Documentation: How is background playback done? does it actually only download audio?

[secretmango]

Affected Pages

No link to the docs on grayjay.app so no idea

What is the docs issue?

It is unclear how background playback is done.

Many podcasts include unneeded video and in general, especially on metered connections, it is important to not stream video.

Afaik platforms like Youtube dont even allow background playback without a premium subscription. Does it still work to actually just stream the audio, or does it stream video too?

In case of streaming video, does it at least switch to the lowest possible quality?

Proposal

Clarify how background playback affects the videostream.

Also make sure that all plugins support not streaming the video when background playback is enabled, and add documentation for 3rd party plugin devs.

References

No response

[Zvonimir-FUTO]

When using background playback we only fetch audio stream without video hence data usage shouldn't be high :)
When downloading videos you have to select "Audio only" option to download only audio.

[secretmango]

Thanks, good to know!

[smason]

When in Picture-in-Picture mode you can tap on the video and there's a little "laptop with arrow" icon that allows the video to be turned off (under Android anyway). I'm not sure how to turn the video back on again without restarting the stream, but ah well, at least I can get rid of the video while using the device for other things!