Player Stream Tester

Purpose & User Intent: JW Player stream tester is a back end validation tool for streaming deployments. It targets video engineers, QA teams, broadcasters, and publishers who need to verify stream URL health, manifest integrity, protocol compatibility, and token access before going live. It is used when adding new streams, migrating to JW Player, or debugging playback failures. Core Logic & Features: Required: stream_url, protocol selection (HLS, DASH, progressive), checks scope. Optional: token, user agent override, timeout, and retry policy. The tool fetches the manifest, validates syntax, counts segments, checks segment availability, measures time to first byte, and validates token handling. It reports health status and returns structured results. Advanced features include network latency simulation and warnings when issues are marginal. Distinguish between required inputs and optional features. Inputs & Outputs: Inputs include stream_url as string (required), protocol as one of HLS, DASH, progressive (required), checks scope (health, manifest, token), token (string optional), ua (string optional), timeout seconds (int), max_redirects int. Outputs include status, latency_ms, ttfb_ms, manifest_url, manifest_valid, errors, playback_ready, and a recommended_actions field. Algorithms & Calculations: The tool measures DNS resolution time, TLS handshake time, TCP connect time, manifest fetch duration, and total test duration. It parses manifests, counts segments, validates segment availability, and computes a health score. Errors are categorized as fatal or recoverable; retries use exponential backoff. Results are designed for machine parsing. Error & Edge Cases: Handles missing inputs with validation, unsupported protocols, manifest fetch failures (4xx/5xx), DNS or TLS failures, CORS restrictions, token expiry, and partial manifests. If checks pass, result indicates readiness; otherwise detailed error arrays guide remediation. Industry/Region & Localization: Uses standard streaming formats HLS and DASH with common file extensions. Time units in milliseconds. Outputs conform to JSON structures suitable for integration across regions and CI pipelines. Data privacy considerations apply to IPs and request headers in logs. Assumptions & Exclusions: Assumes authorization to access streams and no transcoding or playback rendering is performed. UI elements are out of scope; only programmatic results are returned. Does not perform DRM decryption, only token presence validation. Not testing offline caches or non streaming files.