HLS (HTTP Live Streaming)

HLS or HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. as part of its QuickTime, Safari, OS X, and iOS software. It works similarly to MPEG-DASH in that it also breaks the stream into small HTTP-based downloadable segments.

A list of available streams, encoded at different bit rates, is sent to the client using an extended M3U playlist. Because it is based on HTTP, this protocol can traverse any firewall or proxy server.