Having a single video player across all streaming devices is every video app developer’s dream.
Unfortunately, there are a few challenges, to say the least. This is despite having a wide adoption of support for HTML5 video tags, EME, and MSE across video streaming devices.
Open-source video players like Shaka Player, video.js, hls.js, and dash.js function reasonably well across a range of different devices, streaming formats, and video playback features. But for advanced OTT services with playback features, complexities from different streaming formats, DRMs, server-side (SSAI), and/or client-side ads (CSAI) make it challenging to get one player to work for all devices and features.
It will require seasoned video software engineers to adapt such open-source players into premium streaming apps. Developers will either need to dive into the open-source code or decide to use different players for different devices.
The alternative is to use commercially available players but as the devils are in the details it can easily slow you down while waiting for an external support organisation to solve your problems, roadmaps, costs, and IPR ownership to all align perfectly well.
A good option to consider is to have a flexible video player framework that allows you to easily switch between different players and enable/disable player features – based on the device and in runtime.
That is as close to the fulfillment of the dream as you will get today.