Live MPEG-DASH Streaming: How to Watch and Share via M3U Playlist

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M3U8 Stream: How to Stream M3U8 with M3U8 Live Stream URL?

Posted by Kaylee Wood | Last update: July 27, 2020 | 3 Min Read

“I am trying to watch video and getting the following msg: CANNOT LOAD M3U8: 404 NOT FOUND! Anyone can help please? And is there any fix? Thanks.” – styan1

No kidding, M3U8 streaming is not as easy as playing MP4 or MP3 files that are saved on your computer. To stream M3U8 on Mac or PC successfully, you need to know some preparations before any actions, say getting working M3U8 streams links, a professional M3U8 player and the how-to guide for the chosen M3U8 player. So, this page does the job for you by providing a 100% workable way to M3U8 streaming without any errors including video dropping, stopping, or bad quality.

Main Contents:
Part 1. Find Working M3U8 Live Stream URLs
Part 2. Get a Professional M3U8 Player
Part 3. Step-by-step Guide to Stream M3U8
Further Reading: What is M3U8?

Further Reading: What Is M3U8?

M3U8 is an HTTP Live Streaming based file format that contains multimedia playlist and usually saved with the “m3u” filename extension if the text is encoded in the local system’s default non-Unicode encoding, or with the “m3u8” extension if the text is UTF-8 encoded. HLS is a new generation of streaming media transmission protocol, its realizing method is cut a large media file into several small clips and then record the file resource path of the clips into M3U8 playlist with some other extra information such as video length, bandwidth, etc. to client (web extension, PC software or mobile APP). Then, the client parse the M3U8 file to get the HLS streaming video.

Part 1. How to Find Working M3U8 Streams Links?

You are provided two ways to find workable M3U8 streaming URLs:

Way 1 – Google M3U8 url sites to get

There are a variety of online sites offering you M3U8 links, covering examples from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, etc. You can just input M3U8 live stream URL or IPTV playlist links to Google search box and hit enter to find. BTW, m.m3uiptv, iptvfreelinks, Daily IPTV List and GitHub are the four ones I often use to find my desired M3U8 links.

However, you have to know the links from such sites probably stop working quickly that you have to find another one again and again. So, you can try to extract the URL from specific site by yourself.

Kindly remind, sometimes you can directly get the .m3u8 stream URLs, but often the case you get .m3u links. Don’t worry, you can simply download the .m3u playlist URL as an .m3u file and then open it with Notepad to find a list of .m3u8 streaming links.

Way 2 – Extract M3U8 streaming url by yourself

You can make use of a video grabbing software or extension to find the .m3u8 link from an IPTV channel. Or, right-click the video page you are watching on Chrome to choose Inspect > choose the small phone icon and then choose Network > click on the funnel icon > Media > refresh the page and play your video again > then, there will pop up an .m3u8 link > copy it.

Click here

Part 2. Different Types of M3U8 Streaming Player Reviews

1. Online M3U8 Player

Find an online tool, and test and stream your M3U8 streams would be a good choice, because you do not need to spend time on downloading and adding anything to your computer that may occupy the storage space. Just copy and paste the M3U8 live stream URL to the box, you can get the video to watch. Some examples include Castr Player, HLSPlayer, M3U8 Player Online and hlstester.

However, the M3U8 online streaming tools process the video slowly and cannot always work properly to test and stream M3U8. Also, such online tools are less trustworthy, sometimes you may visit a website page that does not match the anchor text or the description.

2. M3U8 Extension for Browser

For Mac users, M3U8 videos can be opened by inputting the M3U8 URL to Safari browser directly because M3U8 files are the basis for the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) format originally developed by Apple for iOS and Mac devices. For Windows users, adding M3U8 extensions such as Native HLS, HLS.js Playback, PlayHLS M3u8, etc. to your browsers can help you stream M3U8 videos easily.

M3U8 streaming through extensions seems to be a better choice than the online M3U8 players, but actually they are not that stable to use. For example, when an M3U8 cannot load problem occurs, you cannot tell if it is a problem of the M3U8 URL or the extension itself because there are glitches in extension every now and then. And, to find out what is happening, it takes you time to remove and reinstall and extension again and again.

3. Desktop M3U8 Player Software

Downloading and installing a safe and powerful M3U8 streaming player on computer is recommended. Compared to online M3U8 player and the browser extension, M3U8 player software is much more reliable and stable to use. If you want a media player software that supports streaming and downloading M3U8 playlist without any limits, 5KPlayer is the ideal one that can be your first choice to access and play any video.

5KPlayer is born to be an all-in-one multimedia player for video and audio playback. It plays almost all types of known video formats including M3U8 and supports video download from 300+ online sites. If you want to stream or download M3U8 videos, follow the very simple tutorial below.

Part 3. How to Stream M3U8 IPTV with 5KPlayer?

Step 1. Free download and install 5KPlayer on your computer. Then, open to launch it.
Step 2. Click on the “Live” icon on the main user interface of 5KPlayer, paste the .m3u8 live stream URL to the “Input a URL” box.
Step 3. Hit Play to start M3U8 streaming with 5KPlayer.

Notice:

• You may need to wait seconds to allow 5KPlayer to preload the M3U8 video playlist so that the M3U8 videos could be streamed smoothly.
• The image quality is based on your network and M3U8 streaming will automatically choose the best network to enable the smooth streaming. So, if the image quality is poor, contact your network server to make your network stronger.
• You are also allowed to firstly download an M3U8 video and then drag and drop it to 5KPlayer to play.

Apart from M3U8 streaming, 5KPlayer also features abilities to playback videos up to 4K and even 8K, receive AirPlay mirroring contents from iPhone iPad, DLNA stream videos music to smart TV and download videos music from 300+ sites including YouTube. Also, with the built-in essential editing tools, it is very convenient for you to cut, rotate, adjust color, adjust contrast and so on of a video during playback.

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