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the world’s largest encoding service.

The HTTP-Live-Streaming Success Guide
Table of Contents

Page 1. Background

Page 2. The Challenge

Features

Page 3. Audio
Audio only HLS Stream
Multiple Audio Bitrates with a single stream
Audio only still images
Dolby HE-AAC and HE-AACv2 Support

Page 4. Video
Multiple Resolutions
Multiple H.264 profiles in a single stream
Advanced H.264 parameters
Format identifiers (CODECS attribute)
Caption Support WebVTT or CEA 608
Keyframes

Page 5. Workflow
HLS Compression Options (Tar and Zip)
HLS Encryption Segment Duration
Reduced TS structural overhead

Page 6. Nielsen ID3 tags support

I-Frame Playlist
Byte-Range support for segments
Alternate Media

Page 7. Per stream watermarking, text overlay, or audio overlay

Conclusion
 Background
HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) is an established standard for adaptive bitrate
video. Adaptive bitrate video delivery is a combination of server and
“HLS has rapidly client software that detects a client’s bandwidth capacity and adjusts the
become the quality of the video stream between multiple bitrates and/or resolutions.
The adaptive bitrate video experience is superior to delivering a static
standard for video file at a single bitrate, because the video stream can be switched
adaptive bitrate midstream to be as good or bad as the client’s available network speed
(as opposed to the buffering or interruption in playback that can happen
technology for when a client’s network speed can’t support the quality of video).
mobile/tablets,
With HLS emerging as a standard, and major players like Apple’s iOS
OTT, and desktop.” & Google’s Android OS leading the way, Encoding.com wanted to
provide video distributors and developers with a complete guide to the
standard’s evolution, architecture and device compatibility. We are all
increasingly familiar with the issues surrounding video delivery to multiple
devices, and HLS has rapidly become the standard for adaptive bitrate
technology for mobile/tablets, OTT, and desktop. With this resource, we
wanted to bring to light the ever-present confusion within the industry
regarding the origin of HLS, its technical specifications, device support,
and many other variables.

Apple adopted the HLS standard in 2009 to solve the problem of

delivering video to mobile devices over varying bandwidths. They
developed a system using adaptive streaming which enables delivery of
audio and video to supported devices from a standard HTTP web server
as opposed to a specialized streaming server. One of the key benefits
of HLS is that all data is passed using HTTP, so no accommodations for
firewalls or protocols need to be made.

While HLS was initially developed for playback on iOS-based devices

3.0 and higher—including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV—and
on desktop computers (Safari on OS X), its use has expanded to OTT
devices as well as other mobile and tablet devices. In addition to iOS, it
has also become the adaptive bitrate standard for Android devices.
 HTTP Live Streaming supports both live broadcasts and pre-recorded
content (video on demand) and multiple alternate streams at different
bitrates and resolutions. HLS allows for the client to dynamically switch
between streams depending on bandwidth availability. HLS also provides
for media encryption and user authentication over HTTPS, allowing
publishers to protect their work. HLS is a step up from progressive
downloading, which just enables the playback of a video prior to
completing the full download.

The Challenge
HLS is a widely adopted and leading standard for multi-screen delivery.
Because of this, HLS transcoding solutions are offered by every leading
media processing service provider. As with most technical solutions, the
devil is in the details, and once you look under the hood at various HLS
“HLS is a step up transcoding solutions, it’s clear that all HLS solutions are not created
from progressive equal. We’ve completed an in-depth analysis of our HLS transcoding
solution with a direct comparison to the competition on a feature-by-
downloading...” feature basis.

The Features
We compared 22 supported features against the competition, and they
are broken down in the grid below. When looking through this lens the
differences between various solutions becomes clear. In addition, we
define each feature and explain its importance in delivering seamless
HLS playback to the broadest range of devices.

FEATURES ENCODING.COM ZENCODER AWS

He-AACv2 Support YES YES YES
Audio only HLS Streams YES YES YES
AUDIO

HE-AAC Support YES YES YES

Multiple audio bitrates in a single stream YES NO NO
Still image YES YES NO
h.264 profile YES YES NO
Caption support WebVTT or CEA 608 YES YES ONLY WEBVTT
VIDEO

Advanced H.264 parameters YES REDUCED REDUCED

Keyframes YES YES YES
Format identifiers (CODECS attribute) YES YES YES
Per stream audio overlay YES NO NO
Nielsen ID3 tags support YES NO NO
Still Image configuration (Time & Size) YES NO NO
Encryption YES YES NO
Tar and Zip options YES YES NO
WORKFLOW

I-Frame Playlist YES NO YES

Byte-Range support for segments YES NO YES
Alternate media YES NO NO
Per stream watermarking YES YES YES
Per stream overlay and text overlay YES NO YES
Reduced TS structural overhead YES YES NO
Multiple resolutions YES YES YES
Segment duration YES YES YES
 AUDIO

Audio only HLS Stream

The audio only option for HLS will produce a single low bitrate (64K)
audio stream. In a situation in which the device cannot support the
bandwidth of the lowest video bitrate, the device will fall back to the
audio only stream to maintain the audio track of the video during
playback until bandwidth levels increase to the point where video
playback can resume. The audio fallback is a much better video playback
experience than the common alternative of the video and audio freezing,
or stuttering, during playback during a temporary mobile bandwidth
latency. A 64k audio fallback is a requirement for videos to be submitted
within the Apple App Store approval process.

Multiple Audio Bitrates within a single stream

“Configuration
Although HLS specifies the presence of a 64k audio stream, this bitrate
control should is often not sufficient when you intend to create a single HLS stream
exist to step up for mobile devices as well as set top boxes, like the Apple TV or Roku.
audio quality and In playback situations in which the set top box is connected to a home
audio receiver, it is desirable to serve not only a higher bitrate audio
codecs, along with stream along with the HD 1080p HLS stream, but also a different audio
resolution and codec, for example Dolby 5.1 audio. Configuration control should exist
to step up audio quality and codecs, along with resolution and bitrate.
bitrate.” For example the 480x320 stream would be paired with the 64k audio
only stream, where the 1136x640 stream would be paired with 128k
audio stream and the 1920x1080 steam would be paired with Dolby 5.1
audio.

Audio only still image

In the low bandwidth situation where the audio only stream is invoked,
a custom still image can be presented to the user to help inform them
of the latency they are experiencing. For example, “Your device is is
not receiving sufficient bandwidth. Please stand by or switch to a higher
speed mobile or WiFi network.” You can also choose to pull the custom
image from a specified time stamp within the source video content.

Dolby HE-AAC and HE-AACv2 Support

Sound compression is critical within the HLS required audio only 64k
stream. Within such a low bitrate parameter, audio codecs like the open
source libbfaac process far inferior sound quality. Support for Dolby’s HE-
AAC and HE-AACv2 provides the highest possible audio quality at low
bitrates, including extreme dynamic range.
 VIDEO

Multiple Resolutions
Configuring multiple resolutions is a requirement for optimal playback
“This level of of a single HLS stream to multiple screen sizes across smartphones,
tablets, and HD capable set up boxes like the the Apple TV or Roku.
granular control The Encoding.com HLS Pro preset recommends 9 individual resolutions
will allow a ranging from 416x234 to 1920x1080; however configuration control
exists to customize based on individual requirements.
single stream to
successfully serve Multiple H.264 profiles in a single stream
all OS versions of Configuration control should be present when building a new HLS job
to allow for multiple H.264 profiles within a single stream. This level of
iOS or Android.” granular control will allow a single stream to successfully serve all OS
versions of iOS or Android. Within the Encoding.com HLS Pro template
you can find our recommended pairing of H.264 profile with resolution.

We encode to the following resolutions: 416x234, 480x270, 640,360, 960x540, 1280x720, 1920x1080

Advanced H.264 parameters

Configuration of advanced H.264 parameters allows fine tuning of a
handful of specific H.264 parameters to ensure compatibility with a range
of iOS and Android devices.

Format identifiers (CODECS attribute)

You can configure the CODECS attributed to your HLS playlist to allow
the client to filter, based on the codec and the particular profile and level
of encoding supported by the device. This is especially important when
trying to target different generation iOS devices within a single HLS
stream; as the iPhone 3GS will only support Baseline H.264 profile, the
iPhone 4 and iPad 1 will support Main H.264 profile and the iPhone 4S+
and iPad 2+ will support the High H.264 profile.

Caption Support WebVTT or CEA 608

The HLS standard supports both the legacy CEA 608 or the more
modern WebVTT standard. Encoding.com supports a broad closed
caption feature set that allows closed captions in all popular legacy
formats SRT, SCC, DFXP to be extracted from source content or side car
files and converted into the CEA 608 or WEbVTT standard within your
HLS stream at the time of encoding. Encoding.com also supports caption
to caption conversion outside of a video processing job which enables
preparation of legacy caption files prior to encoding into HLS.

Keyframes
Configuration of keyframes on a per HLS stream basis is critical to
meeting the HLS spec and ensuring playback on a wide variety of mobile
devices. In general, keyframes should generally be 3x the frame rate. For
low resolution bitrate HLS streams with low framerates between 12-15
fps we recommend 36-45 keyframes. At higher resolutions where the
frame rate is 29.97 fps keyframes can be set to 90.
 WORKFLOW

HLS Compression Options (Tar and Zip)

The HLS architecture will produce a master playlist (.m3u8), playlists
for each individual bitrate, as well as individual 9 second segments(.
ts) in each bitrate. This means that an output from a single HLS job can
produce hundreds if not thousands of files which need to be delivered to
your CDN or storage location after processing is complete. Transport of
many small files is far slower and less efficient than transport of a single
larger file. Compression options of .tar or .zip can reduce overall job time
significantly by reducing delivery time and reducing chances of transport
failure. Compressed HLS output can be automatically decompressed for
playback at the storage location within an automated HLS workflow.

“..an output from a HLS Encryption

single HLS job can Although not considered a complete DRM solution, the HLS spec offers
a baseline of video encryption technology to provide the first level of
produce hundreds defense against unauthorized playback of sensitive source content.
if not thousands Currently HLS supports AES-128 encryption using 32-octet keys. There
of files which need are three ways in which encryption can be applied: using an existing key,
using a randomly generated key, or using a new key that’s generated
to be delivered for every X number of video segments. The more video segments
to your CDN or that have unique encryption, the greater the overhead and the less
the performance. Keys can be served over SSL for an added layer of
storage location encryption. Encoding.com HLS Pro supports providing an encryption key
after processing is manually at the time of job submission or a hosted url of the encryption
key to support the random key generation workflow.
complete.”
Segment Duration
Segment duration will specify the time interval for which your source
media is segmented into during conversion to HLS. The long standing
standard has been 10 seconds. However, Apple recently revised the spec
to 9 seconds. During playback of HLS content, the segment duration is
the minimum amount of time a video plays at the current bitrate before
switching to the next bitrate.

Reduced TS structural overhead

Format overhead is often overlooked when comparing commercial HLS
output. The MPEG-TS format includes by default a lot of unnecessary
padding when compared with the MP4 container, and majority of the
commercial HLS muxers on the market include this overhead in their HLS
output. Encoding.com has built a proprietary low structural overhead TS
muxer within their HLS solution that minimizes TS overhead by as much
as 25%. Low overhead is a significant consideration when deploying HLS
on a large content library, as it will translate proportionally into TeraBytes
of storage and CDN delivery savings.
 Nielsen ID3 tags support
Nielsen has developed an industry standard for measurement of
content broadcast on television and has launched new technologies
that allow Nielsen tagged broadcast content to be translated to HLS
content to ensure inclusion of all mobile and tablet views. Encoding.
com has integrated the Nielsen SDK into our platform to allow tags to
be extracted from source content and placed within the IDS tags of the
HLS output. Encoding.com can also embed Nielsen tracking tags into
MP4 files directly to support a workflow in which HLS segmenting is
performed by the CDN provider.

I-Frame Playlist
“In iOS 5+, you can iOS 5 now supports Fast Forward and Reverse Playback. However, you
don’t need to produce special purpose content to support Fast Forward
now specify a and Reverse Playback. All you need to do is specify where the I-Frames
media segment are. I-Frames, or Intra frames, are encoded video frames whose encoding
as a byte range does not depend on any other frame. To specify where the I-Frames are,
iOS 5 introduces a new I-Frame only playlist.
of a larger URL.
This allows you to Byte-Range support for segments

consolidate your An HLS .m3u8 playlist provides the client with each URL of the
segmented files. Each media URL refers to a media file which is a
media segments segment of a single contiguous stream. If you have 1000 media
into larger files or segments in your content, you will have 1000 files on your CDN or web
server.
a single large file. ”
In iOS 5+, you can now specify a media segment as a byte range of a
larger URL. This allows you to consolidate your media segments into
larger files or a single large file. The primary benefit of this is when a
client is playing your media, rather than downloading each successive
segment file from a different location, it is actually walking through a
larger file in sequence.
This also allows proxy caching servers to get a much better idea of what
needs to be prefetched in order to ensure that the segment you will
need is in the cache at the time you want it. An additional benefit is there
are far fewer files to manage. If you have many video variants in a long
movie, you can have thousands of individual segment files. With byte
range support, you only have a few.

Alternate media
Available in iOS 5+ is support for alternate media. This feature allows a
provider to specify one of a set of variant playlists as an “override” of
the main content. In practice, this allows you to offer an alternate video
angle (e.g view of sports event) or audio track (multiple foreign language)
within a single HLS stream. The client will only play the override media
(audio or video) and suppress any media of the same type from the
main presentation, if present. This allows a presentation to offer multiple
versions of the media without requiring you to store duplicate media
or requiring the client to download all variants when it only needs one.
It also allows additional media to be offered subsequently without
remastering the original content.
Per stream watermarking, text overlay, or audio overlay
Encoding.com offers configuration control to not only add watermarks,
custom text or custom audio overlays to the entire HLS output, but also
allows customizing these features on a per stream basis. For example a
video’s watermark on a 416x234 video will likely need to be a different
size when placed on a 1920x1080 stream.

CONCLUSION
When comparing various HLS solutions in the market we’ve outlined the
features and controls to look for.

Maximum Compatibility
We provide HLS presets engineered, tested, and Apple reviewed to
serve all screen resolutions and maximize compatibility across the top 30
smartphones and tablets for both iOS and Android.

Maximum Control
Customize all encoding parameters on a per-stream basis. Leverage HE-
AAC for the highest quality audio at the lowest bit rates. Package output
as .tar or .zip files for most efficient delivery.

Lowest Overhead
Encoding.com’s proprietary HLS segmenter has the lowest overhead in
the industry which equals tremendous storage savings.

Fastest Processing
Parallel dedicated 16-core processing of all individual streams ensure
that even the largest libraries targeting complex 12 bitrate HLS outputs
are completed in a fraction of real-time.

For more information on how to guarantee success with HLS, we

recommend the following:

Contact our sales team for a free consultation: [email protected]

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