Viblast

Greetings!

It seems that the Viblast player has difficulty playing the MP3 files via HLS protocol.

Here is a file it can play (AAC):

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/m/_definst_/mp4:test.m4a/playlist.m3u8

It can be viewed on this page:

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-m4a.htm

Here is a file it cannot play (MP3):

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/m/_definst_/mp3:test.mp3/playlist.m3u8

It can be viewed on this page:

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3.htm

The streaming server is Wowza.

Viblast's release history mentions added support for MP3 files in version 6.40:

https://docs.viblast.com/player/release-history

so I was hoping that streaming MP3 files will work.

I've tested this mp3 file at the Theoplayer demo page:

http://demo.theoplayer.com/test-hls-mpeg-dash-stream

by entering the URL of the stream:

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/m/_definst_/mp3:test.mp3/playlist.m3u8

and it works fine. So it seems that this is technically possible to stream such files with the html5 video tag.

Hope you can enhance the Viblast player so that it will be able to stream such MP3 streams via HLS.

Many thanks for your reply! I'll wait for your support of encrypted MP3 streams.

I've renamed the test page URL to

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v1.htm

it uses an encrypted MP3 stream

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/m/_definst_/mp3:test.mp3/playlist.m3u8

and I've added two more test pages with unencrypted MP3 streams:

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v2.htm

it uses unencrypted MP3 stream with MP3 chunks

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/p/_definst_/mp3:test.mp3/playlist.m3u8

This stream also does not work in Viblast, but it works on the Theoplayer demo page.

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v3.htm

it uses unencrypted MP3 stream with TS chunks

http://stream.classicalarchives.com/a/_definst_/mp3:test.mp3/playlist.m3u8

This stream works fine in Theoplayer.

So please also consider to add support for playing HLS streams with MP3 chunks.

Greetings,

I'm testing with Google Chrome 59.0.3067.0 dev (64-bit) on Linux.

I've noticed an inaccuracy in my comment: the stream on the page

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v3.htm

works fine in Viblast (it uses unencrypted MP3 with TS chunks).

The test on the page

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v2.htm

fails in Viblast (but works on the Theoplayer demo page). This page uses unencrypted MP3 with MP3 chunks.

I've just re-tested with Google Chrome 57.0.2987.133 which is the latest stable version on Linux, and the behavior remained the same:

unencrypted MP3 from page

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v3.htm

works fine in Viblast (it uses unencrypted MP3 with TS chunks).

but unencrypted MP3 from page

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v2.htm

fails in Viblast (but works on the Theoplayer demo page). This page uses unencrypted MP3 with MP3 chunks.

Greetings,

Thank you for your reply. It looks like you've made good progress!

Now it looks like even the encrypted MP3 from this page works too:

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v1.htm

(I.e. all 3 test mp3 pages seem to play the music now).

However, there seems to be a problem with the current Viblast version (6.42.1): it seems that the AAC streams are now broken - this page now shows an error:

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-m4a.htm

If I explicitly specify the Viblast version 6.41 in the script tag, i.e. use

//cdn.viblast.com/vb/6.41/viblast.js

I can play this stream, but when loading //cdn.viblast.com/vb/stable/viblast.js (or when specifying version 6.42.1) I cannot stream the AAC file anymore.

Also, I've noticed a problem on Google Chrome with streaming MP3 files:

Open any of the 3 test pages for mp3, e.g.

http://www.classicalarchives.com/test-viblast/test-mp3-v3.htm

in Google Chrome, and then try to seek to various positions in the track while it is playing by clicking the videojs control for seeking the track. The outcome of such seeking is often one of the following:

the track length displayed by videojs often changes from the correct value 3:04, and the track may either stop playing at the position you've switched to, or playback could freeze. This does not happen in Firefox: there, I can seek without problems back and forth, and playback continues from the correct place and the track duration does not change.

Many thanks for the fixes! Everything seems to work fine now.