Protocol supported by channel assembly - Intelligent Media Services

Channel assembly supports the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol. This topic introduces this protocol and its playlist files.

HLS

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

Sample HLS request

http://myresource.aliyundoc.com/video1.m3u8

There are two types of M3U8 playlist files: master playlist and media playlist.

The media playlist contains URLs to the media segments.

The master playlist contains URLs to multiple media playlists, each representing a different variant of the stream. These variants can differ in bitrate, codec or 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

Important

Both master and media playlists can be played by any player that supports HLS. However, to use the channel assembly feature, you must provide the master playlists for media sources.