Question Internal VideoPlayer Changes in 2021?

My situation:

When the player drags their mouse or finger over the screen, a video clip 'scrubs' through.

The functionality works in version 2020.1.3 but not in 2021.1.6

In 2020.1.3, the video frames update every frame / real-time

In 2021.1.6, the video frames update after the mouse button is up

I couldn't find any referenced changes to the Video API...

Code for scrubbing mechanic:

Code (CSharp):

1.  using UnityEngine;
2. using UnityEngine.Video;
3. public class MouseRotate : MonoBehaviour
4. {
5.      public float XSensitivity = 2f;
6.      public float startTime = 0.5f;
7.      VideoPlayer video;
8.      float xRot;
9.      [HideInInspector]
10.      public float rotationTime = 0.0f;
11.      ulong videoDur;
12.      public bool isActive;
13.      private void Awake()
14.      {
15.          video = GetComponent<VideoPlayer>();
16.          video.Play();
17.          video.Pause();
18.          videoDur = Duration;
19.          xRot = 360 * startTime;
20.          rotationTime = startTime;
21.          Seek(startTime);
22.      }
23.      private void Update()
24.      {
25.          if (Input.GetMouseButton(0))
26.          {
27.              if(isActive)
28.                  if (Input.mousePosition.x >= 0 && Input.mousePosition.x <= Screen.width)
29.                  DragSeekFunction();
30.          }
31.      }
32.      public ulong Duration
33.      {
34.          get { return (ulong)(video.frameCount / video.frameRate); }
35.      }
36.      public void Seek(float nTime)
37.      {
38.          nTime = Mathf.Clamp(nTime, 0, 1);
39.          video.time = nTime * videoDur;
40.      }
41.      public void DragSeekFunction()
42.      {
43.          xRot += Input.GetAxis("Mouse X") * XSensitivity;
44.          xRot = Mathf.Clamp(xRot, 0.1f, 359.9f);
45.          transform.eulerAngles = new Vector3(transform.eulerAngles.x, xRot, transform.eulerAngles.z);
46.          rotationTime = transform.rotation.eulerAngles.y / 360;
47.          Seek(rotationTime);
48.      }
49. }

 

I have a similar issue, since using unity 2020.
When I was using unity 2018 the frame calculation was much much faster.
Did you ever find a solution for it?

 

I never found a solution so I am keeping my project in 2020.3. But I see below it could have been resolved in more recent versions. I will try this.

 

Thanks, will try again with a more recent version and submit a report if issue still exists. Appreciate the reply.

 

I am having the same issue with 2021.3.8f1
Changing video.time does not work

 

Me too. I'm having the same issue with Unity 2021.3.8f1

Here's a link to another thread where I reported my issue since I didn't know where I would get a response:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/vid...ut-plays-fine-in-editor.1111615/#post-7825392

I've added a few captured videos to that thread, to show a comparison of our videoPlayer in different unity version.

 

The videos demonstrate the exact same issue I am reporting here. A lag in the frame updating on a scrub. Something changed from 2020 to the recent versions, maybe the way Unity is implementing playback or frame-reading internally?

 

Thanks for this reply and the link to the other thread. The issue persists in 2022. The issue does not appear in 2020.3

 

Weird, did player.time do anything on your side?
I tested with a simple script

Code (CSharp):

1. videoPlayer.Stop();
2. videoPlayer.Play();
3. videoPlayer.time = 3f;

The video simply plays from 0s instead of 3s, and videoPlayer.time is still 0 after set it to 3
I am using 2021.2.8f1, and the code was working on 2020.3.11f1

 

Code (CSharp):

1.     void Update()
2.     {
3.         if (_isFrameToSync)
4.         {
5.             videoPlayer.time = _timeToSync;
6.             Debug.Log("Set time to "+ _timeToSync);
7.             _isFrameToSync = false;
8.         }
9.    
10.         Debug.Log("videoPlayer.time = " + videoPlayer.time);
11.     }

It's completely random, sometimes it works, sometimes it does not (in editor)
It immediately jumps back to 0 and jumps to time set after a few frames when it works
It simply jumps back to 0 and continue to play if it fails to set the time

 

Tested 2021.3.2f1, still not work

 

After upgrading to 2021.3 LTS, I can no longer set the _videoPlayer.time value. It always jumps to 0. The same code always worked in my 2019 LTS project.

I hit the my custom player's pause button. The time value reports correctly.

But upon playing I try to set it to any value it goes to 0.

In my scenario I am storing the time at the pause event because I'd like to restart 0.5 seconds before the pause happened. Complicated to explain why, but it's the best UX in my scenario

Again, this code has always worked. All I did was upgrade.

@The_Island – any progress here in 2021 LTS?

 

I am hitting a similar issue in Unity 2022.3.1

Code (CSharp):

1. Service.videoPlayer.time = currentPlayTime;
2. Service.videoPlayer.Prepare();
3. yield return new WaitUntil(() => Service.videoPlayer.isPrepared);
4. Service.videoPlayer.Play();

Sometimes this works and sometimes I get an error:
Error details: NSError code: -11821
domain: AVFoundationErrorDomain
desc: Cannot Decode
reason: The media data could not be decoded. It may be damaged.

If I reverse the order

Code (CSharp):

1. Service.videoPlayer.Play();
2. yield return new WaitUntil(() => Service.videoPlayer.frame > 50);
3. Service.videoPlayer.time = currentPlayTime;

Then i get the error when I try to set the time. I have not figured out how to reliably set time.

 

@artfail this seems like a codec issue and not necessarily an issue in Unity video playback. try re-rendering a native .mp4 video file (or any friendly codec) out of software and ensuring it's at a reasonable data-rate/framerate/resolution. Apologies if you've already re-rendered a million times

 

It is "solved" or I have a work around at least. All my videos were a very standard hevc H265 mp4. I changed my video to H264 mp4. The whole project is larger now but it will still work. I guess the real bug is that Unity does not seem to fully support H265 yet which chafes me a little bit because it is promoted as a great way to do 360 video but if you are working at a reasonable resolution your world is nothing but pain. I don't even really want to be working in H265 what I really need is AV1 codec support.

 

...yes the endless compromise and dial-turning of the video codec game is exhausting. Also, you may already know but you can encode H265 videos in-engine through Unity's import settings. It may be worth rendering a high-quality / low-compression .mov or .avi file, then transcoding an H265 in Unity to test. Glad you have something working.

 

Yes. They were standard h265 hevc mp4s which is what made this bug so hard to figure out. I was testing on mac, and windows. They play fine. They stop fine. Pause and unpause all works. Just setting time only works once and gives the error I posted the second time around that crashes the game.

On a related note setting time before playing fails regardless of codec. But it doesn't give an error that crashes, it just gets ignored. That is another bug, I reported it, it was confirmed and it is in review now.