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In the era of YouTube when people perceive most information through video, developing digital products being without it may be considered suicide for a business idea.
We discovered a lot of ways of developing video streaming software and verified it through practice. In this blog post, we will tell you about the most popular video streaming technology - HTTP Live Streaming.
Wanna know how to realize HLS for your application and make this process faster and more cost-effective? Stay tuned!
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is a streaming protocol developed and released by Apple in 2009. It reduces the time needed for video downloading and enables playing video in different quality depending on the capabilities of the user’s device.
HLS became popular thanks to several features:
The primary reason for the HLS video streaming popularity is that this protocol is compatible with the different media players, web browsers, mobile devices, as well as streaming media servers.
HLS encodes the incoming videos in various levels of quality. That allows it to change depending on the Internet speed during the playback video and makes it seamless for the end-user.
From April 30, 2020 the low latency specifications have become part of the main HLS specification and vary from 15 to 20 seconds range with HLS live streaming.
The HLS extension, called Apple Low Latency HLS (ALHLS) reduces glass-to-glass delay when streaming via HLS by reducing the time needed to start live stream playbacks and maintain it during a live streaming event.
In addition to everything previously, HLS technology allows you to turn applications into the market place by inserting dynamic ads into the streaming videos.
Key Benefits of HLS Streaming
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is a popular streaming protocol that enables the delivery of multimedia content, such as video and audio, over the internet. It has gained widespread adoption due to its several key benefits that enhance the viewing experience for users. Here are some of the key benefits of HLS streaming:
The work of HLS streaming is best explained in the following way:
In simple words, HLS turns the videos into a bunch of segments and specifies the duration of each segment. Then during the video streaming, the browser makes HTTP requests for these segmented files.
HTTP Live Streaming is well-suited for specific scenarios:
As previously discussed the working principle of HLS, make the right time to delve deeper into the technical specifications of the HLS protocol and see it in action.
In a previous part of the article, we defined that streaming content after it has been identified by the device needs to be sent to the transcoding service. To achieve this goal, you can utilize an AWS Elastic Transcoder, the cloud media transcoding service. The transcoder converts video files into the versions compatible with iOS devices, Android devices, set-top boxes, and browser-based players.
In the context of back-end, the next step is transferring the video to the hosting platform. As a middleware that provides secure delivery of the streaming content, you can use a Cloud Delivery Network (CDN) service by AWS - CloudFront. It is most suitable for both pre-recorded videos and live videos.
Currently, when our video is delivered to the hosting platform, it needs to be transferred to the HTML5 player. For this purpose, we recommend utilizing Video.js library that supports HTML5 video and HLS.
The easiest way to get started using Video.js is to paste the following links in your page:
By using the same protocol that powers the web, HLS lets you deploy content using ordinary web servers and content delivery networks. HLS is designed for reliability and dynamically adapts to network conditions by optimizing playback for the available speed of wired and wireless connections.’ - Apple documentation
As stated the documentation implementation of HLS into your iOS Application is not a big deal. An AVPlayer has all needed setups to minimize your work. You can just initialize an AVPlayer Item for instance with a link to the playlist.
So here we have such HLS iOS mechanism:
This is the simplest way of adding HLS to your iOS App.
Are you considering an HLS technology as a feature for your learning app? Look at our Educational Software Solutions.
An example of using HLS for iOS can be seen in Apple's native media player framework, AVPlayer, and AVPlayerViewController. iOS developers commonly implement HLS to stream video content seamlessly in their applications. By providing a URL pointing to an HLS stream, developers can leverage these APIs to integrate adaptive bitrate streaming, allowing users to experience smooth playback across varying network conditions. This approach ensures compatibility with iOS devices and delivers a reliable streaming experience for users accessing multimedia content on iPhones and iPads.
Unlike HLS iOS mechanism, to implement HLS streaming Android into application you can use ExoPlayer - an application media player for Android OS.
It is built on top of Android's low level media APIs, ExoPlayer offers a more powerful and more robust alternative to MediaPlayer, with additional features and customization flexibility. Unlike the MediaPlayer API, ExoPlayer is easy to customize and extend.
For simple HLS streaming Android example, getting started with ExoPlayer consists of implementing the following HLS streaming Android steps:
implementation 'com.google.android.exoplayer:2.11.1'
val player: SimpleExoPlayer = SimpleExoPlayer.Builder(context).build()
<com.google.android.exoplayer2.ui.SimpleExoPlayerView
android:id="@+id/video_view"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" />
exoPlayerView.player = player
// Create a data source factory.
val dataSourceFactory = DefaultHttpDataSourceFactory("userAgent")
// Create a HLS media source pointing to a playlist uri.
val hlsMediaSource = HlsMediaSource.Factory(dataSourceFactory).createMediaSource(uri)
// Create a player instance.
player.prepare(hlsMediaSource)
player.release()
In the Android ecosystem, developers often implement HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) for seamless video playback in applications. The Android platform supports HLS through the built-in ExoPlayer library. Developers can use ExoPlayer to handle HLS streams, providing adaptive bitrate streaming for optimal performance on various Android devices. By specifying the HLS stream URL and utilizing ExoPlayer's features, developers can create apps that deliver high-quality video content while adapting to users' network conditions, ensuring a smooth viewing experience on Android smartphones and tablets.
In conclusion, HLS streaming implementation can greatly enhance the multimedia experience for users. By leveraging adaptive bitrate streaming, cross-platform compatibility, and the security features offered by HLS, developers can provide a seamless and reliable streaming solution. Whether on iOS or Android, integrating HLS, using frameworks like AVPlayer or ExoPlayer, allows for efficient delivery of live or on-demand content. Furthermore, the simplicity and scalability of HLS streaming implementation make it a practical choice, ensuring a broader reach for your application and a consistent viewing experience across diverse devices and network conditions.
Software Development Team
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HLS is a streaming protocol developed by Apple that breaks video into small chunks, allowing smooth, adaptive playback on different devices and network conditions, making it ideal for delivering high-quality video content online.
The main steps include encoding your video into HLS format, setting up a compatible server to host the video chunks and playlists, and integrating an HLS player into your app or website that can request and play the video segments.
Using cloud-based encoding and hosting services, choosing open-source or built-in HLS players, and optimizing video quality and chunk sizes help reduce costs and speed up development without sacrificing user experience.
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