This guide introduces HLS, which segments your audio for reliable, compatible, and highly distributable HTTP streaming, ideal for mobile and large audiences.

What is HLS?

HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) is a streaming protocol that divides audio into small segments of a few seconds and publishes an .m3u8 manifest listing these segments. The Player downloads these segments via HTTP/HTTPS (ports 80/443), which facilitates caching, resuming after interruptions, and large-scale distribution.

On your Radio Streaming service, enabling HLS adds an additional stream. It has its own listening URL (HLS manifest) and can be selected and prioritized in the Infomaniak Player. The HLS stream coexists with your existing streams (e.g., MP3/AAC) without any service interruption.

Advantages for a radio stream

• Wide compatibility: native support on iOS/iPadOS (Safari) and broad support via modern HTML5 players and third-party applications.
• Scalability and performance: delivered via HTTP(S), easily distributed by CDNs and caches; better scalability than a single continuous stream.
• Robustness: in the event of brief interruptions, the player can retrieve the following segments and quickly resume; less susceptible to temporary losses.
• Network traversal: works on ports 80/443, generally better accepted by firewalls and corporate proxies than certain “ICY” streams.
• Simplified HTTPS: secure delivery without plugins or exotic protocols.
• Adaptive Bitrate (ABR): when multiple variants are offered, the player can automatically switch based on network quality to minimize interruptions on mobile devices.
• Flexible integration: a separate listening point allows you to expose HLS as the primary, secondary, or backup stream in your player.

Specific features and points to note

• Latency: HLS adds a latency of generally a few tens of seconds (related to the size of the segments and buffering). This is normal for this protocol.
• Compatible player required: use the Infomaniak player or a player/web SDK that supports .m3u8 manifests.
• Heterogeneous environment: some older hardware receivers (web radios, IP car radios) only accept MP3/Icecast streams; keep their historical URLs in parallel.
• ABR condition: Adaptive bitrate is only effective if multiple profiles are published; otherwise, the HLS stream remains functional in a single quality.