HTTP Live Streaming

HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) is an <a href="/facts/HTTP/TWtvf7JD">HTTP</a>-based <a href="/facts/Adaptive_bitrate_streaming/K3oSzyJB">adaptive bitrate streaming</a> communications protocol developed by <a href="/facts/Apple_Inc./oTJYta3k">Apple Inc.</a> and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and streaming media servers. As of 2022<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HTTP_Live_Streaming&action=edit">[update]</a>, an annual video industry survey has consistently found it to be the most popular streaming format.
HLS resembles <a href="/facts/MPEG-DASH/V1sHKrlC">MPEG-DASH</a> in that it works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each downloading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. A list of available streams, encoded at different bit rates, is sent to the client using an <a href="/facts/Extended_M3U/lnR08JM6">extended M3U playlist</a>.
Based on standard HTTP transactions, HTTP Live Streaming can traverse any <a href="/facts/Firewall_(computing)/Et2RkJaU">firewall</a> or <a href="/facts/Proxy_server/ArhwQE74">proxy server</a> that lets through standard HTTP traffic, unlike UDP-based protocols such as <a href="/facts/Real-time_Transport_Protocol/YKQK1RK2">RTP</a>. This also allows content to be offered from conventional HTTP servers and delivered over widely available HTTP-based <a href="/facts/Content_delivery_network/SVuID7jd">content delivery networks</a>. The standard also includes a standard encryption mechanism and secure-key distribution using <a href="/facts/HTTPS/MSWYz4zo">HTTPS</a>, which together provide a simple <a href="/facts/Digital_rights_management/4AF8JmDt">DRM</a> system. Later versions of the protocol also provide for trick-mode fast-forward and rewind and for integration of subtitles.
Apple has documented HTTP Live Streaming as an <a href="/facts/Internet_Draft/h13QYxXa">Internet Draft</a> (Individual Submission), the first stage in the process of publishing it as a <a href="/facts/Request_for_Comments/esftTvE7">Request for Comments</a> (RFC). As of December 2015, the authors of that document have requested the RFC Independent Stream Editor (ISE) to publish the document as an informational (non-standard) RFC outside of the <a href="/facts/IETF/tIcCsFhX">IETF</a> consensus process.
In August 2017, RFC <a href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8216">8216</a> was published to describe version 7 of the protocol.

HTTP Live Streaming open-in-new

HTTP Live Streaming