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User Guide

AWS Documentation » MediaLive » User Guide » Creating a Channel from Scratch » Step 5: Create Output Groups » Creating an HLS Output Group » About HLS Group Destinations and File Names

About HLS Group Destinations and File Names

HLS output consists of a manifest, one rendition manifest for each output in the output group, and media files: one set of .ts files for each output, and optionally one or more captions files for each output.

For example, one manifest file called curling.m3u8, one rendition manifest called curling_high.m3u8, and many .ts files that contain the video and audio (each file contains one segment of a specified number of seconds) and three .vtt files for English, French, and Spanish WebVTT captions.

Several fields in the HLS group section and the individual outputs control the location of these files:

  • The CDN settings fields in the HLS settings section.

    The main field specifies the type of connection to the content delivery network (CDN), which is the downstream system that is the destination for the HLS output. For example, if the destination is AWS Elemental MediaPackage, the CDN is of type hls webdav. The other fields in this section provide connection details.

  • The two URL fields in the HLS group destinations section.

    The URL consists of a protocol portion, a path portion, and a base filename portion.

    For example, assume that the URL is https://sports/curling.

    The protocol portion is https://. The protocol is required and must be correct for the CDN that you specify. For example, https:// is correct if the CDN type is Hls basic put or Hls akamai or Hls webdav:

    • http:// or https:// if you select Hls basic put in the CDN field and you are sending to a CDN that uses HTTP or HTTPS PUT

    • s3:// or s3ssl:// if you select Hls basic put in the CDN field and you are sending to an Amazon S3 bucket

    • mediastoressl:// if you select Hls media store in the CDN field

    • http:// or https:// if you select Hls akamai in the CDN field

    • http:// or https:// if you select Hls webdav in the CDN field and you are sending to a server using WebDAV or you are sending to AWS Elemental MediaPackage

    The path portion is sports/. The path is required and consists of the folders, terminated by a slash. It identifies the location of the manifest and media files.

    The base file name is curling. It is used in the manifest file names and media file names. The base file name is optional. If you omit it, MediaLive uses the name of the input as the base file name.

  • The Name modifier field in the HLS outputs section.

    Required only in output groups with more than one output. For example, _high. Used in the rendition manifest file names and in media file names.

    Following from our example, the manifest file would be curling, and the rendition manifest files would be curling_high and curling_low. The media video files would be curling_high.00001.ts, curling_high.00002.ts, and so on for output 1, and curling_medium.00001.ts, curling_medium.00002.ts, and so on for output 2.

  • The Segment modifier field in the Output settings section of each individual output.

    Always optional. For example, _high. Used only in the media file names. Typically used instead of Name modifier, when you have only one output in the output group and you want a modifier in the media but not in the manifest.

    Following from our example, the manifest file would be curling, the rendition manifest file would be curling, and the media video files would be curling_high.00001.ts and curling_high.00002.ts.

  • The Base URL manifest field and Base URL field in the Location section.

    Optional. These fields are typically used only for non-standard manifests.

  • The Directory structure field in the Location section.

    Optional. Used only to create subdirectories for the media files. Creates one subdirectory for each output, and then creates sub-subdirectories according to the Segments per subdirectory field.

    For example, the high-resolution media files will go in subdirectories with the same name as each rendition manifest: curling_high and curling_low. Inside each subdirectory there will be a sub-subdirectory named 00001 (for the first set of media files), 00002 (for the next set of media files), and so on.