The Chronicle — News & Entertainment Streaming
Adaptive HLS (m3u8) OTT Platform & GCP Cloud Pipeline
A dual News + Entertainment OTT streaming platform designed to broadcast breaking news alongside an on-demand catalog of movies, cartoons, and trailers. Features an end-to-end adaptive media delivery pipeline utilizing HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) with master .m3u8 manifests for dynamic video quality control, powered by a custom FFmpeg automation script that parses video inputs, strips and processes audio tracks, and autonomously uploads all assets directly to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) storage.
Interface Evidence & Workflows
News & Entertainment Hero Stream Portal
Unified hero experience merging local news coverage, breaking news real-time ticker ribbon, live stream previews, and curated top entertainment stories.
End-to-End Media Pipeline & Delivery Lifecycle
Raw Media Ingestion & Codec Validation
Validates high-resolution source video containers, analyzing frame rates, audio bitrates, and keyframe intervals for optimal HLS segmentation.
Audio Parsing & Track Stripping
Custom FFmpeg script demuxes the container, isolates and strips audio tracks, and encodes clean, normalized standalone AAC audio streams.
Multi-Bitrate HLS (.m3u8) Transcoding
Encodes multi-rendition video streams (1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p) with aligned keyframes into timed .ts segments and generates master .m3u8 playlists.
Direct Automated GCP Upload
The automation script autonomously uploads all generated .m3u8 playlists, parsed audio, and chunked media files straight to Google Cloud Storage (GCP) buckets.
Adaptive Client Playback & Quality Control
React client streams manifests from GCP/CDN, providing users with instant buffer-free playback and responsive manual/adaptive resolution switching.
System Layers & Technical Design
React OTT player interface with dynamic video quality selection (1080p down to 360p / Auto), real-time breaking news ticker ribbon, categorized multi-rail content discovery, and interactive media detail modals.
Custom FFmpeg automated shell & transcode pipelines, audio track stripping & AAC encoding workers, and automated Google Cloud Platform (GCP) storage synchronization scripts.
Google Cloud Storage (GCP) bucket hierarchy for HLS segments (.ts) and master manifests (.m3u8), Redis caching layer for rapid manifest resolution, and relational media metadata tables.
The Engineering Challenge & Solution
Delivering a unified News + Entertainment OTT experience with buffer-free adaptive streaming across fluctuating user internet connections, while eliminating manual multi-bitrate transcoding, audio track extraction, and cloud upload workflows.
Engineered an automated end-to-end media pipeline powered by a custom FFmpeg script that parses raw media, strips and normalizes audio, generates multi-rendition HLS streams with .m3u8 manifests for dynamic video quality control, and automatically publishes all assets directly to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) buckets via the script.
Production Impact & Delivered Capabilities
Engineered custom FFmpeg automation script to transcode multi-bitrate video and strip/parse audio streams without manual intervention
Implemented adaptive HLS streaming with master .m3u8 manifests and dynamic video quality control (1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, Auto)
Automated direct-to-cloud deployment of all playlists and video chunks directly to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) storage via pipeline script
Built responsive News & Entertainment OTT web interface with breaking news ticker ribbon, genre rails, and rich detail dialogs
Optimized HLS segment duration and GOP keyframe alignment to drastically reduce initial playback buffer latency
Architecture & Process Flow Models
Adaptive HLS (.m3u8) Streaming & Cloud Media Transcoding DFD
Data flow diagram illustrating raw video demuxing, standalone AAC audio encoding, multi-rendition HLS segmentation, automated Google Cloud Storage upload, and React OTT player adaptive playback.