A list of available streams, encoded at different bit rates, is sent to the client using an extended M3U playlist. HLS resembles MPEG-DASH in that it works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each downloading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. As of 2022, an annual video industry survey has consistently found it to be the most popular streaming format. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and streaming media servers. HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc.
