Hls.js: duration Infinity on live streams

[aronallen]

Hi,

I have successfully bridged hls.js with video.js, and I found an issue.
Video.js expects duration === Infinity in order to render the propper controls for live streams.
Is there some way to detect wether hls.js has identified a live stream?

[aronallen]

you can see my code here: /aronallen/video.js

[mangui]

first, congrats for the videojs adaptation :+1:
please note that another port has been done , as a standard videojs plugin, see https://github.com/benjipott/videojs-hlsjs

you can detect whether streams are live or VoD thanks to the following event :
Hls.Events.LEVEL_LOADED , then data.details.live (true/false)

[kanongil]

FYI, the videojs-hlsjs integration is somewhat lacking and I consider it mostly a proof of concept at this point.

Regarding live stream, you can detect it as @mangui points out, and forward it to video.js by overriding the duration method. Eg. something like:

duration() {
  if (this.isLive) {
    return Infinity;
  }

  return super();
}

[kfeinUI]

Was just noticing this myself in playing around with my own integration using a live stream. Is this a technical limitation with MSE which prevents you from reporting the duration as Infinity? Appears to be the same situation with dash.js.

[mangui]

yes, this is a MSE limitation

[yonimor]

+1

[johnBartos]

@yonimor The level object emitted from LEVEL_LOADED has a property called live, which tells you whether the stream is live or not.

[difosfor]

Ran into this and noticed that dash.js uses duration: Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER for a live stream. Perhaps it would be nice to also implement that in hls.js? It's not Infinity, but close to it.