Provided by: livestreamer_1.12.2-1_all 
NAME
livestreamer - extracts streams from various services and pipes them into a video player of choice
TUTORIAL
Livestreamer is command-line application, this means the commands described here should be typed into a
terminal. On Windows this means you should open the command prompt or PowerShell, on Mac OS X open the
Terminal app and if you're on Linux or BSD you probably already know the drill.
The way Livestreamer works is that it's only a means to extract and transport the streams, and the
playback is done by an external video player. Livestreamer works best with VLC or mpv, which are also
cross-platform, but other players may be compatible too, see the Players page for a complete overview.
Now to get into actually using Livestreamer, let's say you want to watch the stream located on
http://twitch.tv/day9tv, you start off by telling Livestreamer where to attempt to extract streams from.
This is done by giving the URL to the command livestreamer as the first argument:
$ livestreamer twitch.tv/day9tv
[cli][info] Found matching plugin twitch for URL twitch.tv/day9tv
Available streams: audio, high, low, medium, mobile (worst), source (best)
NOTE:
You don't need to include the protocol when dealing with HTTP URLs, e.g. just twitch.tv/day9tv is
enough and quicker to type.
This command will tell Livestreamer to attempt to extract streams from the URL specified, and if it's
successful, print out a list of available streams to choose from.
To select a stream and start playback, we simply add the stream name as a second argument to the
livestreamer command:
$ livestreamer twitch.tv/day9tv source
[cli][info] Found matching plugin twitch for URL twitch.tv/day9tv
[cli][info] Opening stream: source (hls)
[cli][info] Starting player: vlc
The stream you chose should now be playing in the player. It's a common use case to just want start the
highest quality stream and not be bothered with what it's named. To do this just specify best as the
stream name and Livestreamer will attempt to rank the streams and open the one of highest quality. You
can also specify worst to get the lowest quality.
Now that you have a basic grasp of how Livestreamer works, you may want to look into customizing it to
your own needs, such as:
• Creating a configuration file of options you want to use
• Setting up your player to cache some data before playing the stream to help avoiding buffering issues
CONFIGURATION FILE
Writing the command-line options every time is inconvenient, that's why Livestreamer is capable of
reading options from a configuration file instead.
Livestreamer will look for config files in different locations depending on your platform:
┌───────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Platform │ Location │
├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Unix-like (POSIX) │ │
│ │ • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/livestreamer/config │
│ │ │
│ │ • ~/.livestreamerrc │
├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Windows │ %APPDATA%\livestreamer\livestreamerrc │
└───────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
You can also specify the location yourself using the --config option.
NOTE:
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is ~/.config if it has not been overridden
• %APPDATA% is usually <your user directory>\Application Data
NOTE:
On Windows there is a default config created by the installer but on any other platform you must
create the file yourself.
Syntax
The config file is a simple text file and should contain one command-line option (omitting the dashes)
per line in the format:
option=value
or for a option without value:
option
NOTE:
Any quotes used will be part of the value, so only use when the value needs them, e.g. specifiying a
player with a path containing spaces.
Example
# Player options
player=mpv --cache 2048
player-no-close
# Authenticate with Twitch
twitch-oauth-token=mytoken
PLUGIN SPECIFIC CONFIGURATION FILE
You may want to use specific options for some plugins only. This can be accomplished by placing those
settings inside a plugin specific config file. Options inside these config files will override the main
config file when a URL matching the plugin is used.
Livestreamer expects this config to be named like the main config but with .<plugin name> attached to the
end.
Examples
┌───────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Platform │ Location │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Unix-like (POSIX) │ │
│ │ • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/livestreamer/config.twitch │
│ │ │
│ │ • ~/.livestreamerrc.ustreamtv │
├───────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Windows │ %APPDATA%\livestreamer\livestreamerrc.youtube │
└───────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Have a look at the list of plugins to see the name of each built-in plugin.
PLUGIN SPECIFIC USAGE
Authenticating with Twitch
It's possible to access subscription content on Twitch by giving Livestreamer access to your account.
Authentication is done by creating an OAuth token that Livestreamer will use to access your account. It's
done like this:
$ livestreamer --twitch-oauth-authenticate
This will open a web browser where Twitch will ask you if you want to give Livestreamer permission to
access your account, then forwards you to a page with further instructions on how to use it.
Authenticating with Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll requires authenticating with a premium account to access some of their content. To do so, the
plugin provides a couple of options to input your information, --crunchyroll-username and
--crunchyroll-password.
You can login like this:
$ livestreamer --crunchyroll-username=xxxx --crunchyroll-password=xxx http://crunchyroll.com/a-crunchyroll-episode-link
NOTE:
If you omit the password, livestreamer will ask for it.
Once logged in, the plugin makes sure to save the session credentials to avoid asking your username and
password again.
Neverthless, these credentials are valid for a limited amount of time, so it might be a good idea to save
your username and password in your configuration file anyway.
WARNING:
The API this plugin uses isn't supposed to be available to use it on computers. The plugin tries to
blend in as a valid device using custom headers and following the API usual flow (e.g. reusing
credentials), but this does not assure that your account will be safe from being spotted for unusual
behavior.
HTTP proxy with Crunchyroll
You can use the --http-proxy and --https-proxy options (you need both since the plugin uses both
protocols) to access the Crunchyroll servers through a proxy to be able to stream region locked content.
When doing this, it's very probable that you will get denied to access the stream; this occurs because
the session and credentials used by the plugin where obtained when logged from your own region, and the
server still assumes you're in that region.
For this, the plugin provides the --crunchyroll-purge-credentials option, which removes your saved
session and credentials and tries to log in again using your username and password.
SIDELOADING PLUGINS
Livestreamer will attempt to load standalone plugins from these directories:
┌───────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Platform │ Location │
├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Unix-like (POSIX) │ $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/livestreamer/plugins │
├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Windows │ %APPDATA%\livestreamer\plugins │
└───────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┘
NOTE:
If a plugin is added with the same name as a built-in plugin then the added plugin will take
precedence. This is useful if you want to upgrade plugins independently of the Livestreamer version.
PLAYING BUILT-IN STREAMING PROTOCOLS DIRECTLY
There are many types of streaming protocols used by services today and Livestreamer supports most of
them. It's possible to tell Livestreamer to access a streaming protocol directly instead of relying on a
plugin to extract the streams from a URL for you.
A protocol can be accessed directly by specifying it in the URL format:
protocol://path [key=value]
Accessing a stream that requires extra parameters to be passed along (e.g. RTMP):
$ livestreamer "rtmp://streaming.server.net/playpath live=1 swfVfy=http://server.net/flashplayer.swf"
Most streaming technologies simply requires you to pass a HTTP URL, this is a Adobe HDS stream:
$ livestreamer hds://streaming.server.net/playpath/manifest.f4m
Supported streaming protocols
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Name Prefix
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming hds://
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Akamai HD Adaptive Streaming akamaihd://
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Apple HTTP Live Streaming hls:// hlsvariant://
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Real Time Messaging Protocol rtmp:// rtmpe:// rtmps:// rtmpt://
rtmpte://
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Progressive HTTP, HTTPS, etc httpstream://
┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ │
COMMAND-LINE USAGE │ │ │
--
AUTHOR
Christopher Rosell
COPYRIGHT
2011-2015, Christopher Rosell
1.12.2 May 07, 2015 LIVESTREAMER(1)