HLS Streaming

HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) lets you broadcast an ongoing EnableX video session to a large audience in real time. Unlike RTMP, which pushes a stream to an external CDN, HLS is managed entirely by EnableX — the infrastructure scales to handle large viewer counts, and adaptive bitrate ensures the best playback quality across varying network conditions.

Typical use cases include webinars, virtual conferences, live classes, concerts, and corporate town halls where a moderator-driven session needs to reach a large number of read-only viewers simultaneously.

A web-based Video UI is linked to the video room as the HLS streaming view. At the back end, EnableX automatically joins this view into the video session — without publishing any stream — and uses its rendered output to generate the HLS feed. When the HLS stream is ready, each connected audience member receives an HLS Stream URL to play in any compatible HLS player.

• HLS streaming starts automatically when the first audience member joins the room.
• HLS streaming stops automatically when the last audience member exits or disconnects.
• New audience members who join mid-session immediately receive the current stream URL.

The HLS feed is rendered from a web-based UI that joins the video room silently. You can use the built-in view or provide your own.

Default View

EnableX provides a ready-made default HLS view that requires no code. To use it, simply omit hls_view_url from the room settings, or explicitly pass "DEFAULT" as its value. The default view provides a standard multi-party tile layout and limited customisation options.

Custom View

For a branded or purpose-built layout, you can develop a web application, host it on an HTTPS URL, and pass that URL as hls_view_url in the room settings. The custom view must be able to join the video session using an EnableX token without publishing any audio or video stream.

For step-by-step guidance on building a custom streaming view, see Virtual Agent — Custom Streaming View.

To enable HLS streaming in a video room, include HLS-specific settings in the room creation payload sent to the Video API.

Room Settings

Example room creation payload with HLS streaming enabled:

{
  "name": "HLS Trial",
  "owner_ref": "XOXO",
  "settings": {
    "description": "HLS Trial",
    "mode": "group",
    "scheduled": false,
    "adhoc": false,
    "duration": 30,
    "moderators": "1",
    "participants": "2",
    "audiences": 6,
    "hls_view_url": "https://your-domain/hls-view/?token=",
    "send_audiences_stats": true,
    "auto_recording": false,
    "quality": "SD"
  }
}

Audience Token

HLS audience members join using the audience role. Generate a token for each audience member using the Video API with the following payload:

{
  "name": "John",
  "user_ref": "XOXO",
  "role": "audience"
}

Audience members do not publish audio or video and do not appear in the moderator's participant panel. They receive the HLS stream URL via an SDK event once the stream is active. Use any HLS-compatible player to play the stream URL — either your own or a third-party player.

HLS Player

The HLS stream URL is delivered to audience members through a room event, callback, or delegate method — depending on the platform SDK in use. Refer to the relevant SDK page for the exact event name and payload:

• Web SDK — HLS Streaming
• Android SDK — HLS Streaming
• iOS SDK — HLS Streaming

EnableX sends four HLS-related notifications to connected endpoints. Handling these events lets you update the UI appropriately — for example, showing a "Stream is starting…" message while waiting, or displaying the player once the stream is live.

Error codes are delivered to endpoints alongside the corresponding HLS event. Use these to display meaningful messages or trigger retry logic in your application.

On HLS Start

On HLS Stop

On HLS Waiting

Generic Error