Byte Range Support for Progressive Media Playback
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@icbaker is already working on this.
Since Jul 23, 2025.
enhancement
low priority
- Dominant language
- Java
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Description
Use case description
ExoPlayer should fetch progressive playback data using HTTP byte-range requests instead of keeping a single connection open and reading from it based on LoadControl settings. On the client side, iOS and Safari already use byte-range requests—making multiple API calls—for MP4 playback; we want to experiment with this approach on Android to see how it performs.
Proposed solution
- Modify
ProgressiveMediaPeriod.buildDataSpec()method to usesetLengthmethod to trigger byte-range request. - FLAG to A/B test this behaviour
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