- Introduction
- System Requirements
- Installation Instructions
The HTTP Live Streaming Tools package installs six prerelease command-line tools that are used for deployment and validation of HTTP Live Streaming solutions. The tools are:
- Media Stream Segmenter
- Media File Segmenter
- Media Subtitle Segmenter
- Variant Playlist Creator
- Media Stream Validator
- HLS Report
- ID3 Tag Generator
The Media Stream Segmenter (mediastreamsegmenter) receives an MPEG-2 transport stream over an UDP network connection or from stdin and divides it into a series of small media segments of equal duration. It then creates an index file containing references to the individual media segments. The index file and media segments can be deployed using almost any web server infrastructure for streaming to iPhone and Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. The Media Stream Segmenter produces either live or Video-on-Demand (VOD) streams.
The Media File Segmenter (mediafilesegmenter) divides a .mov, .mp4, .m4v, .m4a, or .mp3 file into small media segments and creates an index file. The index file and media segments can be deployed using almost any web server infrastructure for streaming to iPhone and Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. The Media File Segmenter only produces VOD streams.
The Media Subtitle Segmenter (mediasubtitlesegmenter) converts subtitle tracks from Quicktime file with tx3g formatted subtitle tracks or SRT files into WebVTT and segments them for deployment using
HTTP Live Streaming. It will also take WebVTT files and segment them.
The Variant Playlist Creator (variantplaylistcreator) works with Media File Segmenter to create a variant playlist from multiple VOD streams. A --generate-variant-plist argument must be passed to Media File Segmenter, then the resultant plists are passed to Variant Playlist Creator.
The Media Stream Validator (mediastreamvalidator) simulates an HTTP Live Streaming session and verifies that the index file and media segments conform to the HTTP Live Streaming specification. It checks for several “best practices” to ensure reliable streaming. If any errors or problems are found, a detailed diagnostic report is displayed. Validation data can be written to a JSON file using --validation-data argument.
The HLS Report (hlsreport) uses the JSON file generated by **Media Stream Validator **to create a report for the validated stream.
The ID3 Tag Generator (id3taggenerator) will create an ID3 tag to be used as metadata for Media File Segmenter and will create the ID3 tag and send it over the network to Media Stream Segmenter.
System Requirements
The HTTP Live Streaming Tools package requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.9 or later.
Installation Instructions
To install the HTTP Live Streaming Tools, double-click the StreamingTools.pkg and follow the instructions. The installer will install these tools into:
- /usr/local/bin/mediastreamsegmenter
- /usr/local/bin/mediafilesegmenter
- /usr/local/bin/mediasubtitlesegmenter
- /usr/local/bin/variantplaylistcreator
- /usr/local/bin/mediastreamvalidator
- /usr/local/bin/hlsreport.py
- /usr/local/bin/id3taggenerator
Please refer to the man-pages for detailed instructions for how to use the tools. The man-pages are invoked from the command-line as follows:
- man mediastreamsegmenter
- man mediafilesegmenter
- man mediasubtitlesegmenter
- man variantplaylistcreator
- man mediastreamvalidator
- man hlsreport
- man id3taggenerator
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