampleProvider: ProviderRegistration<ExampleSource, ExampleOptions> = {
  // Turns a URL none of the five built-in kinds recognise into the source
  // object above, or declines by returning undefined.
  detect: (url) => {
    const match = /^https:\/\/example\.com\/clips\/([\w-]+)$/.exec(url);
    return match ? { type: 'example', clipId: match[1]! } : undefined;
  },
  // Lazy: `load` is only called once a source of this kind actually needs
  // it, the same way this package's own dynamic `import('@playdeck/provider-hls')`
  // never runs for a page that plays nothing but MP4.
  load: () => Promise.resolve(createExampleAdapter)
};

export const ExampleProviderClip = () => (
  <Player.Root
    providerOptions={{ example: { quality: 'hd' } }}
    providers={{ example: exampleProvider }}
    source="https://example.com/clips/tracer"
  >
    <Player.Viewport>
      <Player.Media />
    </Player.Viewport>
  </Player.Root>
);

Passing no providers prop at all costs nothing beyond the seam itself: there is no registry and no module-level state, so a source kind never registered is never imported.

A worked example

The shape above is declared rather than implemented — createExampleAdapter is typed, never built. A real adapter is a <video> element the registration owns end to end, built from nothing but the DOM events that element already fires — no import from any @playdeck/provider-* package required, and none of the plumbing above changes to admit it. clipId only has to survive the round trip from detect back out to the factory: which file actually plays is providerOptions' own src, the same way PlayerProviderOptions.hls's build carries a per-provider choice no source string could. That src passes the shared allowlist too, exactly like the resolved source's own fields — see Supplying your own provider above. Every capability this adapter does not implement is reported unavailable -- provider for what the adapter itself leaves out, source for providerPoster, since a raw file carries no poster to read -- rather than left for a consumer to discover by calling a command that silently does nothing.

import * as Player from '@playdeck/react';
import type {
  Availability,
  CommandResult,
  PlayerCapabilities,
  PlayerErrorCategory,
  ProviderAdapter,
  ProviderStatePatch
} from '@playdeck/core';
import { notifySafely } from '@playdeck/core';
import type {
  ProviderAdapterFactory,
  ProviderRegistration
} from '@playdeck/react';

// `examples/provider-setup-providers.tsx` types the `providers` prop's shape
// without implementing it. This file is the other half: a real adapter,
// built from nothing but a `<video>` element and the DOM events it already
// fires -- no import from any `@playdeck/provider-*` package, and no package
// of its own. A consumer who copies it gets a working, if deliberately small,
// second file-backed provider next to the one this library ships.
//
// `ExampleFileOptions.src` -- not a field on the detected source -- is what
// names the file this adapter actually plays. A source string only has to
// name ITS OWN kind: `detectExampleFile` recognises the URL and extracts an
// opaque `clipId`, exactly the way `PlayerProviderOptions.hls`'s `build`
// carries a choice no source string could. Where the clip actually lives is
// the same kind of per-provider setting, so it travels the same way.
export type ExampleFileSource = {
  readonly type: 'example-file';
  readonly clipId: string;
};

export type ExampleFileOptions = { readonly src: string };

const EXAMPLE_FILE_URL_PREFIX = 'https://files.example/clips/';

/**
 * Turns a URL none of the five built-in kinds recognise into this kind's own
 * source object, or declines by returning `undefined` -- the same contract
 * `examples/provider-setup-providers.tsx`'s `detect` types but never runs.
 */
export const detectExampleFile = (
  url: string
): ExampleFileSource | undefined => {
  if (!url.startsWith(EXAMPLE_FILE_URL_PREFIX)) return undefined;
  const clipId = url.slice(EXAMPLE_FILE_URL_PREFIX.length);
  return clipId.length > 0 ? { type: 'example-file', clipId } : undefined;
};

// What this adapter does not implement, reported as `unavailable` with the
// `provider` reason rather than left off `PlayerCapabilities` -- there is no
// way to leave a field off that type, and there would be no honesty in
// picking a reason that named the source or the browser for a limit that is
// this adapter's own. `available` is reserved for a capability this
// adapter's own behaviour makes true outright rather than one any command
// backs -- see `customControls` below, true because nothing about this
// adapter's own behaviour competes with it, not because a command
// implements it.
const unimplemented: Availability = {
  status: 'unavailable',
  reason: 'provider'
};

const capabilities: PlayerCapabilities = {
  seek: unimplemented,
  setVolume: unimplemented,
  setPlaybackRate: unimplemented,
  selectQuality: unimplemented,
  selectQualityAuto: unimplemented,
  selectTextTrack: unimplemented,
  selectAudioTrack: unimplemented,
  chapters: unimplemented,
  liveEdge: unimplemented,
  fullscreen: unimplemented,
  pictureInPicture: unimplemented,
  airPlay: unimplemented,
  // Nothing about this adapter renders the browser's own chrome -- the
  // `<video>` it creates never gets a `controls` attribute -- so this
  // library's own controls are never in competition with a native set.
  customControls: { status: 'available' },
  // A raw file, like the native provider's own: the media carries no still of
  // its own to read, as opposed to a provider that could ask a host for one.
  providerPoster: { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'source' },
  remotePlayback: unimplemented
};

const HAVE_METADATA = 1;

/**
 * The reference adapter: a `<video>` element this factory owns end to end,
 * playing and pausing through its native methods and publishing its own
 * events back onto `ProviderStatePatch`. Everything this file's own
 * `capabilities` marks `unavailable` is genuinely missing here -- there is no
 * quality ladder, no track list, no fullscreen or Picture-in-Picture wiring --
 * rather than present and merely unadvertised.
 */
export const createExampleFileAdapter: ProviderAdapterFactory<
  ExampleFileSource,
  ExampleFileOptions
> = (mount, source, options) => {
  if (!(mount instanceof HTMLDivElement)) {
    // The mount `viewport-media.tsx` renders for any source kind this
    // package ships no loader for -- a div, the same shape the three embed
    // providers already attach into.
    throw new Error(
      'createExampleFileAdapter requires the div mount a supplied kind receives.'
    );
  }
  if (!options?.src) {
    throw new Error(
      'createExampleFileAdapter requires providerOptions["example-file"].src, the file this adapter plays.'
    );
  }

  const video = document.createElement('video');
  video.playsInline = true;
  video.style.width = '100%';
  video.style.height = '100%';
  // Carries the id `detectExampleFile` read off the source URL -- of no use
  // to playback, which is driven by `options.src` below, but visible on the
  // element for a reader or a test to confirm the round trip actually
  // happened.
  video.dataset.exampleFileClipId = source.clipId;
  const sourceElement = document.createElement('source');
  // `options.src` already passed the shared allowlist before this factory was
  // ever called: `loadProvider`'s supplied-kind branch (`@playdeck/react`)
  // runs every string in `providerOptions['example-file']` through it and
  // omits whatever it refuses, the same gate the detected source itself
  // passes. A `javascript:` or `data:` value never reaches this write --
  // this adapter is not expected to guard its own options (#752).
  sourceElement.src = options.src;
  video.append(sourceElement);
  mount.append(video);

  const listeners = new Set<(patch: ProviderStatePatch) => void>();
  const emit = (patch: ProviderStatePatch): void => {
    listeners.forEach((listener) => notifySafely(listener, patch));
  };

  const onLoadedMetadata = (): void => {
    emit({
      lifecycle: video.readyState >= HAVE_METADATA ? 'ready' : 'loading',
      activation:
        video.readyState >= HAVE_METADATA ? 'ready' : 'loading-provider',
      duration: Number.isFinite(video.duration) ? video.duration : null,
      capabilities
    });
  };
  const onTimeUpdate = (): void => emit({ currentTime: video.currentTime });
  const onPlaying = (): void => emit({ playback: 'playing' });
  const onPause = (): void => emit({ playback: 'paused' });
  const onEnded = (): void => emit({ playback: 'ended' });
  // Without this, a 404 or a decode failure leaves the player at
  // `lifecycle: 'loading'` forever -- the element fires no other event to
  // move it -- with no `PlayerState.error` for a consumer to read. Mirrors
  // `@playdeck/provider-native`'s own `mediaError`: `MediaError.code` names
  // which of the four DOM categories applies, `network` recoverable and the
  // rest not, since only a network failure stands a chance of succeeding on
  // a retry.
  const onError = (): void => {
    const code = video.error?.code;
    const category: PlayerErrorCategory =
      code === 2
        ? 'network'
        : code === 3
          ? 'decode'
          : code === 4
            ? 'source'
            : 'provider';
    emit({
      lifecycle: 'error',
      activation: 'error',
      playback: 'paused',
      error: {
        category,
        fatal: true,
        recoverable: category === 'network',
        message:
          video.error?.message || 'The media element could not load the source.'
      }
    });
  };

  const play = async (): Promise<CommandResult> => {
    try {
      await video.play();
      return { ok: true };
    } catch (cause) {
      // A browser's autoplay policy is one realistic way `play()` rejects
      // here, but not the only one: the `<source>` above carries no `type`
      // and its `src` is whatever URL a consumer's `providerOptions` names,
      // so a 404 or a format the browser cannot decode is just as real.
      // `NotAllowedError` is the policy refusal specifically; everything
      // else is reported as this library's own catch-all instead of
      // guessed to be `'blocked'`.
      const isPolicyRefusal =
        cause instanceof DOMException && cause.name === 'NotAllowedError';
      return {
        ok: false,
        reason: isPolicyRefusal ? 'blocked' : 'provider-error'
      };
    }
  };
  const pause = async (): Promise<CommandResult> => {
    video.pause();
    return { ok: true };
  };

  const adapter: ProviderAdapter<ExampleFileSource['type']> = {
    // Honest, not a cast: `ProviderAdapter`'s own `Extra` parameter
    // (`@playdeck/core`) is instantiated here with `ExampleFileSource['type']`,
    // the same literal `ProviderAdapterFactory` above already carries, so this
    // adapter reports its own identity rather than borrowing one of the five
    // built-in kinds.
    provider: 'example-file',
    attach: () => {
      video.addEventListener('loadedmetadata', onLoadedMetadata);
      video.addEventListener('timeupdate', onTimeUpdate);
      video.addEventListener('playing', onPlaying);
      video.addEventListener('pause', onPause);
      video.addEventListener('ended', onEnded);
      video.addEventListener('error', onError);
      onLoadedMetadata();
    },
    load: () => {
      emit({ commandsReady: true });
    },
    destroy: () => {
      video.removeEventListener('loadedmetadata', onLoadedMetadata);
      video.removeEventListener('timeupdate', onTimeUpdate);
      video.removeEventListener('playing', onPlaying);
      video.removeEventListener('pause', onPause);
      video.removeEventListener('ended', onEnded);
      video.removeEventListener('error', onError);
      if (!video.paused) {
        try {
          video.pause();
        } catch {
          // Teardown must not escape the provider boundary.
        }
      }
      listeners.clear();
      video.remove();
    },
    subscribe: (listener) => {
      listeners.add(listener);
      return () => listeners.delete(listener);
    },
    play,
    pause
  };
  return adapter;
};

export const exampleFileProvider: ProviderRegistration<
  ExampleFileSource,
  ExampleFileOptions
> = {
  detect: detectExampleFile,
  load: () => Promise.resolve(createExampleFileAdapter)
};

/**
 * Registering it looks exactly like the general shape
 * `examples/provider-setup-providers.tsx` types, pointed at a real factory
 * instead of a declared one -- and at whatever file `providerOptions` names.
 */
export const ExampleFileProviderClip = () => (
  <Player.Root
    providerOptions={{
      'example-file': { src: 'https://example.com/clips/tracer.mp4' }
    }}
    providers={{ 'example-file': exampleFileProvider }}
    source="https://files.example/clips/tracer"
  >
    <Player.Viewport>
      <Player.Media />
      <Player.PlayButton />
    </Player.Viewport>
  </Player.Root>
);

The workbench stages this same adapter in apps/storybook/stories/supplied-provider.stories.tsx, pointed at its own local clip through providerOptions rather than the placeholder URL above.

Upgrading a custom provider to 1.2.0

1.2.0 adds four required fields to PlayerCapabilities: liveEdge, selectQualityAuto, selectAudioTrack, and remotePlayback. Any object built to satisfy that type — a custom provider adapter, or a capabilities fixture in a test — needs all four before it type-checks again, the same compatibility impact providerPoster had when it landed in 1.1.0.

• liveEdge — whether the provider can report a live edge for seekToLiveEdge to land on. A provider with no way to answer this for any source returns { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'provider' }.
• selectQualityAuto — whether an automatic-choice item belongs beside the published rungs in QualityMenu, distinct from selectQuality: a provider can select real rungs while refusing an auto choice. A provider with no quality ladder at all returns { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'provider' }.
• selectAudioTrack — whether the provider can switch between alternate audio renditions. A provider with no audio-track surface to wire the command to returns { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'provider' }.
• remotePlayback — whether the element exposes the Remote Playback API RemotePlaybackButton reads. A provider with no media element to read remote off returns { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'provider' }.

Each reports the same unavailable/provider pair chapters and providerPoster already use for a capability the adapter itself leaves out entirely, as opposed to source or browser, which name a limit that is not the adapter's own.

import type { Availability, PlayerCapabilities } from '@playdeck/core';

// The four fields 1.2.0 added to `PlayerCapabilities`, filled with the value
// a provider that does not support the feature returns for each -- the same
// `unavailable`/`provider` pair `examples/provider-setup-file-adapter.tsx`'s
// `unimplemented` already reports for every other capability its reference
// adapter leaves out.
const unsupported: Availability = { status: 'unavailable', reason: 'provider' };

export const newCapabilitiesFields: Pick<
  PlayerCapabilities,
  'liveEdge' | 'selectQualityAuto' | 'selectAudioTrack' | 'remotePlayback'
> = {
  liveEdge: unsupported,
  selectQualityAuto: unsupported,
  selectAudioTrack: unsupported,
  remotePlayback: unsupported
};

What a refusal reads like

A refused source is published on PlayerState.error and rendered by Player.ErrorDisplay. The message names which of the four failures occurred and quotes the value that was rejected, truncated to 120 characters.

Each quotation below is the opening of the message, so a phrase pasted from a console lands here. Every one of them ends with the same further sentence, pointing a reader at this document — omitted from the four blockquotes because repeating it four times would say nothing the fourth time:

Not readable — a string that broke one of the shared rules, or a recognised provider host in a path shape not listed above:

Playdeck could not read a video from the player source "…" — it is either not a well-formed URL, or a provider URL in a form Playdeck does not read.

Will not play — the reason that cannot name a single cause, so it states the requirement instead. It covers a scheme the allowlist refuses, a control character at either end, and a URL that simply matched nothing:

Playdeck will not play the player source "…". An accepted source URL is http(s) or scheme-less, carries no control character at either end, and is either a YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia URL or a path ending .mp4, .webm or .m3u8.

Does not play that format — a well-formed URL for a streaming format Playdeck recognises and does not support. Today that is DASH, and only DASH:

Playdeck does not play DASH. The player source "…" is a DASH manifest, and Playdeck plays HLS (.m3u8), MP4 and WebM.

This one is a scope decision rather than a mistake in the value. Playdeck plays HLS and progressive files, and DASH is out of scope: a .mpd URL is refused deliberately, so changing the URL will not help and no future patch release turns it on. Convert the media to HLS, or use a player that carries dash.js.

Not a source object — a value that is not a string and does not validate as one of the objects above:

The player source … is not a source object Playdeck accepts.

None of the four is recoverable: a retry re-reads the same source prop and the same rules refuse it again, so no control offers one. Fix the value.

When the provider fails to load

A player that fails after the source resolved reports something else:

Unable to load the <provider> provider. Playdeck cannot say why: the rejection it caught is on this error's cause. See https://github.com/pedrosousa13/playdeck/blob/main/docs/provider-setup.md for what to check.

The provider is named because the resolved source knows it. The reason is not, and is not guessable: a dynamic import the network never delivered, a Content-Security-Policy that refused the chunk, and an adapter factory that threw all arrive as one rejection. What to check, in the order that resolves this most often:

1. The page's Content-Security-Policy. An embed provider needs its origins allowed, and a policy that blocks them fails the load with nothing else to see. Third-party requests and CSP lists every origin each provider reaches and the directive it falls under.
2. The chunk actually arriving. Each provider is a dynamic import(), so an offline network, a stale deploy or an asset host returning HTML for a missing chunk all land here. The browser's network panel says which.
3. error.cause. The rejection itself is carried there for a consumer reading the error object — usePlayerState((state) => state.error), or the children render prop on Player.ErrorDisplay. It is not rendered by ErrorDisplay's default output, which draws the message and nothing else.

Unlike a refused source, this one is recoverable: ErrorDisplay offers a retry and ActivationButton arms, because a load that failed on the network can succeed on a second attempt.