Getting Started

HLS Preview Generator is a stateless REST API service that generates thumbnail preview images from HLS video streams. Given an HLS manifest URL it returns a set of still images at configurable intervals, suitable for video seekbar previews, content thumbnails, or editorial review workflows. No video processing infrastructure is required — the service fetches, decodes, and renders frames on demand.

Prerequisites

  • An OSC account (sign up here)
  • An HLS stream URL accessible from the internet (public or served from an OSC-hosted streaming service)

Step 1: Create an instance

Navigate to the HLS Preview Generator service page and click Create preview-hls-service. Fill in:

  • Name: a unique name for your instance (alphanumeric only, e.g. mypreviews)

Click Create and wait for the status indicator to turn green.

Step 2: Generate previews

Once the instance is running, copy its URL from the service page. Send a request to the API with the HLS manifest URL as a query parameter:

curl "https://<instance-url>/preview?url=https://example.com/stream/index.m3u8"

The service fetches the stream, captures frames at regular intervals, and returns the preview images or a manifest pointing to them.

CLI usage

osc create eyevinn-preview-hls-service mypreviews

Resources