How does the playlist_dvr work?

Hi,

I just started testing out nimble streamer. I configured a DVR output and I can see the dvr streams being stored into what seems to be separate timestamp directories corresponding to each incoming stream start/stop event.

I had a couple of questions regarding accessing playlist_dvr.m3u8:

- How do these separate directories work?
- Are the streams joined together?
- Am I able to play any of the separate streams individually?

a follow up question, if I have live stream events on multiple days, do I need to manually remove DVR streams to prevent them from being joined together?

Hello Ricardo,

Could you please clarify what you're meaning by "streams"? If you mean multiple streaming sessions to a single RTMP URLs - then it will be played as a single continuous stream in case of using ../playlist_dvr.m3u8 URL.

Thanks Max for your response.

Yes, I mean multiple streaming sessions to the same application/stream_name.

So even if the streaming sessions are on different days, it still comes out as a continuous stream?

I guess this means I'd have to manually remove older content each time I do a new streaming session?

It depends how you're planning to use DVR archive, you can delete it if you'd like to, or you can use EGP interface (http://blog.wmspanel.com/2015/11/dvr-time-range-fragments-epg.html) to select DVR archive fragment for playback (i.e. to avoid to play all sessions continuously).

Got it, thanks.

I guess if we have a continuous session, it might be weird cutting from the end of one session to the beginning of the next, is there some sort of transition effect that can be added when joining sessions?

There will be no any transition effects, the player just continues to play like it is a single stream.

Hi Max,

I'm having a problem generating the mp4 file out of the playlist_dvr.m3u8.

As you mentioned above, the multiple streams are played out as a continuous session, like a single stream. However when I use ffmpeg to generate an mp4, there are a lot of DTS timestamp continuity errors and the resulting file is much shorter in duration than what playlist_dvr presents.

Is there any other method to generate an mp4?

I'd suggest to run ffmpeg with exact "begin" and "end" interval and may this help.

So run ffmpeg with url like http://you.domain.name/live/stream/playlist_dvr_range-<UTC-start>-<duration>.m3u8

You will get dvr as vod stream and may be this will help in your case

see
http://blog.wmspanel.com/2015/11/dvr-time-range-fragments-epg.html

for details