Tracking view time with HLS and Clappr

[cviewsupport]

We are using Clappr to play a live HLS stream.
We need to track the viewing time and only allow users to view the stream for a certain amount of minutes.

We have this "sort of" working BUT because of the way HLS buffers... the time is never exact.
In fact, the user's actual view time is usually wayyy off from the real time.

For example, if we give a user 15 minutes of view time, they might actually only get 9 minutes of view time.

Does anyone have a recommendation on how we might pull this off?

Thank you!

[gugaio]

Hi @cviewsupport, working with HLS, buffering and segment downloading make it tricky to measure real watch time if you’re just relying on the player’s internal clock. That’s why the numbers often don’t match the user’s actual playback duration.

A few possible approaches you could try:

1. Track playback events instead of relying on HLS position

• Listen to player events such as PLAYING, PAUSE, and STOP.
• Use those to start/stop your own timer on the client side. This way you’re only counting time when the stream is actively playing.

2. Rely on heartbeat tracking with your backend

• Periodically send a “still watching” ping from the client to your backend while the player state is PLAYING.
• The backend keeps track of the cumulative allowed watch time and stops authorizing playback once the limit is reached.
• Cut off playback from the server side

Instead of enforcing the limit only on the player, your backend should stop serving the manifest or return an error once the user’s time quota expires.