I noticed tonight that the playback on iPlayer now seems to be using HDS as default. Right clicking the flash window shows something like
Code:
1700kbps | HDS (mf_limelight_uk_hds) | b03d3jss | 960x540
Could this mean that RTMP streams will disappear completely soon?
UPDATE: Regional news programmes still seem to use RTMP and so do radio streams.
The BBC have already said that RTMP streaming will die, with HDS possibly acting as a bridge to MPEG-DASH. There is unlikely to be any warning when they kill RTMP, so it could go at any time. The BBC said that RTMP should be running for radio through the Proms, but who knows what will happen? HDS won't be available to get_iplayer any time soon, so when RTMP goes, things will be HLS-only, assuming that is still available.
Is MPEG-DASH supportable by GiP? I'm guessing that the HDS options are much harder to impliment than the HLS options were. Is there any real difference between the two?
Hopefully they will leave the HDS and HLS feeds available as well as MPEG-DASH when it happens. If they planned to get rid of them wouldn't it make more sense for them to stick with RTMP until they are ready with MPEG-DASH?
When they first announced the move to HDS/HLS they said that it would happen for radio with no mention of TV so it seemed like radio would be the first to change.
MPEG-DASH is not supported.
HDS and HLS are both chunked, but they use different media and stream formats.
MPEG-DASH will probably take a while to be fully-supported across the devices supported by iPlayer. I don't think Apple has yet decided to support DASH on iOS, so hopefully HLS will stick around for a while. However, HDS is cheaper and easier to manage than RTMP, so don't expect RTMP to stick around any longer than they need it to support devices that use it.
TV switched to HDS for live broadcast quite a while before radio. It's a much bigger job switching catch-up radio, so no surprise that TV is going first.