v2.95 LiveTV mode is hvfhd

[Anthony Kehoe]

So my mistake.. I was wondering why there was a big difference between
the transport medium between 2.94 and 2.95 and had assumed it was the
transition to hvfhd in 2.95 that was the cause. I went back to 2.94
and saw the obvious difference. But I've now gone and looked at the
debug output from get_iplayer with live streaming and see it was my
mistake. It seems the default live stream with 2.94 was hlsvhigh, not
hlshd like I had thought.

QUERY_STRING = ACTION=stream&PROGTYPES=livetv&PID=bbc_one_hd&MODES=default&STREAMTYPE=&BITRATE=&VSIZE=&VFR=&VERSIONLIST=default

HEADERS:
Connection: close
Content-Type: video/x-flv; charset=ISO-8859-1


INFO: Transcoding disabled for livetv
INFO: Start Streaming bbc_one_hd to browser using modes 'default',
output ext 'ts', audio bitrate '', video size '', video frame rate ''
DEBUG: get_iplayer options: "nopurge=1" "modes=default" "stream=1"
"pid=bbc_one_hd" "type=livetv" "versionlist=default"
INFO: Command: /home/iTunes/get_iplayer/get_iplayer
--encoding-locale=UTF-8 --encoding-console-out=UTF-8 --nocopyright
--hash --expiry=999999999 --webrequest
nopurge%3D1?modes%3Ddefault?stream%3D1?pid%3Dbbc_one_hd?type%3Dlivetv?versionlist%3Ddefault
DEBUG: Forked STDOUT reader with PID 9760
DEBUG: Forked STDERR reader with PID 9761
INFO Trying to stream pid using type livetv
INFO: pid found in cache
Matches:
80005:  BBC One - live

INFO: Checking existence of default version
INFO: hlsvhigh1,hlsvhigh2,hlshigh1,hlshigh2,hlsstd1,hlsstd2,hlslow1,hlslow2
modes will be tried for version default
INFO: Trying hlsvhigh1 mode to record livetv: BBC One - live
INFO: File name prefix = BBC_One_live_2016-07-21_02_03_42

Version:
get_iplayer v2.94, Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Phil Lewis
  This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty.
  This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
  conditions; use --conditions for details.


>From 2.95, I get:
INFO: Transcoding disabled for livetv
INFO: Start Streaming bbc_one_hd to browser using modes 'default',
output ext 'ts', audio bitrate '', video size '', video frame rate ''
DEBUG: get_iplayer options: "nopurge=1" "modes=default" "stream=1"
"pid=bbc_one_hd" "type=livetv" "versionlist=default"
INFO: Command: /home/iTunes/get_iplayer/get_iplayer
--encoding-locale=UTF-8 --encoding-console-out=UTF-8 --nocopyright
--hash --expiry=999999999 --webrequest
nopurge%3D1?modes%3Ddefault?stream%3D1?pid%3Dbbc_one_hd?type%3Dlivetv?versionlist%3Ddefault
DEBUG: Forked STDOUT reader with PID 9843
DEBUG: Forked STDERR reader with PID 9844
INFO Trying to stream pid using type livetv
INFO: pid found in cache
Matches:
80005:  BBC One - live

INFO: 1 Matching Programmes
INFO: Checking existence of default version
INFO: hvfhd1,hvfhd2,hvfsd1,hvfsd2,hvfvhigh1,hvfvhigh2,hvfhigh1,hvfhigh2,hvfstd1,hvfstd2,hvflow1,hvflow2
modes will be tried for version default
INFO: Trying hvfhd1 mode to stream livetv: BBC One - live



So again, I was definitely mistaken. Maybe I was surprised with how
good the hlsvhigh looked on my tv. :) I noticed the extremely high
bandwidth usage I was experiencing while watching the Euro 2016 games
through livetv streaming and was wondering why it was all of a sudden
so much larger than the hlshd catch-up content I was downloading. I
usually package up the mp4 downloads from GiP and dump them into the
"Automatically Add to iTunes" folder from my NAS so I can watch
content through the AppleTVs I have.

Thanks for the detailed output and I should have dug a bit deeper into
the debug before asking for help.. I know how to do that so I suppose
I was lazy. :)

Anthony

On 20 July 2016 at 18:12, Vangelis forthnet <northmedia1 at the.forthnet.gr> wrote:
> On Tue Jul 19 17:44:02 BST 2016, Anthony Kehoe wrote:
>
>> I have tested with v2.94 and the old mode still works,
>> however it's not exposed with the new version.
>
>
> Hi Anthony!
>
> Are you absolutely certain?
> The beeb have killed the old 720p25fps Live TV feeds
> (--livetvmode=hlshd) many months ago, for the record
> those were 1280x720p/25fps/VideoBR ~ 3500kbps
> (AVC profile High at L3.2)/AudioBR ~ 128kbps
> (AAC LC), so their specs were different to the
> --tvmode=hlshd in use still now for VOD
> [1280x720p/25fps/VideoBR ~ 2300kbps
> (AVC profile High at L4.1)/AudioBR ~ 96kbps
> (AAC LC)].
> If in fact they do still exist somewhere, please provide
> sound proof of that! GiP surely doesn't know where
> to search for/find them!
>
> Last September (2015), issue #202 was created,
>
> https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer/issues/202
>
> and later closed on 05/10/2015 by commit git-6f81133
>
> https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer/commit/6f81133
>
> which dealt (among others) with the demise of the former
> HD (720p) live TV streams:
>
>> - Removed old method of finding HLS live TV streams
>> from HDS data.  Live TV streams now derived
>> from Video Factory data
>
>
> 720p25fps live TV AdobeHDS streams were killed-off
> by the beeb, so GiP couldn't generate the AppleHLS
> equivalents of them...
>
> I have a custom Windows GiP installation so I can check
> various different versions of the main get_iplayer perl script;
> to test further your claim, with the vanilla "tag 2.94" script
> I issued:
>
> perl get_iplayer-294.pl --type=livetv "BBC One" -i -v
>
> which found:
>
> INFO: Found mode hlshigh1: (gip_hls_simulcast_978) hls h264 704x396 978kbps
> stre
> am (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hlshigh2: (gip_hls_simulcast_978) hls h264 704x396 978kbps
> stre
> am (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> INFO: Found mode hlslow1: (gip_hls_simulcast_348) hls h264 384x216 348kbps
> strea
> m (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hlslow2: (gip_hls_simulcast_348) hls h264 384x216 348kbps
> strea
> m (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> INFO: Found mode hlsstd1: (gip_hls_simulcast_564) hls h264 512x288 564kbps
> strea
> m (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hlsstd2: (gip_hls_simulcast_564) hls h264 512x288 564kbps
> strea
> m (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> INFO: Found mode hlsvhigh1: (gip_hls_simulcast_1802) hls h264 960x540
> 1802kbps s
> tream (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hlsvhigh2: (gip_hls_simulcast_1802) hls h264 960x540
> 1802kbps s
> tream (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> INFO: Will search for versions: default
>
> As you (or anyone) can see, no trace of a hlshd (1280x720p 3600kbps)
> livetvmode! The highest quality GiP 2.94 can currently find is
> hlsvhigh (960x540 1802kbps, 25fps) - a test 1min recording confirmed it:
>
> perl get_iplayer-294.pl --type=livetv "BBC One" -g --livetvmode=best
> --hls-livetv-opts="-c copy" --force --stop 60
>
> (my ffmpeg version is > 2.5, so I used
> --hls-livetv-opts="-c copy" to avoid an
> unnecessary, in my case, audio-video
> recoding, the default setting in GiP 2.94)
>
> The "hlsvhigh" livetvmode of GiP 2.94
> has been re-labeled to "hvfvhigh" in GiP 2.95,
> after the segregation of the "Video Factory" HLS modes...
> With the vanilla 2.95 script:
>
> perl get_iplayer-295.pl --type=livetv "BBC One" -i -v
>
> INFO: Found mode hvfhd1: (gip_hvf_simulcast_5380) hls h264 1280x720 5380kbps
> str
> eam (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hvfhd2: (gip_hvf_simulcast_5380) hls h264 1280x720 5380kbps
> str
> eam (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> (snip)
> INFO: Found mode hvfsd1: (gip_hvf_simulcast_3043) hls h264 960x540 3043kbps
> stre
> am (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hvfsd2: (gip_hvf_simulcast_3043) hls h264 960x540 3043kbps
> stre
> am (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
> (snip)
> INFO: Found mode hvfvhigh1: (gip_hvf_simulcast_1759) hls h264 960x540
> 1759kbps s
> tream (CDN: ll_hls_live/102)
> INFO: Found mode hvfvhigh2: (gip_hvf_simulcast_1759) hls h264 960x540
> 1759kbps s
> tream (CDN: akamai_hls_live/101)
>
>> but the default LiveTV mode is now hvfhd for HD streams
>> (snip)
>> hvfhd downloads at twice the bandwidth (50fps stream)
>> compared to the old mode, however there
>> is negligible quality improvement in general.
>
>
> As I've said in the beginning of this reply,
> the actual increase in bandwidth for the 720p
> live stream is not 100%, but a ~ 50%
> one [(5380-3630)*100/3630].
> What you describe is true only for on-demand
> (file size of hvfhd roughly twice of hlshd=flashhd).
>
> If, as you say, you feel uncomfortable
> with the high bitrate of hvfhd livetvmode
> for - admittedly - small quality gains, you can stay
> away from it by specifically asking in your
> commands for --livetvmode=hvfsd
> (960x540p/3043kbps/50fps) or
> --livetvmode=hvfvhigh
> (960x540p/1760kbps/25fps).
>
> Better yet, wait until the TV content you are consuming
> via the live TV stream has made it to on-demand,
> then record the hlshd tvmode...
>
>> Would it be possible to add
>> hls modes back in for LiveTV
>
>
> Please provide direct instructions as to
> how those elusive hlshd (720p25fps)
> live TV streams can be located; in the
> event your initial claim about their existence
> stands true, I wouldn't hold my breath!
> In 2.95, the code maintainer has
> "deprecated" live stream (TV|radio)
> recording functions of GiP - they do still
> work at the extent they did at 2.95's release,
> however he's not inclined to further continue
> support for them; most probably they'll
> be ripped out from GiP in the next major release!
>
> (... a search on your website reveals you are
> an IT professional, so I guess you'll feel
> at ease with the somewhat "techie" nature
> of my response...)
>
> Most kind regards,
> Vangelis.
>
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