How to MPEG-DASH video streaming in iOS?

Question

I am trying to write a JavaScript-based implementation of MPEG-DASH for video streaming. I have referenced the following documents:

• dash.js - https://github.com/Dash-Industry-Forum/dash.js/wiki
• Google Shaka Player - https://github.com/google/shaka-player

These libraries are using MSE (Media Source Extensions).

My understanding

MPEG-DASH is an international standard for streaming video, but it is currently not natively supported in iOS devices. In other browsers and devices, it requires a JavaScript library or a video player that supports MPEG-DASH (eg: Dash.Js, Shaka player).

And another streaming technology is HLS. It is an adaptive streaming communications protocol created by Apple. The Safari browser can play HLS streams within a web page, iPhone, and iPod touch devices.

Here, we can see that MPEG-DASH (because of MSE) is currently not natively supported in iOS devices.

Now, my doubts:

1. How can we stream MPEG-DASH videos in iOS without MSE?
2. How Facebook and other streaming media services play their videos? is it with HLS only ?

Any suggestion/explanations would be more than helpful!

Answer 1

You can setup proxy server on a device and then create a parser that will be translating mpd files into m3u8 and serve m3u8 for AVPlayer. For ios proxy GCD should do the trick: GCDWebServer