Which web browsers support the MPEG-DASH streaming protocol?
Browsers do not support MPEG-DASH natively
Websites need JavaScript libraries to play DASH streaming. These open source MPEG-DASH player libraries require MSE support in the browser:
- dash.js: official reference implementation
- Shaka Player: Google's player library
Other clients:
- dashas: open source client written in Flash (so no MSE support needed)
- commercial clients
MSE Support in Browsers
- Chrome 23
- IE 11 (only on Windows 8+)
- Edge
- Safari 8.0 (only on OS X, not on iOS)
- Firefox 42
- Opera 20, only WebM, no h.264 yet (as of 26)
Also, the HLS implementation in Safari 10 (both iOS and Mac) now supports MPEG-DASH mp4 fragments, which means you don't need to generate your media fragments twice to support HLS and MPEG-DASH. You only need two types of manifest files.
You can try out the official MPEG-DASH test vectors in your own browser.
More MSE browser support information: caniuse, JW Player, HTML5test
Browser support for MPEG-DASH is indeed mainly based on the MSE - Media Source Extensions specification as of today. It can be used in combination with an HTML5 video tag to playback MPEG-DASH stream within a browser. Plus there are some codecs consideration to take on board. A list of browsers that can support MPEG-DASH with the MSE extension follows:
- Chrome 23+: DASH264 and WebM Dash
- IE 11 on Windows 8+: DASH264
- MS Edge: DASH264
- Opera 20+: WebM Dash. Opera 30+ also support DASH264.
- Safari 8+ on Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10): DASH264 ... that seemed to be broken during my testing
- Chrome 34+ on Android 4.2+: DASH264 and WebM Dash
- Firefox 42+: DASH264 (WebM Dash seems to be coming)
No support:
- iOS 8 Safari does not provide support
Radiant Media Player (disclaimer: I am the founder) supports MPEG-DASH (DASH264) for on-demand and live video streaming in HTML5 with various fallback options.
Note: MPEG-DASH is not as such a streaming protocol, it is a container format like MPEG-4 (ie the MPEG in MPEG-DASH) the delivery protocol being HTTP
There is the bitdash MPEG-DASH player which works on any web browser:
- IE11 (Windows 8) and Chrome use the HTML5 (MSE) + JavaScript based implementation.
- All other browsers (which do not support the HTML5 Media Source Extentions) get a Flash-based MPEG-DASH player.
On top of that comes a unified API, so if someone uses bitdash s/he has not to pay attention weather the HTML5 or the Flash version is used.
A free version is avalable on http://dash-player.com