Software Design

Audio & Video Player Playback State Machine

State Diagrams · made in Skemio

State machine diagram for a video player showing transitions between Initial, Idle, Buffering, Playing, Paused, Seeking, and Final states.
State machine diagram for a video player showing transitions between Initial, Idle, Buffering, Playing, Paused, Seeking, and Final states.
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What it shows

  • Buffering can trigger from playing, seeking, or initial load
  • Pausing freezes playback clocks while keeping decoding buffers intact
  • Seeking requires flushing pipelines without losing the user's intent

The takeaway

Model buffering and seeking as explicit states to prevent audio pops and UI race conditions.

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