Using ffmpeg, jpg to mp4 to mpegts, play with HLS M3U8, only first TS file plays - why?

Question

Before posting I have searched and found similar questions on stackoverflow (I list some below) - none have helped me towards a solution, hence this post. The duration that each image is shown within the movie file differs from many posts that I have seen thus far.

A camera captures 1 image every 30 seconds. I need stream them, preferably via HLS, thus I wrap 2 images in an MP4. I then convert MP4 to mpegts. Each MP4 and TS file play fine individually (each contain two images, each image transitions after 30seconds, each movie file is 1minute long).

When I reference the two TS files in an M3U8 playlist, only the first TS file gets played. Can anyone advise why it stops and how I can get it to play all the TS files that I expect to create, not just the first TS file? Besides my ffmpeg commands, I also include my VLC log file (though I expect to stream to Firefox/Chrome clients). I am using ffmpeg 4.2.2-static installed on an AWS EC2 with AMI2 Linux.

I have four jpgs named image11.jpg, image12.jpg, image21.jpg, image22.jpg - The images look near identical as only the timestamp in top left changes.

The following command creates 1.mp4, using image11.jpg and image12.jpg, each image displayed for 30 seconds, total duration of the mp4 is 1 minute. It plays like expected.

ffmpeg -y -framerate 1/30 -f image2 -i image1%1d.jpg -c:v libx264 -vf "fps=1,format=yuvj420p" 1.mp4

I then convert 1.mp4 to an mpegts file, creating 1.ts. It plays like expected.

ffmpeg -y -i 1.mp4 -c:v libx264 -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -flags -global_header -f mpegts 1.ts

I repeat the above steps except specific to image21.jpg and image22.jpg, creating 2.mp4 and 2.ts

ffmpeg -y -framerate 1/30 -f image2 -i image1%1d.jpg -c:v libx264 -vf "fps=1,format=yuvj420p" 2.mp4

ffmpeg -y -i 1.mp4 -c:v libx264 -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -flags -global_header -f mpegts 2.ts

Thus now I have 1.mp4, 1.ts, 2.mp4, 2.ts and all four play individually just fine.

Using ffprobe I can confirm their duration is 60seconds, for example:

ffprobe -i 1.ts -v quiet -show_entries format=duration -hide_banner -print_format json

My m3u8 playlist follows:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:4
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:1
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:60.000
#EXTINF:60.0000,
1.ts
#EXTINF:60.000,
2.ts
#EXT-X-ENDLIST

Can anyone advise where I am going wrong?

VLC Error Log (though I expect to play via web browser)

I have researched the process using these (and other pages) as a guide:

How to create a video from images with ffmpeg

convert from jpg to mp4 by ffmpeg

ffmpeg examples page

FFMPEG An Intermediate Guide/image sequence

How to use FFmpeg to convert images to video

Answer 1

Take a look at the start_pts/start_time in the ffprobe -show_streams output, my guess is that they all start at zero/near-zero which will cause playback to fail after your first segment.

You can still produce them independently but you will want to use something like -output_ts_offset to correctly set the timestamps for subsequent segments.

Answer 2

The following solution works well for me. I have tested it uninterrupted for more than two hours and believe it ticks all my boxes. (Edited because I forgot the all important -re tag)

ffmpeg will loop continuously, reading test.jpg and stream it to my RTMP server. When my camera posts an image every 30seconds, I copy the new image on top of the existing test.jpg which in effect changes what is streamed out.

Note the command below is all one line, I have put new lines in to assist reading and The order of the parameters are important - the loop and fflags genpts for example must appear before the -i parameter

ffmpeg 
-re
-loop 1 
-fflags +genpts 
-framerate 1/30 
-i test.jpg 
-c:v libx264 
-vf fps=25 
-pix_fmt yuvj420p 
-crf 30 
-f fifo -attempt_recovery 1 -recovery_wait_time 1 
-f flv rtmp://localhost:5555/video/test

Some arguments explained:

• -re implies play in real time
• loop 1 (1 turns the loop on, 0 off)
• -fflags +genpts is something I only half understand. PTS I believe is the start/end time of the segment and without this flag, the PTS is reset to zero with every new image. Using this arguement means I avoid EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY when a new image is served.
• -framerate 1/30 means one frame for 30seconds
• -i test.jpg is my image 'placeholder'. As new images are received via a separate script, it overwrites this image. When combined with loop it means the ffmpeg output will reference the new image.
• -c:v libx264 is for H264 video output formating
• -vf fps=25 Removing this, or using a different value resulted in my output stream not being 30seconds.
• -pix_fmt yuvj420p (sometimes I have seen yuv420p referenced but this did not work on my environment). I believe there are different jpg colour palettes and this switch ensures I can process a wider choice.
• -crf 30 implies highest quality image, lowest compression (important for my client)
• -f fifo -attempt_recovery 1 -recovery_wait_time 1 -f flv rtmp://localhost:5555/video/test is part of the magic to go with loop. I believe it keeps the connection open with my stream server, reduces the risk of DISCONTINUITY in the play list.

I hope this helps someone going forward.

The following links helped nudge me forward and I share as it might help others to improve upon my solution

Creating a video from a single image for a specific duration in ffmpeg

How can I loop one frame with ffmpeg? All the other frames should point to the first with no changes, maybe like a recusion

Display images on video at specific framerate with loop using FFmpeg

Loop image ffmpeg HLS

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Slideshow

https://superuser.com/questions/1699893/generate-ts-stream-from-image-file

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#Examples-3

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/StreamingGuide