MediaSource: activeSourceBuffers property

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

Note: This feature is available in Dedicated Web Workers.

The activeSourceBuffers read-only property of the MediaSource interface returns a SourceBufferList object containing a subset of the SourceBuffer objects contained within sourceBuffers — the list of objects providing the selected video track, enabled audio tracks, and shown/hidden text tracks.

Value

A SourceBufferList containing the SourceBuffer objects for each of the active tracks.

Examples

The following snippet is based on an example written by Nick Desaulniers (view the full demo live, or download the source for further investigation). The function getMediaSource(), which is not defined here, returns a MediaSource.

js
const mediaSource = getMediaSource();

function sourceOpen() {
  console.log(mediaSource.readyState); // open
  const sourceBuffer = mediaSource.addSourceBuffer(mimeCodec);
  fetchAB(assetURL, (buf) => {
    sourceBuffer.addEventListener("updateend", () => {
      mediaSource.endOfStream();
      console.log(mediaSource.activeSourceBuffers);
      // will contain the source buffer that was added above,
      // as it is selected for playing in the video player
      video.play();
      console.log(mediaSource.readyState); // ended
    });
    sourceBuffer.appendBuffer(buf);
  });
}

// …

Specifications

Specification
Media Source Extensions™
# dom-mediasource-activesourcebuffers

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
activeSourceBuffers
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 23 (Release date: 2012-11-06)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 12 (Release date: 2015-07-29)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 42 (Release date: 2015-11-03)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 15 (Release date: 2013-07-02)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 8 (Release date: 2014-10-16)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 25 (Release date: 2013-02-27)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 41 (Release date: 2015-09-22)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 14 (Release date: 2013-05-21)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Partial support
Safari on iOS 13 (Release date: 2019-09-19)
footnote Partial support
footnote Exposed in Mobile Safari on iPad but not on iPhone.
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 1.5 (Release date: 2013-09-25)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 4.4.3 (Release date: 2014-06-02)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – No support
WebView on iOS
footnote No support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
Partial support
Partial support
No support
No support

See also