Getting started with CMCD on React Native

Media player clients can transmit useful information to Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) with each object request. This implementation is planned to fully support Common Media Client Data (CMCD) as defined in CTA-5004-B, published in April 2026.

CMCD supports two modes of transmission:

• Request mode: CMCD data is sent as HTTP headers or query parameters on manifest and media segment requests.
• Event mode (available since v11.4.0): CMCD events are POSTed to configured HTTP endpoints.

Request mode

To enable CMCD request mode, developers need to explicitly set the transmissionMode parameter inside a SourceDescription.

const source = {
  sources: [ /* ... */ ],
  /* ... */
  cmcd: {
    transmissionMode: CmcdTransmissionMode.SDK_DEFAULT
    /* ... */
  }
} as SourceDescription;
player.source = source;

By specifying the transmissionMode as SDK_DEFAULT, we let each SDK decide which transmission mode to use:

• Web: HTTP query argument
• iOS: custom HTTP request header (only option)
• Android: HTTP query argument

On Web and Android, you can force a specific transmission mode by providing a different value, e.g.

const source = {
  sources: [ /* ... */ ],
  /* ... */
  cmcd: {
    transmissionMode: CmcdTransmissionMode.HTTP_HEADER
    /* ... */
  }
} as SourceDescription;
player.source = source;

On Web, there are additional configuration options. For more details, visit the API references.

Remarks

• Note that CMCD request mode is only supported on iOS 18.0+.
• Note that using a custom HTTP header from a web browser user-agent will trigger a preflight OPTIONS request before each unique media object request. This will lead to an increased request rate against the server. As a result, for CMCD transmissions from web browser user-agents that require CORS-preflighting per URL, the preferred mode of use is query arguments.

Event mode

Event mode allows posting CMCD events to configured HTTP endpoints.

info

Event mode is supported starting from version 11.4.0.

Player-level configuration

const player = new THEOplayer.Player(element, {
  cmcd: {
    externalSessionId: 'YOUR-EXTERNAL-SESSION-ID', // optional
    userId: 'YOUR-USER-ID', // optional
    eventEndpoints: [{ url: 'https://example.com/cmcd-event-endpoint' }],
  },
});

Source-level configuration

player.source = {
  sources: [ /* ... */ ],
  /* ... */
  cmcd: {
    externalSessionId: 'YOUR-EXTERNAL-SESSION-ID', // optional
    sessionID: 'YOUR-SESSION-ID', // optional
    userId: 'YOUR-USER-ID', // optional
    eventEndpoints: [{ url: 'https://example.com/cmcd-event-other-endpoint' }],
  },
};

Merging behavior

• Source-level values take precedence for externalSessionId and userId.
• eventEndpoints from both levels are merged (both player and source endpoints receive events).

warning

Event mode reporting currently only supports DRM and ad events.