Problems using jwplayer

[st]

Hi all,

I've got my streaming project working reasonably well with the built-in MistServer player, but I am looking for additional levels of control that don't seem to be available to me in the built-in player. For example, to be able to start with the sound muted, or to be able to have the player resize responsive to the size of the browser window. To do this I've attempted to use jwplayer but I am running into problems.

Referring to the jwplayer error reference page: https://developer.jwplayer.com/jw-player/docs/developer-guide/api/errors-reference/

With HLS (livestream/index.m3u8) I am getting jwplayer error 232012, "A manifest request was made to an HTTP resource from HTTPS." It would appear that jwplayer requires an HTTPS connection for HLS to work. I don't see a way to do that in MistServer.

With HTML5 (livestream.ts) I am getting error 102630, "Either an empty playlist was requested or none of the items passed our filter for valid files." I'm thinking that jwplayer is looking for mp4, but MistServer is delivering mpeg2. Again, I don't see a way around this.

With webm (livestream.webm) it is working, but it works only on a very few browsers and latency is egregious. I'm happy it's working, but it's only a backfill method.

Obviously I need all three methods to work such that jwplayer can adjust itself to the various browser environments. Any hints/tips would be appreciated. I am kind of new at this, but I've got the easy parts figured out (OBS for live streaming, MistServer to serve it up, nginx to serve up my web pages, DNS working, router configured, web pages built, etc.) :-)

Thanks,

Scott

P.S. this is MistServer on Win10Pro if it makes any difference.

[Jaron Viëtor]

Hello Scott,

First of all: in the first 1-2 weeks of 2019 we're planning to release version 2.15 of MistServer, which will include a significantly "pimped" meta-player.

The ability to start muted and to resize responsively are both included in this, along with proper skinning support and an official (with documentation!) JavaScript API for the meta-player.

Regardless, I can still comment/help with the other issues you posted. After all, we don't force any particular player, they _should_ all "work":

The HTTPS/HTTP issue is a browser-related thing (not JW-specific). Browsers will refuse to open HTTP resources from a HTTPS-requested page. You have several options to resolve this issue:

A) Serve everything without HTTPS (not ideal, but it does work).

B) Reverse proxy MistServer through a regular webserver (e.g. nginx, which you are already running anyway), adding HTTPS. See this post for more details: https://news.mistserver.org/news/81/Using+MistServer+through+a+reverse+proxy

C) Wait for the upcoming 3.0 release (planned Q1 2019), which will include HTTPS support in the free edition. Or buy the Pro edition if you want this _now_, of course. 😉

The error you're getting with the .ts link is understandable. This is a raw MPEG2 transport stream over HTTP. I'm not aware of any web-based players that know how to play that format (though practically every non-web-based player does).

Live MP4 and DASH outputs are probably what you're looking for in this case, which are both only supported in the Pro version for now (and no, these aren't being added as outputs in 3.0 either - sorry! 🙁)

WebM works very well when using the codecs VP8+Opus, but for most other codecs it only works in Chrome-based browsers. It's indeed intended as a method for very specific edge-cases.

Hopefully that gets you a bit further! Oh, and happy new year. 🎆

Regards,

Jaron Viëtor

CTO, DDVTech

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[st]

Hi Jaron,

Happy New Year! Thanks so much for the very prompt and very comprehensive reply. When I saw how low the message traffic was on the group I wasn't sure what to expect, and BAM, almost an immediate answer, and a good one, too! :-)

Since the update is only two weeks away I will certainly wait for that and give that a try, first. It sounds like it will address all my concerns except having mp4 available. But since this is just happy fun playtime for me (I am streaming my software defined radio on the web to other hobbyists) it really doesn't make sense to spend the $120/year to go Pro. And if the new player mutes and resizes I won't have to hassle with jwplayer, either. So that should work darn well.

I tried to use your other advice about disabling WebM for Android, but could not see how to disable that protocol, I don't see it on the list of protocols?

Also, I had added two protocol entries for HTTP and RTMP, one each for the server IP and for "localhost". That made it easier to preview streams in the web console because it defaults to localhost every time you open that page. However, when the server did its nightly reboot last evening when MistServer came back up the extra "localhost" entries were gone?

Thanks for all of your help so far. This is much easier than trying to set up nginx-rtmp for HTML5, something I was never successful at (although it did serve FLV ok with jwplayer). I am very much looking forward to 2.15. Add a lightweight web server in the same class as nginx and MistServer would be darn near turnkey! MistServer is a hell of nice tool, you guys all keep up the good work! I'll just keep climbing that steep learning curve as my html still looks like cave drawings ;-)

Thanks!

Scott

[Jaron Viëtor]

Hello Scott,

The WebM/MKV output is listed as "EBML" in the protocols.

This is because EBML is the underlying format of WebM and MKV, and that way we could have one name for both (this is another thing we're improving in the update: it will be listed as "WebM/MKV over HTTP (EBML)" in the next release).

Your extra entries disappeared because they were never written to disk. Mist only writes the configuration to disk when either you ask it to, or it's doing a clean shutdown.

This is intended as a protection against mistakes: if any configuration change crashes Mist, it will not have been saved and auto-recovers to the previous (good) state.

So, to make changes persist across reboots, either make sure Mist shuts down cleanly at least once before the reboot, or manually save the config to disk (the option can be found on the main page of the web interface).

Thank you for your compliments, and hopefully you'll be able to accomplish the things you want to do. 👍

Regards,

Jaron

[st]

I was wondering what "Force ... save" did :-) Used it and it worked great.

Sadly, no joy on Android after disabling EBML. The page loads, I can start the video, the time counter runs, but you only get the first frame of video and the video does not run.

Also, on Internet Explorer there is a problem: the page will load, the video will start, but then the video will stop after 10 seconds. This pattern repeats on a page reload.

Thanks,

Scott

[Jaron Viëtor]

Hello Scott,

I hope the 2.15 update will resolve all your mentioned problems.

Currently, it looks like it will release early next week if all goes well. (A few days delayed from what we originally planned.)

Please keep an eye on our news page and let me know once it's out if there are any remaining problems for you. 👍

Regards,

Jaron

[st]

Thanks, Jaron, will do!