HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) is an HTTP-based media streaming communications protocol implemented by Apple Inc. as part of its QuickTime, Safari, OS X, and iOS software.
It resembles MPEG-DASH (MPD) in that it works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each download loading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. As the stream is played, the client may select from a number of different alternate streams containing the same material encoded at a variety of data rates, allowing the streaming session to adapt to the available data rate. At the start of the streaming session, HLS downloads an extended M3U8 manifest playlist containing the metadata for the various sub-streams which are available.
How to download HLS – M3U8 video stream?
ChrisPC VideoTube Downloader Pro version 10 has improved detection for M3U8 Recorded video stream and also for Live events. Depending on your Internet connection, the download speed is up to 15x times faster than watching your favorite show in your browser.
While browsing and playing the desired video content in the embedded browser, Link Finder engine detects and displays all URLs to video content, indicating the video type and the URL where the video content is located for each video found. You have then the option to add the URLs to the download list and start the download.
Beside M3U8 HLS manifests, Video Link Finder also detects other popular streaming protocols like RTMP, HDS (HTTP Dynamic Streaming – F4M), MPEG-DASH (MPD), HLS (HTTP Live Streaming – M3U8) and VOD files (Video-On-Demand files like MP4, MP3, FLV, AAC etc).