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HTMLMediaElement.canPlayType()

The HTMLMediaElement method canPlayType() reports how likely it is that the current browser will be able to play media of a given MIME type.

Note: This feature is not available in Web Workers.

Syntax

canPlayType(mediaType)

Parameters

mediaType

A string containing the MIME type of the media.

Return value

A string indicating how likely it is that the media can be played. The string will be one of the following values:

probably

Media of the type indicated by the mediaType parameter is probably playable on this device.

maybe

Not enough information is available to determine for sure whether or not the media will play until playback is actually attempted.

"" (empty string)

Media of the given type definitely can't be played on the current device.

Examples

var obj = document.createElement('video');
console.log(obj.canPlayType('video/mp4')); // "maybe"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
canPlayType
3
12
3.5
Before Firefox 28, canPlayType() returned probably when asked about WebM audio or video files without the codecs parameter. Since multiple codecs are supported, this is not enough information to determine if a file can be played, so maybe is now correctly returned.
9
≤12.1
4
≤37
18
4
≤12.1
3
1.0

See also

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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLMediaElement/canPlayType