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

Joe Koberg joe at koberg.us
Fri Mar 16 15:58:17 EET 2018


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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