Intelligent Media Services:Supported protocol

HLS

HLS is a streaming protocol for delivering audio and video content over HTTP or HTTPS. It divides content into small segments and creates playlist files in M3U8 format. The client requests the M3U8 playlist files to retrieve and play segments.

M3U8 playlist files have two types:

• Media playlist: contains URLs to the segments.

• Master playlist: contains URLs to multiple media playlists, each representing a different variant of the stream. These variants can differ in bitrate, codec and resolution.

Sample master playlist

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=100000,CODECS="mp4a.40.2,avc1.64001e",RESOLUTION=640x302
video/player-ld.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=200000,CODECS="mp4a.40.2,avc1.64001f",RESOLUTION=848x402
video/player-sd.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=300000,CODECS="mp4a.40.2,avc1.640020",RESOLUTION=1280x606
video/player-hd.m3u8

Sample media playlist

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:1
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:17
#EXTINF:15.500,
1723518810_120.ts
#EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY
#EXTINF:16.666,
1723518884_121.ts
#EXTINF:2.533,
1723518886_122.ts
#EXT-X-ENDLIST

To use ad insertion, HLS playlists must meet the following requirements:

• The playlists must be accessible on the Internet.

• The source must be live or video-on-demand (VOD).

• The playlists must have an EXT-X-VERSION of 3 or higher.

• The source must have both master and media playlists. The following container formats are supported for segments: Transport Stream (TS) and Common Media Application Format (CMAF).

• The #EXT-X-STREAM-INF tag in the master playlist must have the RESOLUTION, BANDWIDTH, and CODEC attributes.

• For live content, media playlists must contain ad markers to delineate ad avails. This is optional for VOD content, which can use VMAP timeoffsets instead.

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:6
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:EVENT
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:14
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0
#EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY
#EXT-OATCLS-SCTE35:{BASE64} (optional)
#EXT-X-CUE-OUT:60.00
...
#EXT-X-CUE-OUT-CONT:ElapsedTime=5.0,Duration=10.0,SCTE35={BASE64} (optional)
...
#EXT-X-CUE-IN
#EXTINF:16.666,
1723518884_121.ts
#EXTINF:2.533,
1723518886_122.ts
#EXT-X-ENDLIST

ADS requirements

To integrate your ad decision server (ADS) with MediaWeaver, the ADS must conform to VAST and VMAP specifications and other industry standards from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

• MediaWeaver supports VAST responses from ADS. Only VAST MP4 linear ads are allowed. A VAST response can contain multiple ad creatives. For each creative, MediaWeaver selects the MediaUrl with the highest resolution.

• MediaWeaver supports VMAP responses from ADS. The URL in AdTagURI must reference a VAST response.