Adaptive Streaming Technology Comparison
Adaptive Streaming Technology Comparison
The following table shows a technology comparison on different use cases and features between the proprietary adaptive streaming technologies Adobe HDS, Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, and the MPEG-DASH standard. Please note that this comparison is based on the standard’s capabilities, and not reflecting the specific implementation from a certain vendor.
| Feature | Adobe HDS | Apple HLS | Microsoft Smooth | MPEG DASH |
| Deployment on Standard HTTP Servers |  |
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| Official International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC MPEG) | |
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| Multiple Audio Channels (e.g., Languages, Comments, etc.) | |
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| Flexible Content Protection with Common Encryption (DRM) | |
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| Closed Captions / Subtitles | |
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| Efficent Ad Insertion | |
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| Fast Channel Switching | |
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| Protocol Support’s multiple CDNs in parallel | |
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| HTML5 Support | |
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| Support in HbbTV (version 1.5) | |
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| HEVC Ready (UHD/4K) | |
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| Agnostic to Video Codecs | |
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| Agnostic to Audio Codecs | |
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| ISO Base Media File Format Segments | |
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| MPEG-2 TS Segments | |
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| Segment Format Extensions beyond MPEG | |
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| Support for multiplexed (Audio + Video) Content | |
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| Support for non-multiplexed (separate Audio, Video) Content | |
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| Definition of Quality Metrics | |
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| Client Logging & Reporting | |
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| Client Failover | |
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| Remove and add Quality Levels during Streaming | |
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| Multiple Video Views | |
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| Efficient Trick Modes | |
For more information on adaptive streaming, encoding, HTML5 playback or anything else to do with video infrastructure for the web, visit out support pages.