• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Foliovision

Making the web work for you

Main navigation

  • Weblog
    • FV Player
    • WordPress
    • Video of the Week
    • Case Studies
    • Business
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Meet the Team
    • We Support
    • Careers
    • Contact
    • Pricing
  • Products
  • Support
    • FV Player Docs
    • Pro Support
  • Login
  • Basket is empty
Affordable VAST/VPAID for Wordpress has arrived. Serve ads with your videos starting today!
    • Docs
      • Installation
      • Changelog
    • FAQ
    • Support
      • Free Support
      • Pro Support
    • PRO

    Using HLS With FV Player

    What you’ll find in this guide:

    • What is HLS
    • Inserting HLS to FV Player
    • Using HLS with MSE/H.264
    • Examples

    What is HLS

    HLS (HTTP Live Stream) is a streaming protocol developed by Apple Inc. mainly for their iOS devices and Safari browser. The protocol is also supported by newer Android devices (introduced in 3.0 – Honeycomb) and with the use of HLS.js, on all browsers that use the MSE specification. Using HLS Streams, is also one of the better methods of video security. This guide will show you what to do to use HLS with FV Player and how to cover as many devices and browsers as possible. 

    The basic principle of HLS is breaking the video stream to small fragments of data (usually in the .ts format), that are loaded sequentially to create a continuous playback. The stream itself can hold a various number of sub-streams, that carry the same data, but differ in the encoding quality, thus allowing the device to automatically switch qualities to provide scalability on wide spectrum of bandwidths. The meta data containing all the information about the various sub-streams and the individual fragments are stored in a single playlist in .m3u8 format. The player uses this file to open a session and load the fragments.

    HLS is based on HTTP transactions, so it’s supported by most servers. It also allows encryption via AES algorithm. We offer several options for creating encrypted HLS. You can use FV Player Coconut, which includes DigitalOcean hosting, Bunny CDN and Coconut encryption. If you’d like to go with Amazon Web Services, you can start by creating an S3 bucket. Lastly, if you do not need encryption, you’ll do just great with Bunny Stream.

    Inserting HLS to FV Player

    Using the HLS stream with FV Player is very easy, just insert the link to the .m3u8 file in the shortcode editor to the Video field. The editor will look like this example:

    Click here to watch the sample video (it will appear in a Lightbox).

    As mentioned above, HLS is designed for iOS and Safari browser, so serving the stream on these platforms won’t require any adjustments. Other devices will need some additional settings, as you will see further in this guide.

    Using HLS with MSE/H.264

    Most of the modern browsers use the Media Source Extensions specification and the most commonly used codec – H.264, to play videos. To make HLS work with these browsers, Dailymotion has developed an open source Javascript library called hls.js. This client integrates existing HLS clients and uses HTML5 video and Media Source Extensions to play videos without using Flash, thus making it compatible with almost every modern browser. 

    You can activate this feature in Settings -> FV Player -> Setup tab -> Integrations/Compatibility and check the box Enable HLS.js.

    enable-hlsjs

    If you want to use these streams, you will need to have correctly set the cross-domain policy (see above) for browsers that can’t work with MSE, and more importantly, Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS). To allow simple CORS requests from your server, you will need to add this header to your server’s response:

    For information on how to enable CORS on a specific server, follow this link.

    Examples

    Here are example videos:

    • HLS Stream
    • Encrypted HLS

     

    Reader Interactions

    Primary Sidebar

    Troubleshooting

    1. Why FV Player?
    2. Getting Started
    3. Creating and Managing Playlists
    4. FAQ
    5. Setting Screens
    6. Video Hosting
    7. Advanced features
    8. Video Security
    9. Video Membership, Pay Per View and eLearning
    10. FV Player VAST/VPAID
    11. Tools
    12. Live Streaming
    13. Analytics
    14. Video Advertising
    15. Casting Options
    16. Audio Player
    17. Troubleshooting
      1. How to Use the Built-in Video Checker
      2. Switching FV Player Pro to Beta
      3. Incompatible Plugins and Scripts
      4. Troubleshooting Javascript Errors
      5. Video Encoding for HTML 5
      6. Using HLS With FV Player
    18. For Developers
    19. FV Player Demos
    20. Additional Services
    21. Legal

    Footer

    Our Plugins

    • FV WordPress Flowplayer
    • FV Thoughtful Comments
    • FV Simpler SEO
    • FV Antispam
    • FV Gravatar Cache
    • FV Testimonials

    Free Tools

    • Pandoc Online
    • Article spinner
    • WordPress Password Finder
    • Delete LinkedIn Account
    • Responsive Design Calculator
    Foliovision logo
    All materials © 2022 Foliovision s.r.o. | Panská 12 - 81101 Bratislava - Slovakia | info@foliovision.com
    • This Site Uses Cookies
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Site Map
    • Contact
    • Tel. +1 518 412 4600
    play-rounded-fill
    Link

    We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

    You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

    Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

    Necessary Cookies

    Strictly Necessary Cookie allow you to log in and download your software or post to forums.

    We use the WordPress login cookie and the session cookie.

    If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

    Support Cookies

    Foliovision.com uses self-hosted Rocket.chat and self-hosted Freescout support desk to provide support for FV Player users. These cookies allow our visitors to chat with us and/or submit support tickets.

    We are delighted to recommend self-hosted Rocket.chat and especially Freescout to other privacy-conscious independent publishers who would prefer to self-host support.

    Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

    3rd Party Cookies

    This website uses Google Analytics and Statcounter to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

    Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

    We reluctantly use Google Analytics as it helps us to test FV Player against popular Google Analytics features. Feel free to turn off these cookies if they make you feel uncomfortable.

    Statcounter is an independent Irish stats service which we have been using since the beginning of recorded time, sixteen years ago.

    Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!