SMIL File HLS Manifest Incorrect

Wowza Streaming Engine
1

Hi -

I’m using JW Player with Wowza to do a multi-bitrate VOD app and I’m trying to get the HLS stream working correctly. Currently, the smil file on wowza looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<smil title="">
	<body>
		<switch>
			<video height="720" src="Commitment_Weekend/Day_1/SampleVideo_1080x720_20mb.mp4" width="1080">
				<param name="videoBitrate" value="1000000" valuetype="data"></param>
				<param name="audioBitrate" value="48000" valuetype="data"></param>
			</video>
			<video height="480" src="Commitment_Weekend/Day_1/SampleVideo_720x480_20mb.mp4" width="720">
				<param name="videoBitrate" value="1000000" valuetype="data"></param>
				<param name="audioBitrate" value="48000" valuetype="data"></param>
			</video>
			<video height="240" src="Commitment_Weekend/Day_1/SampleVideo_360x240_20mb.mp4" width="360">
				<param name="videoBitrate" value="1000000" valuetype="data"></param>
				<param name="audioBitrate" value="48000" valuetype="data"></param>
			</video>
		</switch>
	</body>
</smil>

And I call the different versions with the following urls:

[wowza_url]/SOP/smil:bentest.smil/jwplayer.smil
[wowza_url]/SOP/smil:bentest.smil/playlist.m3u8
[wowza_url]/SOP/smil:bentest.smil/manifest.mpd

I’ve been going back and forth with support at JWplayer and one thing they said was that there are some issues with the HLS manifest:

  • PROGRAM-ID has been deprecated and is no longer a valid attribute for #EXT-X-STREAM-INF

  • Your streams need to have #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY tags in them as our tests are returning discontinuity errors. Our player can overlook these, as long as the #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY tag is used.

The current generated HLS manifest is:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=1048000,RESOLUTION=1080x720
chunklist_w1533686025_b1048000.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=1048000,RESOLUTION=720x480
chunklist_w1533686025_b1048000.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=1048000,RESOLUTION=360x240
chunklist_w1533686025_b1048000.m3u8

Is there a way to manually create the manifest or edit what’s generated?

Thank you

2

Hi,

You can’t edit the manifest directly. EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY tags usually indicate that the encoding has changed between chunks, for example it has a different frame rate. Are all of the video files identically created, keyframe aligned etc? If you wish, you can open a ticket and we can take a more indepth look. If the VOD files are available for download then that would help too.

As an aside, this article has a workflow for creating a smil file containing ABR files. The video files are made available for testing purposes.

Paul