Incorrect native TextTrack browser detection

[KingMob]

Description

The Html5.supportsNativeTextTracks() fn returns false for Chrome and Firefox (browser.IS_ANY_SAFARI || (browser.IS_IOS && browser.IS_CHROME);), but this seems incorrect.

If this is meant to reflect support for TextTrack, both MDN and Caniuse suggest it's widely available, and has been for years.

The only two TextTrack properties without widespread support according to MDN, are inBandMetadataTrackDispatchType and sourceBuffer. I see references to them under dist/, but not elsewhere, which makes me think the dist code is being inserted by Browserify/Webpack/etc.

The only exception in non-dist/ code is inBandMetadataTrackDispatchType is a serialized property in trackToJson(), but it's not used by videojs.

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IIUC, videojs prefers emulated tracks, but correct capability identification seems like a separate issue.

Reduced test case

https://codepen.io/KingMob/pen/GgZMOEV

Steps to reproduce

N/A

Errors

No response

What version of Video.js are you using?

main

Video.js plugins used.

none

What browser(s) including version(s) does this occur with?

Chrome 142, Firefox 146

What OS(es) and version(s) does this occur with?

Tested on macOS 26.1, but should be unrelated to OS

[gkatsev]

That's a good question. I think historically it was for actually detecting it but over time has turned into "should we be using native text tracks". It's probably not named appropriately anymore.

While TextTracks are supported natively, over the years when this was done, we've found a bunch of issues and edge cases, which is why it's turned off anywhere except safari (and on safari it's also partially so that you get captions when you use the native player on fullscreen on iOS).

If you want to make sure we use the native support, you can set nativeTextTracks on the tech ({html5: { nativeTextTracks: true }})

[KingMob]

Thanks! I'd gotten the impression emulated tracks were the way to go now.

I only noticed because my Playwright tests broke after upgrading from 4->8, since DOM TextTracks no longer existed on the video...

If this issue is still useful, feel free to rename or repurpose, if not, feel free to close.

Thanks for all your hard work, btw.