HLS on older platforms

THEOlive uses the HESP protocol to deliver high quality at very low latencies. However, HESP only works on platforms that have streaming HTTP requests. On very old devices like 2015 smart TV's this is not possible and hence low-latency streaming is not really possible on those devices. Therefore, when there is no streaming HTTP we fallback to HLS.

HLS has the advantage that it plays on almost any device, but with higher latency. So on those old Smart TV's, you will still get playback, but the latency will be a lot higher than on your modern laptop. The latency on HLS will be around 10 seconds.