Create a CDN resource for video streaming

• HLS and MPEG-DASH — require video-delivery approval from Gcore Support and a paid CDN plan.
• HTTP-FLV Live — requires a sales agreement and a dedicated service profile. Contact your account manager or sales@gcore.com.
• HTTP-FLV video on demand (VOD) and MP4 VOD — self-service; only a paid CDN plan is required.

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Video CDN or Gcore Video Streaming

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Video CDN

• HLS, MPEG-DASH, HTTP-FLV, or MP4 content is available
• Global delivery is required
• Geo-blocking, secure token authentication, custom domains, or Origin Shielding is required
• Origin bandwidth must be reduced

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Gcore Video Streaming

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Quick setup

1

Request video-delivery approval (HLS, MPEG-DASH, or HTTP-FLV Live)

HLS and MPEG-DASH require video-delivery approval from Gcore Support and a paid CDN plan. HTTP-FLV Live requires a sales agreement and a dedicated service profile — contact your account manager or sales@gcore.com. HTTP-FLV VOD and MP4 VOD are self-service and do not require this step.

For HLS and MPEG-DASH, contact Gcore Support or use the account chat and provide:

• ID (shown in the profile menu at the top right — click your avatar to reveal it)
• Domain name and company name
• Content type: sports, education, entertainment, or news
• Sample stream URL: an example of the typical stream format
• Viewer geography: where the audience is located
• Broadcasting license or content compliance policy
• Abuse or copyright contact email

For sports, TV channels, events, or other third-party protected content, Support may request proof that the account holder or its clients have rights to distribute the content. Requests without the necessary licensing details, company identity, or abuse handling information may be declined or closed.Processing time is usually 1–2 business days.

For HTTP-FLV Live, contact your account manager or sales@gcore.com to initiate the sales agreement and dedicated service profile setup. Processing time varies.

2

Activate a paid CDN plan

Video streaming requires a paid CDN subscription.

1. Navigate to CDN in the Gcore Customer Portal.
2. On the free plan, upgrade to a paid CDN plan. See CDN billing for current plan options and included traffic allowances.

3

Create a CDN resource

Create the CDN resource at the right point in your workflow:

• HLS or MPEG-DASH — after receiving video-delivery approval from Gcore Support
• HTTP-FLV Live — after sales approval and dedicated-profile activation by Gcore
• HTTP-FLV VOD or MP4 VOD — immediately after activating a paid CDN plan

1. Navigate to CDN > CDN resources.
2. Click Create CDN resource.
3. Enter the domain that will serve the Video CDN — for instance, video.example.com. Use Add CNAME to add more domains if needed.
4. Under Origin, keep Specify content origin selected and configure one source:
   • URL — enter a resolvable media server domain or IP in Origin source — live.example.com
   • S3 storage — select the Gcore Storage bucket that contains the VOD files
   • FastEdge — select the FastEdge app that generates the response
5. Click Create.

For each custom domain, create a CNAME record that points to the assigned CDN domain and issue or upload a valid SSL certificate before testing over HTTPS.

4

Configure caching rules

Optimize caching for the delivery type. The settings below are organized by delivery format.

• HLS live
• MPEG-DASH live
• HLS/MPEG-DASH VOD
• HTTP-FLV Live
• HTTP-FLV VOD and MP4

Configure the baseline cache settings:

1. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
2. Enable Always online and add these error types:
   • error
   • timeout

When an error or timeout occurs, Always Online serves previously cached content while a valid stale response is available.

Do not add updating to the error types list for live streaming. Add only error and timeout.

3. In the CDN caching dropdown, select CDN controlled.
4. Set Cache expiry to 60 seconds. With DVR enabled, increase this value to match the DVR window.
5. Click Save changes.

Next, create a manifest caching rule:

6. Navigate to CDN Resource > Rules and click Create rule.

7. Select Playlists template (.m3u8).
8. Set Cache time to 2 seconds and Browser cache to 0 seconds, then click Create rule.

A 60 s segment cache and 2 s manifest cache balance segment availability with playlist freshness.For Low-Latency HLS (LL-HLS), add the delivery parameters to the cache key:

9. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
10. Enable Query parameters allowlist.
11. Add these parameters: _HLS_msn, _HLS_part, _HLS_skip.
    • These are required for LL-HLS to work correctly
    • Other parameters are excluded from the cache key but are still forwarded to the origin
12. Click Save changes.

Configure the baseline cache settings:

1. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
2. Enable Always online and add these error types:
   • error
   • timeout

When an error or timeout occurs, Always Online serves previously cached content while a valid stale response is available.

Do not add updating to the error types list for live streaming. Add only error and timeout.

3. In the CDN caching dropdown, select CDN controlled.
4. Set Cache expiry to 60 seconds. With DVR enabled, increase this value to match the DVR window.
5. Click Save changes.

Next, create a manifest caching rule:

6. Navigate to CDN Resource > Rules and click Create rule.
7. Select Create blank rule and use ^/.+\.mpd$ as the pattern.
8. Set Cache time to 2 seconds and Browser cache to 0 seconds, then click Create rule.

For Low-Latency DASH (LL-DASH) with Common Media Application Format (CMAF) segments, low-latency delivery with an external transcoder requires the Chunked-Proxy module.

When using MPEG-DASH with an external transcoder (not Gcore Video Streaming), enable the Chunked-Proxy module for low-latency delivery by contacting Gcore Support or the account manager.Without Chunked-Proxy, the CDN uses store-and-forward delivery, which can increase latency.

Standard CDNs wait for files to download fully from origin before sending them to viewers. The Chunked-Proxy module sends bytes to viewers while receiving them from the origin, using chunked transfer encoding and protocol framing.The low-latency streaming configuration targets 2–4 seconds. Actual end-to-end latency depends on the transcoder, segment duration, player buffering, and network conditions.To activate Chunked-Proxy, contact Gcore Support or the account manager and provide:

1. The CDN resource ID or domain
2. Confirmation of using LL-DASH with CMAF segments
3. Origin transcoder details (for example, Wowza or NGINX RTMP)

After activation, the CDN streams chunks as they arrive from the origin instead of waiting for complete segments.

When using Gcore Video Streaming (the Gcore transcoding service), Chunked-Proxy is already enabled by default. Activation is only needed for an external transcoder.

Common DASH/CMAF file extensions:

• Manifests: .mpd
• Segments: .m4s, .m4v, .m4a, .cmfv, .cmfa
• Initialization: .mp4 (init segments)

VOD cache duration depends on whether content URLs are immutable or reused.Enable Always online first:

1. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
2. Enable Always online and add these error types:
   • error (serve stale cache if origin returns errors)
   • timeout (serve stale cache if origin times out)

When an error or timeout occurs, Always Online serves previously cached video while a valid stale response is available.

3. Click Save changes.

Then set long-term cache:

4. Still in CDN Resource > Cache, select CDN controlled from the CDN caching dropdown.
5. Set Cache expiry to 1 year (31,536,000 seconds) for immutable or versioned URLs.
   • In CDN-controlled mode, responses with status codes 200, 206, 301, and 302 are cached by default; responses with other codes are not cached unless configured separately
   • In origin-controlled mode, caching is governed by the Cache-Control header the origin sends
   • For content replaced at the same URL, use a shorter TTL or purge the cache after replacement
6. Click Save changes.
7. To limit caching of 404 responses, add an advanced caching rule: in CDN caching settings, click Add rule, set Response code to 404, and set Caching time to 1 second. Click Save changes. This protects the origin from repeated requests for non-existent files.

A 1-year TTL is appropriate only when content URLs are immutable or versioned. After replacing content at the same URL, purge the cache to remove the older object.Optionally, configure query string handling:

8. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
9. Enable Ignore query string if VOD URLs do not use query parameters for logic, and caching video.mp4?ref=email and video.mp4?ref=social as the same file is preferred.
10. Before removing query parameters from the cache key, confirm that they are not required for analytics or access control. Ignored parameters are still forwarded to the origin.
11. Click Save changes.

Common file extensions:

• Manifests: .m3u8, .mpd
• Segments: .ts, .m4s, .m4v, .m4a, .m4i
• Subtitles: .vtt, .webvtt, .ttml

HTTP-FLV Live streaming uses a single continuous connection and requires a dedicated service profile. Cache settings for HTTP-FLV Live are configured by Gcore Support as part of the service activation process — contact Support or your account manager to request the configuration.

Enable Always online first:

1. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
2. Enable Always online and add these error types:
   • error (serve stale cache if origin returns errors)
   • timeout (serve stale cache if origin times out)
3. Click Save changes.

Then set long-term cache:

4. Still in CDN Resource > Cache, select CDN controlled from the CDN caching dropdown.
5. Set Cache expiry to 1 year (31,536,000 seconds) for immutable or versioned URLs.
   • In CDN-controlled mode, responses with status codes 200, 206, 301, and 302 are cached; other codes require additional configuration
   • For content replaced at the same URL, use a shorter TTL or purge the cache after replacement
6. Click Save changes.
7. To limit caching of 404 responses, add an advanced caching rule: in CDN caching settings, click Add rule, set Response code to 404, and set Caching time to 1 second. Click Save changes.

Optionally, enable large file optimization for MP4 progressive download:

8. Navigate to CDN Resource > Content.
9. Enable Large files delivery optimization.
   • Retrieves content from the origin in 10 MB chunks using HTTP range requests and caches each chunk independently — intended for large single-file MP4 content
   • Generally unnecessary for segmented HLS or MPEG-DASH, which already divide media into small independently cached chunks
   • The origin must support HTTP Range requests
   • Enabling this invalidates existing cache
   • Incompatible with Fetch Compressed, Gzip compression, and Brotli compression
10. Click Save changes.

Optionally, configure query string handling:

11. Navigate to CDN Resource > Cache.
12. Enable Ignore query string if VOD URLs do not use query parameters for logic.
13. Before removing query parameters from the cache key, confirm that they are not required for analytics or access control. Ignored parameters are still forwarded to the origin.
14. Click Save changes.

Common file extensions:

• Progressive: .mp4, .webm, .flv
• Subtitles: .vtt, .webvtt, .ttml

For high-traffic streaming or specific performance requirements, contact Gcore Support to configure cache sharding across multiple servers, cache lock timing for concurrent requests, custom TTL strategies per file type, and origin connection limits that protect the origin from traffic spikes.

5

Enable the LIVE STREAMING preset

For live streams only — skip this step when delivering VOD.

The LIVE STREAMING preset enables RAM-based caching for reduced latency.

1. Navigate to CDN resources.
2. Click ⋯ (more options) next to the Video CDN resource.
3. Select Turn on LIVE STREAMING preset.

It caches video segments in RAM instead of disk for faster delivery and lower latency.

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Video delivery testing

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CDN URL

https://live.example.com/playlist.m3u8

https://video.example.com/playlist.m3u8

https://123456.gcdn.co/playlist.m3u8

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Playback test

• HLS — enter the CDN URL in the HLS.js demo or a native HLS player. Confirm the playlist loads and that segment URLs use relative paths or the CDN hostname, not the origin. Request the same segment URL twice and confirm the second response returns HIT in the Cache response header.
• MPEG-DASH — open the .mpd URL in VLC Media Player or another MPEG-DASH player. Verify continuous playback and that segment URLs reference the CDN hostname. Request a segment URL twice and confirm HIT in the Cache response header.
• HTTP-FLV — open the .flv URL in an HTTP-FLV player and verify that the continuous response plays.
• MP4 — open the CDN URL in a browser or player, verify playback and seeking, and confirm that a repeated request returns HIT in the Cache response header.

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Advanced configuration

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Origin Shielding

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Geo-restrictions

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Secure tokens

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Troubleshooting

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Playback failures

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High live-stream latency