FR: support m3u playlists

[RedAuburn]

stremio web allows to use an external player via an m3u playlist, which contains URLs to videos.
it'd be nice to support m3us to watch these streams via clapper.

https://web.stremio.com (enable external m3u player in settings)

example attached (remove .txt)
playlist.m3u.txt

[Rafostar]

This seems to be a normal HLS master playlist manifest, ergo should be working as-is. What is the error you are getting?

[RedAuburn]

ah great :)

I get this, it's the flatpak version so maybe the gstreamer plugin isn't bundled?

Clapper version:
0.6.1

Debug info:
GLib 2.78.6
GTK 4.12.5
Adwaita 1.4.5
GStreamer 1.22.8

[Rafostar]

I get this, it's the flatpak version so maybe the gstreamer plugin isn't bundled?

This seems like a typefind issue. GStreamer should parse content of this playlist text file and determine that this is a HLS playlist. Instead, it seems to think its a plain text file with uri-list (one URI per line). So it makes a mistake and asks for a wrong plugin.

You can try playing it with your local GStreamer installation via to check if same problem happens:

gst-play-1.0 URI/FILE

Ideally, this should be confirmed whether the same problem still occurs in latest GStreamer version (1.24) and it does, reported upstream.

[RedAuburn]

can confirm the same issue happens:

harry@fedora-desktop:~$ gst-play-1.0 '/home/harry/Downloads/playlist.m3u' 
Press 'k' to see a list of keyboard shortcuts.
Now playing /home/harry/Downloads/playlist.m3u
ERROR Your GStreamer installation is missing a plug-in. for file:///home/harry/Downloads/playlist.m3u
ERROR debug information: ../gst/playback/gstdecodebin3.c(3309): mq_slot_check_reconfiguration (): /GstPlayBin3:playbin/GstURIDecodeBin3:uridecodebin3/GstDecodebin3:decodebin3-0:
No suitable plugins found
Reached end of play list.

will report upstream, thanks :)

[Rafostar]

Well, guess they suggested having playlist parser on the application side. So reopening as FR.

[Rafostar]

If we are doing special playlist handling as part of Clapper APIs, it would be beneficial if we could make some sort of "expandable parser", so more custom playlist formats can be handled too. A common request is for supporting YT playlist URIs.

Some rough/early ideas for this, so I will not forget:

• playlist parser/reader that returns a list of ClapperMediaItem objects
• a base class for creating more parsers
• playlist parser can be expanded with modules (needs to be initialized! - to decide if it should be done as part of clapper_init() or separately)
• works in reverse too (can export/save queue to playlist with media title, etc.) - [Feature Request] save playlist / queue #478

[barolo]

Additionally, streams like https://jmp2.uk/sam-USBD12000038K.m3u8 [Portlandia stream channel] are treated very poorly.
The lowest res track is picked, and there are no subs [eia and vtt are avaiable]

gst-launch-1.0 playbin3 uri="https://jmp2.uk/sam-USBD12000038K.m3u8" flags=0x17 subtitle-font-desc="Sans, 22" plays it properly [adaptivedemux2 plugin must be installed]

[Rafostar]

Additionally, streams like https://jmp2.uk/sam-USBD12000038K.m3u8 [Portlandia stream channel] are treated very poorly. (...) adaptivedemux2 plugin must be installed

You can use CLAPPER_USE_PLAYBIN3=1 env to force usage of playbin3 and thus adaptivedemux2 inside it.

[barolo]

Additionally, streams like https://jmp2.uk/sam-USBD12000038K.m3u8 [Portlandia stream channel] are treated very poorly. (...) adaptivedemux2 plugin must be installed

You can use CLAPPER_USE_PLAYBIN3=1 env to force usage of playbin3 and thus adaptivedemux2 inside it.

VTT subs show up now, but cea-608 captions are still missing. I'm sure that they're there [checked with other player and stream analyzer] . Any idea how to fix this?

[barolo]

Also, opening m3u file [master playlist with hls streams] still doesn't work. Clapper complains that it's a text file.

[Rafostar]

cea-608 captions are still missing. I'm sure that they're there [checked with other player and stream analyzer] .

Did you check with another GStreamer-based player? From the manifest, it seems these are INSTREAM-ID="CC1" and as far as I see, GStreamer does not support this yet: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/blob/3523ba76ae08193a14467a4cddf008f2bdc3f9ad/subprojects/gst-plugins-good/ext/adaptivedemux2/hls/m3u8.c?page=3#L2728

So the "fix" would be implementing them in GStreamer, then they should show up and "just work" in Clapper.

Also, opening m3u file [master playlist with hls streams] still doesn't work. Clapper complains that it's a text file.

This issue/feature request is still open after all.

[barolo]

Did you check with another GStreamer-based player? From the manifest, it seems these are INSTREAM-ID="CC1" and as far as I see, GStreamer does not support this yet: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/blob/3523ba76ae08193a14467a4cddf008f2bdc3f9ad/subprojects/gst-plugins-good/ext/adaptivedemux2/hls/m3u8.c?page=3#L2728

So the "fix" would be implementing them in GStreamer, then they should show up and "just work" in Clapper.

It's a funny situation, because ffmpeg [via mpv for example] supports eia in adaptive hls, but not vtt, and with gstreamer it's the other way around 😅