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By default m3u8 files can be played in Mac Safari browser, but not in any other desktop browsers. What needs to be done to play them in all browsers, both supporting HTML5 and non-HTML5?
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Just open Microsoft Edge and write the url of the m3u8 file and it will start playing.
How to open an M3U8 file. You can open an M3U8 file and play the playlist it contains in many media players, including Microsoft Windows Media Player (Windows) and VideoLAN VLC media player (multiplatform).
Windows Media Player technically plays . m3u8 files, but it stutters between each of the audio segments. As an example, try playing https://s3.amazonaws.com/cnn-assets/app-assets/cnn-lite/liteaudio.m3u8, and there will be a stutter every 10 seconds. Increasing the network buffering in settings doesn't help.
Download M3U8 files and then play: Click the YouTube button on the main UI to access the download window > paste the m3u8 link into the box to analyze and then click Download. After downloading, you can see the new M3U8 videos in the Videos list, double click a video and 5KPlayer will play it immediately.
Unfortunately HTML5 support for video is so fragmented that it is, to all intents and purposes, useless (at least as a primary focus) at this point in time. M3U8 playlists are Apple HTTP Live Streaming, and as you can tell from the name, they are (or at least started out as) an Apple standard, no other browser uses them, or HTTP Live Streaming.
There are some programs you can install to add support for HLS. Some companies have, for example, produced HLS players written in Flash, or Silverlight. Yospace has produced a flash SDK for HLS playback which includes a JWPlayer mediaprovider which allows you to use JW's automatic HTML5 fallback on non-flash devices (read: iPhone/iPad), while all others get the JWPlayer experience.
There have been many promises from various companies to "standardize browser video support" but they have all (so far) come to nothing, so whatever option you choose, it's going to be a compromise of sorts.
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