How do I play VOD of **live** livestream with ability to seek to the start of said livestream

[blamedrop]

I had VOD playlist of still live livestream, for example:

https://d3fi1amfgojobc.cloudfront.net/03c477bcf70417592a6b_forsen_315951068263_1769612381/chunked/index-dvr.m3u8

It's no longer live, but I was testing all below when it was live. It looked like this:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:10
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:EVENT
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0
#EXT-X-TWITCH-ELAPSED-SECS:0.000
#EXT-X-TWITCH-TOTAL-SECS:16440.000
#EXTINF:10.000,
0.ts
#EXTINF:10.000,
1.ts
#EXTINF:10.000,
2.ts

[...]

#EXTINF:10.000,
1642.ts
#EXTINF:10.000,
1643.ts

And was being updated with new EXTINF and .ts lines.

I can't get MPV to play such playlist in a way that:

1. it starts on latest fragment
2. it auto-updates with new fragments
3. it shows current time/total time correctly
4. it's seekable to the first fragment, middle part, or then to the end that would download newest fragment again

Looking at this M3U8 file it feels like something very much possible to do. But I'm not sure if I can get MPV to do that.

---

For reproducing my attempts you need a live Twitch CHANNEL name with VODs enabled.

Of course, simply mpv https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNEL succeeds at 1 and 2 but not at 4. Also it gets number 3 most of the time, unless you start with ad/get an ad midstream.

Adding --ytdl-raw-options-add=live-from-start= almost gets me where I want, but still no number 4. The --force-seekable does not help.

You can get that M3U8 URL with:

yt-dlp --live-from-start -J https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNEL | jq -r .url

---

Things tried:

a) With mpv https://m3u8url I get 1 and 2 but not 3 and 4.

b) With mpv slice://0@https://m3u8url I get it to start from beginning which is okaaay, it opens as playlist instead of continuous stream ([1/1680]) so it number 4 kinda works, but when I go to last item it fails number 2 - never gets new items.

c) With mpv --force-seekable --demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0 https://m3u8url it starts from beginning again which is fine, but it doesn't calculate total length, you can kinda seek far forward by spamming END but I didn't manage to get to end as after some time it just hangs and can't confirm number 2. But until it hangs number 4 works fine.

d) And mpv --force-seekable --demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0,live_seekable=1 https://m3u8url doesn't change much, still hung weridly after trying to seek to end after 3rd hour or so.

e) Using mpv --force-seekable --ytdl-raw-options-add=live-from-start= https://www.twitch.tv/forsen almost is good, it's 1 and 2 and also 3 too! But you can't seek to the beginning or middle... Even with --force-seekable.

And with that, even without --force-seekable you can glitch out to the start of the stream, getting [ffmpeg/demuxer] hls: The m3u8 list sequence may have been wrapped. warning and that messes up whole playback also adding like 24 hours to the current playback time.

f) With mpv --force-seekable --demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0 --ytdl-raw-options-add=live-from-start= https://www.twitch.tv/forsen I get similar behaviour to c) and d), couldn't seek to the end (currently 5+ hours) without it hanging and not proceeding any further.

g) With mpv --demuxer-lavf-o=allowed_extensions=ALL --demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0,live_seekable=1 https://m3u8url now I had luck and was able to seek to the current live position without hanging, but still had to spam END, MPV did not calculate total length from start.

h) Also tried messing around with edl:// that mpv -v --ytdl-raw-options-add=live-from-start= https://www.twitch.tv/forsen shows:

edl://!new_stream;!no_clip;!no_chapters;%112%https://d3fi1amfgojobc.cloudfront.net/03c477bcf70417592a6b_forsen_315951068263_1769612381/chunked/index-dvr.m3u8;!global_tags,ytdl_is_live=%4%true,date=%8%20260128,uploader=%6%forsen

But to no avail.

---

Now that stream ended and said M3U8 ends with #EXT-X-ENDLIST line, simply mpv https://m3u8url makes numer 3 and 4 work correctly, while 1 and 2 of course no longer work, nor make sense.

[Sneakpeakcss]

Other than {url}, you also want to grab {duration} and pass that with --start:

mpv --demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0 --start={duration} {url}

This ends up with fully seekable VOD duration at current live segment position.
Since live segments are updated every ~10 seconds, it's preferable to cut ~30s from {duration} to avoid long or infinite loading on startup.

Another issue is that seeking on Twitch VOD can be quite finicky in general: #14840. As mentioned there, you can grab {manifest_url} instead of {url}, and either use the autoprofile+lua script or just launch mpv with --vid=1 --aid=1. Otherwise it will always choose 720p over 1080p.

Then there's the issue with the source:

your

yt-dlp --live-from-start -J https://www.twitch.tv/CHANNEL | jq -r .url

returns the same index-dvr.m3u8 as using the channel’s "Live VOD":

yt-dlp -J https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1234567890 | jq -r .url

The benefit of using VOD URL directly is that it fully populates user-data/mpv/ytdl/json-subprocess-result property, which can later be used to automate the whole thing. Using the CHANNEL {url} leaves this empty. However, if you use {manifest_url} instead, it will populate the property with enough data to still be useful.

If you ever move away from the most live playback position, mpv will stop loading new fragments and the total time will remain stale. How far ahead it loads depends on your cache settings.

If you spend too much time away from live playback and then want to jump to the newest chunk, your best bet is to again seek toward the current {duration} - 30. And if you used {url} from CHANNEL, you have no easy way of getting the current live {duration} at runtime, and seeking to arbitrary high timestamps will just leave you with infinite loading, so using the VOD URL is the preferable source compared to CHANNEL.

Here's what i've used at some point:

autoprofile

[twitchvod]
profile-cond=get("path", ""):find("^https://www.twitch.tv/(.*)videos?") ~= nil or get("path", ""):find("https://usher.ttvnw.net/vod/(.*).m3u8") ~= nil 
script-opts-add=ytdl_hook-use_manifests=yes
profile-restore=copy
cache-secs=120
cache=yes
title=Twitch VoD — ${media-title}
ytdl-format=best+best
demuxer-lavf-o=live_start_index=0

lua script

local utils = require "mp.utils"

local function is_twitch_vod()
    local title = mp.get_property_native("title")
    return title and title:find("Twitch VoD")
end

-- With 'use_manifests=yes', yt-dlp fails to choose the best available Twitch VoD quality, defaulting to 720p.
mp.add_hook("on_preloaded", 50, function()
    if is_twitch_vod() then
        if mp.get_property("vid") ~= "1" then mp.set_property("vid", "1") end
        if mp.get_property("aid") ~= "1" then mp.set_property("aid", "1") end
        if live_vod_start then
            mp.msg.info("Setting start to: " .. live_vod_start)
            mp.set_property("start", tostring(live_vod_start))
            live_vod_start = nil
        end
    end
end)

-- Use curl to read #EXT-X-TWITCH-TOTAL-SECS from the .m3u8
-- ytdl_result.duration is somtimes too large and can cause infinite load on launch
local function get_live_pos_from_playlist(ytdl_result)
    if ytdl_result and ytdl_result.url then
        local curl_r = mp.command_native({
            name = "subprocess",
            playback_only = true,
            capture_stdout = true,
            args = {"curl", "-s", ytdl_result.url},
        })
        if curl_r and curl_r.stdout then
            local total_secs = curl_r.stdout:match("#EXT%-X%-TWITCH%-TOTAL%-SECS:(%d+)")
            if total_secs then
                return tonumber(total_secs) 
            end
        end
    end
    return nil
end

mp.observe_property("user-data/mpv/ytdl/json-subprocess-result", "native", function(_, value)
    if is_twitch_vod() and value and not live_vod_start then
        local ytdl_result = utils.parse_json(value.stdout)
        if ytdl_result and ytdl_result.is_live then
            local live_pos = get_live_pos_from_playlist(ytdl_result)
            local offset = live_pos and 15 or 30
            if not live_pos then
                mp.msg.warn("used 'ytdl_result.duration' fallback.")
                live_pos = ytdl_result.duration
            end
            if live_pos and live_pos > offset then
                live_vod_start = live_pos - offset
            end
        end
    end
end)

-- Seek to current live segment
mp.add_key_binding(nil, "seek-to-live", function()
    if not is_twitch_vod() then return end
    local url = mp.get_property("path")
    if not url then return end

    local r = mp.get_property_native("user-data/mpv/ytdl/json-subprocess-result")
    local ytdl_result = r and utils.parse_json(r.stdout) 
    local live_pos = get_live_pos_from_playlist(ytdl_result)
    local offset = live_pos and 15 or 30 

    if not live_pos then
        local vod_id = url:match("https://usher%.ttvnw%.net/vod/(%d+)%.m3u8")
        if vod_id then
            url = "https://www.twitch.tv/videos/" .. vod_id
        end
        local r = mp.command_native({
            name = "subprocess",
            playback_only = true,
            capture_stdout = true,
            capture_stderr = true,
            args = {"yt-dlp", "--dump-json", "--no-playlist", "--", url},
        })
        local ytdl_result = r and utils.parse_json(r.stdout)
        if ytdl_result and ytdl_result.duration then
            mp.msg.warn("used 'ytdl_result.duration' fallback.")
            live_pos = ytdl_result.duration
        end
    end

    if live_pos then
        local pos = math.max(0, live_pos - offset)
        mp.msg.info("Seeking to live pos: " .. pos)
        mp.commandv("seek", tostring(pos), "absolute")
    end
end)

With this, all you need to do is launch mpv with the VOD URL mpv https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1234567890.

Keep in mind that this was only ever used on Windows, so at worst it's more of an example how to automate the whole thing. This: yt-dlp/yt-dlp#13181 (comment) is also worth reading to get an idea of issues with seeking Twitch VODs in mpv.

[borkfomb]

It was fine for years then Twitch updated their playlists around April 2025, mpv shit the bed and it's been broken since. VLC works though

[blamedrop]

It was fine for years then Twitch updated their playlists around April 2025, mpv shit the bed and it's been broken since. VLC works though

How do you get VLC to work? Running vlc 'https://.../index-dvr.m3u8' fails for me.

Also looking at that M3U8 contents, it looks completely sane and reasonable, all fragments have length provided, you could totally map it to continuous stream of .ts fragments 🤷‍♂️

[borkfomb]

ctrl+n, paste url. Perhaps it's time to bump since all the legwork has been done. Personally I tried endless workarounds but never had it working again with mpv. It's only broken for active broadcasts, not vods.

yt-dlp/yt-dlp#13181 (comment)