Re: [Hls-interest] Survey: signaling HLS client capability

[Ofer Shem Tov <[e-mail]>]

On the Yahoo side of Verizon Media we have been using an internal Video
Policy API (since 2015) for filtering streams based on user agent, our
player capabilities (per platform), content type (sports, finance, etc.)
and the stream variants information.

The reasons to do that were:

- Compatibility with older devices (for example b-frames on some devices
used to be an issue)
- Devices not supporting 60FPS
- Filtering out low bitrate streams for TV devices like Apple TV
- Filtering out high bit rates for phones (data cap considerations, etc.)
- Selecting the starting bitrate by putting it first in the master playlist
- Removing higher bitrates in case of network issues (for events with
millions of concurrent)
- Testing non HTTP transports like UDP and QUIC for compatible players
- CDN selection (for compatibility issues with some players)

One important note is that in addition to bitrate filtering we added
resolution filtering when VBR was added to HLS. It is an easier filter to
manage because of different types of encodings and content (sports has much
higher bitrate than finance for the same resolution).

Ofer

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roger Pantos <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Thu, 20 May 2021 09:00:30 -0700
Subject: [Hls-interest] Survey: signaling HLS client capability
With the increasing number of optional features in HLS (such as low
latency, content steering, interstitial support, different codecs, etc.),
there is a desire in some quarters to present different streams to
different devices, beyond the regular variant stream selection performed on
the client.

We're considering some kind of signal of client capability, such as a query
parameter on the Master Playlist URL, to support this kind of server
decision. But before we go too far I'd like to understand if it would
actually be of practical benefit, and what universe of use cases it makes
sense to support. So:

- Do you think you would use this kind of thing? For what?

- If you are already doing something along these lines, perhaps driven by
the User-Agent string or something else, what requirement is driving that?

(Alternately, if you think that this would only make things worse, let us
know why!)

Feel free to respond here, or to send your response privately to
[e-mail].


thanks,

Roger Pantos
Apple Inc.

-- 
<http://www.verizonmedia.com>

Ofer Shem Tov

Distinguished Software Dev Engineer
Media Platform

M [phone]
2A Jabotinsky St.
Amot Atrium 36th Floor
Ramat Gan

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