Livepeer React v4.0.0+ was a complete rewrite of the library to support video primitives.

Introduction

This migration guide is designed to assist you in transitioning from the previous version of the @livepeer/react library to the new major release. This update is a significant overhaul aimed at addressing several key issues with the previous releases.

Before you start

Major changes

  • The library has been rewritten to offer unstyled, composable <Player /> and <Broadcast /> primitives based on Radix UI.
  • The components are now highly composable, moving away from the monolithic design of the previous versions.
    • All components support the asChild pattern, where the component will instead clone the part’s child and passing it the props and behavior required to make it functional.
    • For instance: <FullscreenTrigger asChild>{...}</FullscreenTrigger> will not render a DOM element, and instead copy all of it’s properties to the child component, which will behave as a fullscreen trigger.
  • The components are more aligned with web standards, allowing direct prop passing to elements (notably the Video component).
  • Automatic data fetching and CORS API key usage within components have been removed to enhance security and reduce developer confusion.
    • We highly recommend moving away from CORS API keys and making API requests from your backend. We plan to deprecate CORS API keys in the future.
  • The React Native package has been deprecated. The package was not well-maintained and we have focused on web components for Livepeer React.

Migration steps

Primitives

Replace your usage of the single <Player /> and <Broadcast /> components with the new composable primitives. These include:

Player

  • <Player.Root />
  • <Player.Container />
  • <Player.Video />
  • <Player.Controls />
  • <Player.LoadingIndicator />
  • <Player.FullscreenTrigger />
  • …and more.

Check out our complete example for how these can be composed to build a video player, modeled after the 3.x versions of the Player.

Broadcast

  • <Broadcast.Root />
  • <Broadcast.Container />
  • <Broadcast.Video />
  • <Broadcast.Controls />
  • <Broadcast.SourceSelect />
  • <Broadcast.VideoEnabledIndicator />
  • …and more.

Check out the complete example for how these can be composed to build a complete in-browser broadcast experience.

Data fetching

  1. All data fetching logic from the Livepeer Studio API has been removed from the Player and Broadcast components.
    • This includes all of the useCreateAsset, useStream, etc.
  2. You will now need to use the livepeer JS SDK (or another SDK, depending on your applications’s API language) for data fetching and interaction.
    • You must now make API requests in your backend to fetch playback info for a playback ID.
    • Use getSrc utility function with the Player or getIngest utility function with Broadcast to parse the JSON responses from the API.

Unstyled by default

  1. The components are now unstyled by default. You will need to apply your own styles.
  2. Refer to the documentation for example styles that mimic the previous versions, which you can customize as needed.

Recommendations

  1. Embrace the flexibility of Composable components. Use the asChild pattern for more control over the rendering of components.
  2. Use automatic poster images by passing the playback info response to getSrc.
  3. There are no changes required to resume progress on fallback, which resumes playback from where it was interrupted when an error occurs, and the player falls back to another playback protocol.
  4. Use useMediaContext for building custom components. See the implementation of the primitives as an example of how to implement them.

Callouts

  1. Note the discontinuation of autoUrlUpload and direct IPFS playback. See below for recommendations for how to migrate from this.
  2. The new build system includes use client and use server directives in the output. This means that you can directly import the client components into a RSC and you don’t need to wrap them. If you don’t use React Server Components, this doesn’t affect you.

React Native

The React Native package has been deprecated. Consider seeking alternative solutions or consulting the team for future support plans.

Replacing autoUrlUpload

To replace the usage of autoUrlUpload, use the following pseudocode as a guide for how the logic used to work on the frontend.

/api/playback
import { Livepeer } from "livepeer";

import { parseCid, parseArweaveTxId } from "@livepeer/core/utils";

const livepeer = new Livepeer({
  apiKey: process.env.STUDIO_API_KEY ?? "",
});

const possibleIpfsCid =
  "https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafybeie2hgozfameyzawq6kkzc3tuf67g4kkufm4hoefxczpfe2fen2riu";

// if the source contains a CID or Arweave TX ID, these utility functions will parse out the
// ID and be non-null
const decentralizedSource =
  parseCid(possibleIpfsCid) ?? parseArweaveTxId(possibleIpfsCid);

if (decentralizedSource?.id) {
  // we check if the CID/Arweave ID already exists in the playback info endpoint
  const response = await livepeer.playback.get(decentralizedSource.id);

  if (!response.playbackInfo) {
    // the CID/Arweave ID doesn't exist, so we import it by the URL
    await livepeer.asset.createViaURL({
      // this is the IPFS CID, or Arweave transaction ID
      name: decentralizedSource.id,
      // the formatted IPFS CID or Arweave tx ID as a URL:
      // ipfs://{CID} or ar://{CID}
      url: decentralizedSource.url,
    });

    // ...continue to poll the created asset and use the decentralized identifier
    // to get the playback info, and pass to `getSrc` to use with <Player.Root />

    const imported = await livepeer.playback.get(decentralizedSource.id);

    const source = getSrc(imported.playbackInfo);

    return source;
  }
}