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 ... ')

Encryption key

The segments may be encrypted, in this case the key attribute will be an object with all the attributes from #EXT-X-KEY:

• 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 key attribute will be None.

Multiple keys are not supported yet (and has a low priority), follow issue 1 for updates.

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)

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.