Dacast Streaming Platform Tutorial: Video Autoplay Workaround

Despite the simplicity of the features, different sites have different rules around video autoplay. Today, we’re going to talk about some autoplay policies and what you should do about them.

What is Video Autoplay?

Autoplay is a feature that allows a video to start to play automatically whenever someone visits a website that has the player embedded on it. 

If you’re using Dacast, you can activate “autoplay” in the “Publish Settings” section of your back office.

Dacast’s New Video Autoplay Policy

With the release of Chrome 66 in April, both Chrome and Safari have now moved towards stricter autoplay policies.

These changes prevent websites from playing audio and video with audio, without a visitor’s consent. These guidelines are aimed at improving the user experience while giving greater control of media playback back to the viewer.

What Changed with Chrome’s Autoplay Policies?

• Muted autoplay is always allowed.
• Autoplay with sound is allowed if:
  • User has interacted with the domain (click, tap, etc.)
  • On desktop, the user’s Media Engagement Index threshold has been crossed, meaning the user has previously play video with sound
  • On mobile, the user has added the site to his or her home screen

Developers are allowed to selectively enable and disable autoplay on various browsers. Browsers are able to determine if autoplay is allowed depending on if the user visits the page often.

What Should You Do?

To allow autoplay you can add allow=”autoplay” on your iframe embed code.

Take a look a the examples below:

Embed code with no video autoplay allowed:

“`<iframe src=”//iframe.dacast.com/b/104301/f/537468″ width=”590″ height=”431″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>“`

Embed code with video autoplay allowed:

“`<iframe src=”//iframe.dacast.com/b/104301/f/537468″ width=”590″ height=”431″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no” allow=”autoplay” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>“`

If you have questions on this or other technical topics, please contact our expert tech and 24/7 support team.

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Additional Resources:

• How Can I Embed a Video Player on My Website?
• What is an All-Device Video Player?
• Video API: How to Customize Your Video Hosting Experience
• Which Embed Code Should I Use?
• How to Embed Live Streams on Your Website