The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

I would just like to ask what is the difference between VOD and LIVE streaming in terms of SDP.
Is "a=type:broadcast" for VOD only or both? What are other ways to distinguish VOD and LIVE streaming by just looking at their SDP information? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
artsylar

The reason I asked this is because in some streaming client, streaming playback cannot be paused since they thought it is a LIVE streaming because of the "a=type:broadcast" parameter.

The most common way is to look at the t= field. But there are no reliable ways to determine whether something is a broadcast or a live stream. In fact, the distinction is not very clear - some live streaming server provide limitted seeking capability, i.e. timeshifting (though VLC does not).