Troubleshooting HTTP/HLS reception

Why is the stream quality lower after retransmission?

When working with HLS reception, it's possible to encounter quality issues after retransmitting a stream. For instance, a stream may play in HD quality in VLC player, but after retransmission, the video appears in low resolution. This problem typically arises because the HLS stream contains variants with different resolutions.

To resolve this issue, download HLS playlist and open in a text editor: The playlist will have content that looks like this:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=6221600,RESOLUTION=1920x1080
https://example.com/video/1080.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:PROGRAM-ID=1,BANDWIDTH=246440,RESOLUTION=320x184
https://example.com/video/240.m3u8

Examine the playlist content and look for the #EXT-X-STREAM-INF lines that define the different quality streams available. In this example, two streams are available: one with a resolution of 1920x1080 and another with a resolution of 320x184.

Select the URL corresponding to the desired quality. In the example playlist, the HD stream URL is https://example.com/video/1080.m3u8

Use this URL in the Input settings

Updated on: 05/04/2023

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