m3u8

Python m3u8 parser.

Documentation

The basic usage is to create a playlist object from uri, file path or directly from a string:

import m3u8

m3u8_obj = m3u8.load('http://videoserver.com/playlist.m3u8')  # this could also be an absolute filename
print m3u8_obj.segments
print m3u8_obj.target_duration

# if you already have the content as string, use

m3u8_obj = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U8 ... etc ... ')

Supported tags

• #EXT-X-TARGETDURATION
• #EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE
• #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY-SEQUENCE
• #EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME
• #EXT-X-MEDIA
• #EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE
• #EXT-X-KEY
• #EXT-X-STREAM-INF
• #EXT-X-VERSION
• #EXT-X-ALLOW-CACHE
• #EXT-X-ENDLIST
• #EXTINF
• #EXT-X-I-FRAMES-ONLY
• #EXT-X-BYTERANGE
• #EXT-X-I-FRAME-STREAM-INF
• #EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY
• #EXT-X-CUE-OUT
• #EXT-X-CUE-OUT-CONT
• #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS
• #EXT-OATCLS-SCTE35
• #EXT-X-CUE-OUT
• #EXT-X-CUE-IN
• #EXT-X-CUE-SPAN
• #EXT-X-MAP
• #EXT-X-START

Encryption keys

The segments may be or not encrypted. The keys attribute list will be an list with all the different keys as described with #EXT-X-KEY:

Each key has the next properties:

• method: ex.: "AES-128"
• uri: the key uri, ex.: "http://videoserver.com/key.bin"
• iv: the initialization vector, if available. Otherwise None.

If no #EXT-X-KEY is found, the keys list will have a unique element None. Multiple keys are supported.

If unencrypted and encrypted segments are mixed in the M3U8 file, then the list will contain a None element, with one or more keys afterwards.

To traverse the list of keys available:

import m3u8

m3u8_obj = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U8 ... etc ...')
len(m3u8_obj.keys) => returns the number of keys available in the list (normally 1)
for key in m3u8_obj.keys:
   if key:  # First one could be None
      key.uri
      key.method
      key.iv

Getting segments encrypted with one key

There are cases where listing segments for a given key is important. It's possible to retrieve the list of segments encrypted with one key via by_key method in the segments list.

Example of getting the segments with no encryption:

import m3u8

m3u8_obj = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U8 ... etc ...')
segmk1 = m3u8_obj.segments.by_key(None)

# Get the list of segments encrypted using last key
segm = m3u8_obj.segments.by_key( m3u8_obj.keys[-1] )

With this method, is now possible also to change the key from some of the segments programatically:

import m3u8

m3u8_obj = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U8 ... etc ...')

# Create a new Key and replace it
new_key = m3u8.Key("AES-128", "/encrypted/newkey.bin", None, iv="0xf123ad23f22e441098aa87ee")
for segment in m3u8_obj.segments.by_key( m3u8_obj.keys[-1] ):
    segm.key = new_key
# Remember to sync the key from the list as well
m3u8_obj.keys[-1] = new_key

Variant playlists (variable bitrates)

A playlist can have a list to other playlist files, this is used to represent multiple bitrates videos, and it's called variant streams. See an example here.

variant_m3u8 = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U8 ... contains a variant stream ...')
variant_m3u8.is_variant    # in this case will be True

for playlist in variant_m3u8.playlists:
    playlist.uri
    playlist.stream_info.bandwidth

the playlist object used in the for loop above has a few attributes:

• uri: the url to the stream
• stream_info: a StreamInfo object (actually a namedtuple) with all the attributes available to #EXT-X-STREAM-INF
• media: a list of related Media objects with all the attributes available to #EXT-X-MEDIA
• playlist_type: the type of the playlist, which can be one of VOD (video on demand) or EVENT

NOTE: the following attributes are not implemented yet, follow issue 4 for updates

• alternative_audios: its an empty list, unless it's a playlist with Alternative audio, in this case it's a list with Media objects with all the attributes available to #EXT-X-MEDIA
• alternative_videos: same as alternative_audios

A variant playlist can also have links to I-frame playlists, which are used to specify where the I-frames are in a video. See Apple's documentation on this for more information. These I-frame playlists can be accessed in a similar way to regular playlists.

variant_m3u8 = m3u8.loads('#EXTM3U ... contains a variant stream ...')

for iframe_playlist in variant_m3u8.iframe_playlists:
    iframe_playlist.uri
    iframe_playlist.iframe_stream_info.bandwidth

The iframe_playlist object used in the for loop above has a few attributes:

• uri: the url to the I-frame playlist
• base_uri: the base uri of the variant playlist (if given)
• iframe_stream_info: a StreamInfo object (same as a regular playlist)

Custom tags

Quoting the documentation:

Lines that start with the character '#' are either comments or tags.
Tags begin with #EXT.  They are case-sensitive.  All other lines that
begin with '#' are comments and SHOULD be ignored.

This library ignores all the non standard tags by default. If you want them to be collected while loading the file content, you need to pass a function to the load/loads functions, following the example below:

import m3u8

def get_movie(line, data, lineno):
    if line.startswith('#MOVIE-NAME:'):
        custom_tag = line.split(':')
        data['movie'] = custom_tag[1].strip()

m3u8_obj = m3u8.load('http://videoserver.com/playlist.m3u8', custom_tags_parser=get_movie)
print(m3u8_obj.data['movie'])  #  million dollar baby

Running Tests

$ ./runtests

Contributing

All contribution is welcome, but we will merge a pull request if, and only if, it

• has tests
• follows the code conventions

If you plan to implement a new feature or something that will take more than a few minutes, please open an issue to make sure we don't work on the same thing.