[FFmpeg-devel] FIX: HLS Discontinuity / Non-Monotonous DTS

Carl Eugen Hoyos ceffmpeg at gmail.com
Fri Mar 16 16:47:10 EET 2018


2018-03-16 14:58 GMT+01:00, Joe Koberg <joe at koberg.us>:
> Hello,
>
> This patch adds code to track and correct timestamp discontinuities, fixing
> "non-monotonous dts" errors and timing issues with HLS playlists.
>
> For some time, FFmpeg has not properly handled discontinuous timestamps in
> the MPEG-TS stream from Apple HLS playlists. Symptoms include inability to
> remux to containers like MP4 or stream to RTMP endpoints; choppy, broken,
> or sped-up playback; and voluminous "Non-monotonous DTS", "went backwards",
> and "out of order" messages logged.  This is particularly troublesome in
> the context of HLS, as the format allows insertion of independently-sourced
> fragments for ad-insertion or to concatenate ongoing video to a stream.
>
> Over the years, many users have encountered and reported this issue in
> different ways.
>
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/5419 "HLS EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY tag is not
> supported"
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/6613
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/6810
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/6709
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/6365
>   * https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/5236
>   * https://github.com/Bilibili/ijkplayer/issues/2565
>   *
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49289394/downloading-ts-stream-with-
> ext-x-discontinuity-sequence-ffmpeg
>   * etc...
>
>
> It appears that the -dts_delta_threshold checking code is quite similar in
> intent, and adjacent to this code, but the HLS demuxer lacks the
> AVFMT_TS_DISCONT flag, effectively disabling that option.  Even when
> AVFMT_TS_DISCONT is set on the input format (e.g. MPEG-TS),
> "-dts_delta_threshold 0" produces out-of-sync audio in our tests.  That
> code has been left as-is for now.  The flag probably should be set on the
> HLS format, though.
>
> In this fix, any backwards DTS jump is considered an error, as is any
> forward jump of DTS or PTS by more than `dts_monotonicity_threshold`
> microseconds (really, AV_TIME_BASE units, defaulting to 1000000 = 1
> second). The delta from the predicted value is updated and applied to all
> subsequent packets, with the assumption that video was stitched together
> from continuous runs.
>
> With this patch in place and the -force_dts_monotonicity flag set, we can
> successfuly transcode arbitrary HLS playlists to MP4, FLV, or other
> timestamped containers when we could not before.  The playback presentation
> of the result is smooth, properly timed, and in-sync in Quicktime Player,
> VLC, and ffplay with correctly reported and the file seekable.
>
> Interaction with flags such as -copyts, -copytb, and others has not been
> fully analyzed.
>
> We have prepared a test HLS playlist that reveals the issue.
>
> How to reproduce:
>
>   ffmpeg -i https://s3.amazonaws.com/playon-test-videos/discont_
> test_new/discont_test.m3u8 -c copy -y output.mp4
>
> With patch:
>
>   ffmpeg -force_dts_monotonicity -i https://s3.amazonaws.com/
> playon-test-videos/discont_test_new/discont_test.m3u8 -c copy -y output.mp4
>
>
> Please let me know if I've missed anything!
>
> ----
>
> Joe Koberg
> jkoberg at gmail.com
>


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