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Time Shifting

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Last updated: 2025-12-26 14:24:16
We have recently upgraded the time shifting feature. When you create a time shifting template in the console, you will now be enabling the new time shifting feature. Generate a URL in the required format, and you can use the URL to play content from an earlier time point. API 3.0 is also now available for the time shifting feature. For details, see Time Shifting APIs. This document shows you how the time shifting feature works and how to make a playback request.

Must-Knows

The new time shifting feature currently supports 30,000 concurrent viewers. If you need a higher concurrency, please submit a ticket.
If you enabled authentication for your playback domain and configured an expiration time, the time shifting URL will expire after the specified time.
To use the old time shifting feature (which pulls content from a VOD domain), you need to submit a ticket. For a better experience, we recommend you use the new time shifting feature.

How It Works

CSS enables time shifting by saving live streams as TS segments and information about the playback time of each TS segment in the cloud. This feature is often used to replay TV programs or highlights of sports events. Content is distributed to clients over HLS. You can specify the exact playback time by setting the M3U8 request parameters (for details, see Playback Request).

Playback Request

The format of time shifting URL is http://domain/appname/stream.m3u8. There are two types of time shifting:
Playing a specific duration. This is suitable for replaying highlights of sports events.
Playing from a specific time ago. This is suitable if you want to delay the playback of a live stream.

Request parameters for playing a specific duration

Parameter
Description
Required
Example
txTimeshift
Whether to enable the new time shifting feature (<code>on</code>: Enable).
Yes
txTimeshift=on
tsStart
The time-shift start time must be at least 30 seconds earlier than the current time, and the interval between tsStart and tsEnd cannot be less than one TS segment duration and cannot exceed 6 hours.
Yes
tsStart=20121010010101
tsEnd
The time-shift end time, the interval between tsStart and tsEnd cannot be less than one TS segment duration and cannot be more than 6 hours.
Yes
tsEnd=20121010010102
tsFormat
The format of tsStart and tsEnd is {timeformat}_{unit}_{zone}
Valid values of timeformat
unix - unix timestamp. If you use this format, you don’t need to specify zone
human - Human-readable time, such as “20121010010101”.
Valid values of unit:s. s indicates second.
zone：Time zones are divided into Eastern, Western, and Central Time Zones (Zero Time Zone).
The value range for the Eastern Time Zone is 1 to 12
The value range for the Western Time Zone is -12 to -1.
Yes
tsFormat=unix_s
tsFormat=human_s_8
tsCodecname
For a transcoded stream, set this parameter to the ID of the transcoding template. For original streams or watermarked streams, leave out this parameter.
No
tsCodecname=hd

Request example 1 (Unix timestamp)

http://example.domain.com/live/stream.m3u8?txTimeshift=on&tsFormat=unix_s&tsStart=1675302995&tsEnd=1675303025&tsCodecname=test

Request example 2 (human-readable time)

http://example.domain.com/live/stream.m3u8?txTimeshift=on&tsFormat=human_s_8&tsStart=20230202095635&tsEnd=20230202095705&tsCodecname=test

Request parameters for playing from a specific time ago

Parameter
Description
Required
Example
txTimeshift
Whether to enable the new time shifting feature (on: Enable).
Yes
txTimeshift=on
tsDelay
The number of seconds to delay the playback by.
Yes
tsDelay=30 indicates that playback will start from 30 seconds ago.
tsCodecname
For a transcoded stream, set this parameter to the ID of the transcoding template.
No
tsCodecname=2000

Request example

http:://example.domain.com/live/stream.m3u8?txTimeshift=on&tsDelay=30&tsCodecname=test

Authentication parameters

The authentication parameters for time shifting are the same as those for playback. For details, see Playback Authentication Configuration (HLS URLs generated in the console are only valid for one day).

Querying time shifted streams

The Time Shifting > Time shifting details page of the console shows a list of time shifted streams. You can click Details to view the details of a time shifted stream. You can also use APIs to query time shifted streams and the details of a specific stream. For details, see the following documents:
DescribeTimeShiftStreamList
DescribeTimeShiftRecordDetail
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