Default Chunklist configuration from stream server leads to problems to high latency users when playing double videos

[mliradelc]

Hi Paella Team

Last week we found a very strange bug, when someone plays a media package with 2 videos at the same time, some people were unable to watch those events in resolutions higher than 720p. After making some tests, we found that these problems were more severe in people with higher latencies.

After an in depth investigation, we found that these come from a bad solving of the chunklist lengths duration that the media server (In this case Wowza media server) generates. Changing to a lower duration solved the problem.

This problem does not occur with Paella player 6

[ferserc1]

In Paella Player 6 we do some things in the HLS plugin that are not specified in the official hls.js documentation, and serve as a workaround for some problems with the streaming configuration. These hacks we developed rather by trial-and-error.

In version 7 we have decided to stick to the specification in the hls.js documentation. The problem is that on Apple devices, and in particular, on the iPhone and iPod touch, HLS video is played natively, and there is no loophole for the player to modify anything. Many HLS streams that give problems, and that can be solved from the player, cannot be solved on iPhone.

Many times we have managed to solve HLS streaming problems by introducing hacks in the player, but in the end these videos gave problems or did not work on an iPhone. For this reason, I prefer that we get used to solve HLS problems at source, from the server.

Anyway, thank you very much for your contribution. Maybe we should think about enabling a best practices and recommendations document for Wowza and other streaming servers configuration.

I will start by including all the information I find, including your contribution, in the documentation of the HLS plugin in paella-core.

https://github.com/polimediaupv/paella-core/blob/main/doc/hls-video-plugin.md