Helios Player

Helios Player API

The <helios-player> Web Component allows you to embed and control Helios compositions in any web application. It handles loading the composition in an iframe and establishing a bridge for control and state management.

Quick Start

<script type="module" src="path/to/@helios-project/player/dist/index.js"></script>

<helios-player
  src="composition.html"
  width="1280"
  height="720"
  controls
  autoplay
  input-props='{"title": "My Video"}'
></helios-player>

API Reference

HTML Attributes

CSS Variables (Theming)

You can customize the player's appearance using CSS variables:

helios-player {
  --helios-controls-bg: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);
  --helios-text-color: #ffffff;
  --helios-accent-color: #ff0000;
  --helios-range-track-color: #555555;
  --helios-range-selected-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5);
  --helios-font-family: 'Helvetica', sans-serif;
}

JavaScript API

The element implements a Standard Media API-like interface for easy integration with video wrappers.

const player = document.querySelector('helios-player');

// Playback Control
player.play();
player.pause();
player.load();
player.requestPictureInPicture(); // Enter PiP mode
player.currentTime = 5.0; // Seek to 5 seconds
player.currentFrame = 150; // Seek to frame 150

// Audio Control
player.volume = 0.5; // 0.0 to 1.0
player.muted = true;

// Writable Properties
console.log(player.duration);     // Total duration in seconds
console.log(player.paused);       // Boolean
console.log(player.playbackRate); // Speed multiplier
console.log(player.fps);          // Composition FPS
console.log(player.loop);         // Loop state
console.log(player.autoplay);     // Autoplay state

// Read-Only Properties
console.log(player.videoWidth);   // Intrinsic width
console.log(player.videoHeight);  // Intrinsic height
console.log(player.readyState);   // 0-4 (HAVE_NOTHING to HAVE_ENOUGH_DATA)
console.log(player.networkState); // 0-3 (EMPTY, IDLE, LOADING, NO_SOURCE)
console.log(player.seeking);      // Boolean (true while scrubbing)
console.log(player.played);       // TimeRanges object of played segments
console.log(player.buffered);     // TimeRanges object of buffered segments
console.log(player.seekable);     // TimeRanges object of seekable segments
console.log(player.error);        // MediaError object if failed

// Input Props
player.inputProps = { title: "Updated Title" };

// Text Tracks
console.log(player.textTracks);
const track = player.addTextTrack("captions", "English", "en");

// Access active cues
track.addEventListener("cuechange", () => {
  console.log("Active Cues:", track.activeCues);
});

Events

The player dispatches standard media events:

• loadstart, loadedmetadata, loadeddata, canplay, canplaythrough
• play, pause, ended, playing
• timeupdate, seeking, seeked
• volumechange
• durationchange, ratechange
• error

Advanced Control

For low-level access to the Helios state, use getController().

const controller = player.getController();

if (controller) {
  const state = controller.getState();

  // Dynamic Updates
  controller.setDuration(30);       // Update duration to 30s
  controller.setFps(60);            // Update FPS to 60
  controller.setSize(1080, 1080);   // Update resolution
  controller.setMarkers([{ id: "m1", time: 5, label: "Intro" }]);
}

Diagnostics

View environment capabilities (WebCodecs, WebGL) by pressing Shift+D to toggle the overlay, or calling diagnose() programmatically.

const report = await player.diagnose();
console.log("WebCodecs support:", report.webCodecs);

Captions

You can provide captions by adding a <track> element as a child.

<helios-player src="...">
  <track kind="captions" src="captions.srt" default>
</helios-player>

The player will fetch the SRT file and pass it to the Helios controller.

Client-Side Export

The player supports exporting videos directly in the browser (using VideoEncoder).

1. Formats: Supports mp4 (H.264/AAC) and webm (VP9/Opus).
2. Audio: Captures audio from <audio> elements (must be CORS-enabled).
3. Captions: Supports "burning in" captions (export-caption-mode="burn-in") or saving as sidecar file (export-caption-mode="file").
4. Resolution: Configure export resolution independently of player size using export-width and export-height.
5. Usage: User clicks "Export" in controls, or call clientSideExporter manually (internal API).

UI Features

• Captions: Toggle "CC" button to overlay active captions.
• Volume: Slider and Mute toggle.
• Speed: Selector for playback rate (0.25x - 2x).
• Fullscreen: Toggle fullscreen mode.
• Scrubber: Visual playback range indication.
• Responsive: Controls adapt to small widths (compact/tiny modes).

Common Issues

• Cross-Origin (CORS): The player uses an iframe. If the src is on a different origin, ensure CORS headers are set.
• Audio Export: Audio elements must serve data with Access-Control-Allow-Origin to be captured by the exporter.

Source Files

• Component: packages/player/src/index.ts
• Exporter: packages/player/src/features/exporter.ts

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