Live Streaming Protection

I have posted something before on this forum regarding this. Does s2 have the capability to protect live streams coming from amazon cloudfront?

I’m finding information regarding using a media extension rss feed that could work with jwplayer v6 that may contain a live stream.. is it possible to load an rss feed using the [s2stream] shortcode? This could potentially be a way to protect live streams using rss feed playlists..

Thanks for your inquiry. ~ We appreciate your patience :-)

I have posted something before on this forum regarding this. Does s2 have the capability to protect live streams coming from amazon cloudfront?

Yes, please see: Knowledge Base » JW Player® w/ [s2Stream /] Shortcodes

I’m finding information regarding using a media extension rss feed that could work with jwplayer v6 that may contain a live stream.. is it possible to load an rss feed using the [s2stream] shortcode? This could potentially be a way to protect live streams using rss feed playlists..

The s2Stream Shortcode is designed to serve audio/video content, it will not serve an XML feed for you. However, s2Member can certainly protect an RSS feed, you will just need to place the XML feed file inside of your security-enabled directory (i.e. inside /wp-content/plugins/s2member-files/), and serve it from there.

What you make available through this feed, could also be protected. If you’d like to elaborate some more, I’ll see if I can point you in the right direction. I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to accomplish exactly. Thanks!

See also: Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Download Options

Hi Jason, thanks for the reply!! I did find your post earlier about the [s2Stream \] shortcode. What I’m trying to achieve is to prevent hot linking of a LIVE streaming urls “leeching” when the stream is occurring. When serving a HLS live stream from cloudfront, the streaming url is not protected. I don’t believe the concept of signing urls applies to this case.

I’m trying to find a way to protect a live streaming url on my site. I know that Premium Edition of the v6 Player (which we have purchased ) supports playing an HLS stream in a forced flash mode which can used on desktops and will also detect for iphone, ipads ect and play on those devices. So I guess my question is, can [s2Stream \] be configured to use the premium edition of the player and also protect a live stream?

I’ve read on the longtail site that v6 of the player can load an rss feed with mrss extension and that may contain a .m3u8 url for HLS. My logic is to protect a rss feed on my s3 bucket which would contain my m3u8 stream .. I’m not sure if this is an answer, but it doesn’t seem that obvious how to protect a live stream with s2member.

Thanks for the follow-up :-)

You’re a little over my head right now. Sorry, I’ve not done what you’re talking about myself yet. Can you please post some links/articles for me to review and learn more about what you’re trying to accomplish? Thanks!

Possible related article.
http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/faqs/#Does_Amazon_CloudFront_support_live_streaming

Thanks for your patience Jason, let me try to clarify if you refer to these links you’ll find all the information regarding Live Streaming using Adobe Flash Media Server, additionally you’ll find information regarding HTTP Live Streaming also known as HLS Streaming which is the protocol to Live Stream to Apple devices … And when I say Live Stream, I mean streaming a live event in real time …

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/LiveStreamingAdobeFMS4.5.html

The tutorial above explains how to create a cloud formation stack for Live Streaming. The following link is where the urls are generated to embed in a player ect ..

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/LiveStreamingAdobeFMS4.5.html

By default, amazon gives you an embed code with their native player for flash that you can use on your site and also gives you a url for HLS for streaming to Apple devices using the m3u8 file format for implementation. By editing a cross domain file on the cloudformation stack that was created for the live stream, I can enable use of a third party player at my domain, such as JWPlayer ..

So I end up with 2 urls for my Live Stream Event … Flash and HLS .

My primary choice for end user is to use the url for HLS stream, and this is why ..

The premium edition which is a paid upgrade from the free edition of JW Player v6 supports playback of an m3u8 file ( HLS ) in a forced Flash mode which will allow desktops browsers to view the stream in all major browsers and the player will also auto detect if the device only supports HTML and will serve up the stream on the Apple devices using the Apple implemented m3u8 file format which is already designed to work on Apple devices as part of the Native and IOS platforms .. As described here:

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/28856/using-apple-hls-streaming

The player can also playback rss feeds with HLS urls in them as described here:

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/28843/loading-rss-feeds

I’m realizing while writing all of this that it seems editing the cross domain on the Cloud formation stack which would allow playback of third party players hosted at my domain will provide some security, since no one could use their own player for the content, but not sure how to protect the actual urls in the player, since someone could possibly re-construct a native embed code from the amazon examples.

I hope I was able to clarify better .. At the end of the day, securing a Live Streaming Event is what I’d like to do and wonder if there’s any insight from s2member about this.

And to go back to the beginning of this thread, protecting a properly formatted rss feed for jwplayer containing an HLS url was a natural thought that popped into my head as a possibility since we are protecting xml files already for our iTunes podcast .. But maybe there might be other options ..