HLS media playlist Captions and the DEFAULT attribute

When describing closed captions renditions through HLS master playlists, should a properly formed playlist with closed captions contain one closed caption rendition with the DEFAULT=YES attribute? I searched the HLS RFC and section 4.3.4.1 on EXT-X-MEDIA mentions that no more than one should contain the DEFAULT=YES attribute. I was hoping to find recommendations around whether with one or more EXT-X-MEDIA renditions in the same group, if it is required that one of them contain DEFAULT=YES.


The media player I am using does not display closed captions if one of the closed captions renditions does not contain the DEFAULT=YES attribute and I am wondering if that is an issue with the player or an issue with a malformed HLS playlist. Note the lack of a DEFAULT=YES attribute in the example playlist below. Should this still be considered a valid playlist?


#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS


#EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=CLOSED-CAPTIONS,GROUP-ID="CC",LANGUAGE="eng",NAME="English",INSTREAM-ID="CC1"
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=2103200,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=2305600,CODECS="avc1.640029,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=960x540,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="CC"
https://the.link.to.my.stream
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=804760,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=875600,CODECS="avc1.640029,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=640x360,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="CC"
https://the.link.to.my.stream
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1304160,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=1425600,CODECS="avc1.640029,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=768x432,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="CC"
https://the.link.to.my.stream
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=505120,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=545600,CODECS="avc1.640029,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=480x270,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="CC"
https://the.link.to.my.stream
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=3102000,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=3405600,CODECS="avc1.640029,mp4a.40.2",RESOLUTION=1280x720,FRAME-RATE=30.000,CLOSED-CAPTIONS="CC"
https://the.link.to.my.stream

No, you can have no caption tracks be a default. The expected behavior in that case is that a player will not have captions selected when first playing the video, with the exception of when the device accessibility setting CC + SDH is toggle On, in which case a track that matches languages with the device's language (e.g., for me, any of the "en" tracks) will be selected even if it isn't marked as the default one.

HLS media playlist Captions and the DEFAULT attribute
 
 
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