Evolution and Architecture of iQiyi's Big Playback Core

Author Gavin is the leader and architect of iQiyi Cloud Platform Playback Core. He joined iQiyi in 2011, previously responsible for Flash player and client development, and now leads playback core development focusing on optimization and intelligent playback.

The “big playback core” is an underlying component built on online streaming characteristics, iQiyi CDN architecture and cloud platform, embedded in all iQiyi apps to provide online and local video playback.

Player development history is divided into three stages: 1995‑2003 (local playback era), 2004‑2009 (online video boom), and 2009‑present (mobile and high‑definition era).

Project background: after years of fragmented playback solutions, iQiyi faced several pain points – Flash being deprecated, lack of a unified PC client core, unstable mobile cores, inconsistent user experience, duplicated development effort, and limited utilization of the cloud platform.

In May 2013 the big playback core team was established within iQiyi’s PC client to address these issues.

Version iterations:

V1.0 (2013‑2014) was built with C/C++ using a lightweight XBMC baselib, first released on PC and later on Android TV after handling hardware decoder integration.

V2.0 added DRM, Dolby playback, HCDN (a hybrid P2P+CDN solution), and a compatible playback mode for TV, completing rollout to all apps in early 2015.

V3.0 focused on performance and new features: thread count reduced by 40%, memory usage reduced by 37%, startup latency under 2 seconds for 80 % of users, live‑streaming startup under 500 ms, added VR support, multi‑instance playback, speed control, video/GIF capture, and traffic‑aware streaming.

Future plans aim for a next‑generation native player to be released in early 2018, targeting leading technical indicators and laying groundwork for intelligent playback.

Summary: The first two versions addressed basic playback and stability, while V3.0 emphasized optimization and new capabilities. The SDK now supports Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, offering a unified API across platforms, with local playback compatibility improved from 92 % to 98.5 %.