How to tell if a <video> element is currently playing?

Question

I see that the MediaElement interface exposes attributes like paused, seeking, and ended. Missing from the list, however, is playing.

I know there are playing events that fire when an element starts playing, and timeupdate events events periodically while playing, but I'm looking for a way to determine whether a video is playing right now. Is there an easy way to determine this?

The closest I've got is:

!(video.paused || video.ended || video.seeking || video.readyState < video.HAVE_FUTURE_DATA) 

Answer 1

There is not a specific attribute that will reveal whether a MediaElement is currently playing. However, you can deduce this from the state of the other attributes. If:

• currentTime is greater than zero, and
• paused is false, and
• ended is false

then the element is currently playing.

You may also need to check readyState to see if the media stopped due to errors. Maybe something like that:

const isVideoPlaying = video => !!(video.currentTime > 0 && !video.paused && !video.ended && video.readyState > 2);