Mobile Terminal m3u8 Advantages

http://www.zhihu.com/question/19644648/answer/12582153


HTTP Live Streaming This is the technology that Apple has developed to improve streaming efficiency by cutting streaming media into several TS fragments (for example, every 10 seconds), and then centralizing these TS fragments into a client player via an extended m3u list file.

This is compared to the advantage of using the RTSP protocol, once the Shard is complete, the subsequent distribution process does not need any additional specialized software, the normal network server can greatly reduce the CDN Edge server configuration requirements, you can use any ready-made CDN. The protocol used for distribution is the most common HTTP, and proxy Server cache optimizations for this protocol are fairly mature, and few proxy servers cache optimizations for RTSP. This has considerable advantages over playback (soft) real-time video because the load pressure on the source server is much smaller after such distribution.

For non-real-time video, the same benefits exist: If you want to jump in an hour-long video, if you use a single MP4 format video file, and also use the HTTP protocol, you need a proxy server to support the HTTP range request to get a portion of the large file. Not all proxy servers have good support for this. The HTTP Live streaming only needs to find the corresponding TS fragment download based on the timeline in the list file, without the range request, which is much smaller for the proxy server. All proxy servers support efficient caching of small files.

In addition, the HTTP Live streaming has a huge advantage: adaptive bitrate streaming (adaptive streaming). The effect is that the client will automatically select different bitrate according to the network conditions of the video stream, the condition allows the use of high bit rate, the network busy when the use of low bit rate, and automatically switch between the two randomly. This is very helpful in situations where the mobile device network condition is not stable and the smooth playback is ensured. The implementation method is the server side to provide multi-bitrate video streaming, and in the list file, the player according to the playback progress and download speed automatic adjustment.

As for why to use TS instead of MP4, this is because two TS fragments can be seamless splicing, the player can play continuously, and MP4 file due to the encoding method, two MP4 can not be seamless splicing, the player continuously play two MP4 files will appear broken sound and screen breaks, affecting the user experience.

In the last two years I tried a Web application based on HTML5 < audio > tag + CBR MP3 format + Icecast streaming media server (which is expected to be livecast for http://apple4.us, the audience only needs to access A Web page will be able to hear the interview program in almost real time, using the idea of HTTP Live streaming. Through the MP3 audio stream frame segmentation, the basic can do continuous playback. The only problem is that the browser does not support TS format, and the < audio > tab will break when switching between the two segments of MP3. This can only be used for conversation content, if playing a continuous music sometimes can hear flaws.

Enabling HTTP Live streaming on IOS devices is very simple and is the official recommended way for Apple. [2] The new version of Adobe's Flash streaming media server also supports this technology. This popularity is good, the user experience is better, the network pressure is lower.