Media Player

Overview

The Basis Media Player (com.basis.mediaplayer) plays live video inside a world. It decodes streams with the operating-system hardware codecs (Media Foundation on Windows, AMediaCodec on Android/Quest) and presents the picture zero-copy into a Unity texture — no transcode server, no per-frame CPU copy.

A working video screen is a small stack of components on one GameObject:

• BasisMediaPlayer — the core. Owns the stream, decoding and playback (play/pause/stop/seek), and exposes the decoded picture as OutputTexture.
• A display surface — BasisVideoMaterialOutput paints the picture onto a mesh's material (a quad, a cinema screen), or BasisVideoDisplay paints it onto a uGUI RawImage.
• Audio (optional) — BasisMediaPlayerAudio plays the stream's sound through an AudioSource, or BasisMediaPlayerMultiChannelAudio spreads a surround stream across several positioned speakers.
• Networking (optional) — BasisMediaPlayerNetworking keeps the URL and playback state in sync for everyone in the room.

Quick start

The fastest path is the ready-made prefab.

1. Drag Prefabs/MediaPlayerStreaming from the Media Player package into your scene.
2. Select it and find the Basis Media Player Streaming component.
3. Set Stream Url to your stream (for example rtspt://stream.example.com/live/mystream).
4. Position and scale the screen mesh where you want the video.

That's it — the prefab carries the player, a display surface and an audio source already wired together, and it loads the URL on play.

To build a screen from scratch instead, add the components yourself:

var player = gameObject.AddComponent<BasisMediaPlayer>();
gameObject.AddComponent<BasisVideoMaterialOutput>().TargetRenderer = screenRenderer;
player.LoadUrl("rtspt://stream.example.com/live/mystream"); // auto-plays

Choosing a stream URL

The player picks the right protocol from the URL scheme. Use the lowest-latency option each platform supports.

Displaying the video

The player produces a texture; a display component binds that texture to something visible.

On a mesh (cinema screen, quad)

Add BasisVideoMaterialOutput to the GameObject and assign Target Renderer to the screen mesh's renderer.

• Texture Property Name — which shader slot receives the picture. Use _BaseMap for URP (the default) or _MainTex for the built-in render pipeline.
• Flip Vertically — defaults on, which is correct for the GPU textures the player produces. Turn it off only if your content comes out upside-down.
• Projection Mode — Mono for normal flat video, or SideBySideLR / OverUnderTB for stereoscopic sources, or Equirect360 / VR180 for spherical video on a matching sphere mesh and shader.
• Aspect Mode — FitInside letterboxes to preserve the source shape, FitOutside crops to fill, Original samples untransformed.

On a UI canvas (RawImage)

Add BasisVideoDisplay and assign Target Raw Image. Optionally assign an Aspect Fitter (AspectRatioFitter) so the image tracks the stream's aspect ratio automatically. See UI Canvas for setting up the canvas itself.

Audio

Stereo

Add BasisMediaPlayerAudio to the player's GameObject alongside an AudioSource. The player feeds it the decoded sound. Spatialise it like any other AudioSource — set its 3D settings so the audio comes from the screen's position in the world.

The player's Volume (0–1) and Mute fields on BasisMediaPlayer drive the audio path.

Surround / multichannel (5.1, 7.1)

Instead of mixing surround down to one stereo AudioSource, you can send each decoded channel to its own positioned AudioSource — so the centre, surrounds and LFE come from where their speakers sit in the world, and Basis's spatialisation places them for each listener. The package owns playback; you own where the speakers go.

The channels are really just content lanes, so this isn't only for cinema surround: you could put a music mix on channels 1–2 and positioned ambience or effects on channels 3–4 of the same stream.

How channels map to the stream

A BasisMediaAudioChannel selects a channel by number. For a standard surround stream the channels carry the usual WAVE layout:

Set it up

The quickest route is the Prefabs/MediaPlayerMultiChannelStreaming prefab, which already has the routing, the multichannel sink and a set of channel speakers wired up — position its speaker objects, set the stream URL, and play.

To configure it on your own player:

1. On the BasisMediaPlayer, set Audio Routing to Unity Multi Channel Sources.
2. Add a BasisMediaPlayerMultiChannelAudio component to the player's GameObject. This replaces the stereo BasisMediaPlayerAudio — the routing decides which sink plays, so you don't need both.
3. Create one child GameObject with an AudioSource per speaker, and position each one where that speaker should sit in the world. Set each AudioSource to 3D (spatial blend 1) so it localises.
4. Add a BasisMediaAudioChannel to each speaker AudioSource and set its Channel to the channel that speaker should play (see the table above).
5. Add every speaker AudioSource to the Outputs list on BasisMediaPlayerMultiChannelAudio.

Useful behaviours

• Stereo downmix output — set a speaker's channel to Stereo and it plays a 2-channel fold-down of the whole stream, regardless of how many channels the source has. Handy for a single fallback speaker or a stereo zone.
• Fan-out — the same channel can drive more than one AudioSource. Point two speakers at Channel 3 to play the centre/dialogue in two areas of a large space.
• Graceful fallback — an output whose channel isn't present in the current stream simply stays silent, so a 5.1 speaker layout still behaves sensibly when fed a stereo source (the front pair plays, the rest are quiet).
• Volume Gain / Mute — BasisMediaPlayerMultiChannelAudio has its own Volume Gain and Mute that apply across all channels; use each AudioSource's own volume for per-speaker balance.

Networked playback

For a shared screen, add BasisMediaPlayerNetworking. It synchronises the URL and playback state (play / pause / stop / seek) across everyone in the room, and corrects late joiners and drift automatically.

• Allow Anyone To Take Control — when on (default), any player can change the video or control playback. When off, only the current owner can.
• Admin Only — restrict control to players with the basis.mediaplayer.control (or admin *) permission. Overrides the setting above.
• Drift Seek Threshold Seconds — remote viewers seek to catch up when they drift more than this far from the owner's position. Set to 0 to disable.

Scripting

Drive the player from your own components through its public API.

// Load and control
player.LoadUrl("rtspt://stream.example.com/live/mystream"); // auto-plays by default
player.Play();
player.Pause();
player.Resume();
player.Stop();
player.TogglePause();

// Seek (only for seekable sources; live streams are not seekable)
player.Seek(System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30));

// Volume / mute
player.Volume = 0.8f;  // 0..1
player.Mute = false;
player.Loop = true;

React to playback with events:

player.OnReady += () => { /* stream prepared */ };
player.OnFirstFrameReady += () => { /* first frame is on screen */ };
player.OnEnded += () => { /* stream ended */ };
player.OnError += (ex) => { /* connection or decode error */ };
player.OnOutputTextureChanged += (tex) => { /* picture texture (re)bound */ };

Platform notes

• Windows (PC / VR) — H.264 / H.265 video and AAC audio via Media Foundation. HLS and 5.1 AAC surround are supported here.
• Android / Quest — H.264 / H.265 + AAC via AMediaCodec. Use the MPEG-TS (.ts) URL for the most reliable path.
• Latency depends on the protocol and the buffer: RTSPT on PC/VR is the lowest. The player holds a short jitter buffer for smooth playback, and aligns audio to video so lip-sync stays correct across reconnects.

Next steps