HLS variant playlist

http://nginx-rtmp.blogspot.com/2013/07/hls-variant-playlist.html

HLS variant playlist

In v1.0.2 of nginx-rtmp-module I've added support for HLS variant playlists. Now it's easy to create multi-bitrate HLS streams. The new directive is hls_variant.

hls_variant SUFFIX *;

where SUFFIX is used to match incoming stream name, PARAMs are values added to each variant playlist entry describing the entry. Examples are BANDWIDTH=xxxx or CODECS=yyyy.

http {
    listen 80;
    location /hls {
        types {
            application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8;
            video/mp2t ts;
        }
        alias /tmp;
    }
}
rtmp {
    server {
        listen 1935;
        application src {
            live on;
            exec ffmpeg -i rtmp://localhost/src/$name
              -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a 32k  -c:v libx264 -b:v 128K -f flv rtmp://localhost/hls/$name_low
              -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a 64k  -c:v libx264 -b:v 256k -f flv rtmp://localhost/hls/$name_mid
              -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a 128k -c:v libx264 -b:v 512K -f flv rtmp://localhost/hls/$name_hi;
        }
        application hls {
            live on;
            hls on;
            hls_path /tmp/hls;
            hls_nested on;
            hls_variant _low BANDWIDTH=160000;
            hls_variant _mid BANDWIDTH=320000;
            hls_variant _hi  BANDWIDTH=640000;
        }
    }
}

If you stream incoming video with the following command

ffmpeg -i /var/videos/sintel.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v copy -f flv rtmp://localhost/src/sintel;

then the multi-bitrate HLS stream will be available at the following URL

ffplay http://localhost/hls/sintel.m3u8

This playlist references 3 playlist with low, medium and high qualities.