7 Best M3U8 Players to Play M3U8 Online/Web/Windows/Mac

JW Player can't load M3U8, cross domain access denied. How to play M3U8 video? Is there any way to directly open it online? I don't want to download offline M3U8 HTML player. Please help.

Get an .m3u8 file or an M3U8 stream video link but don't know how to open it on your Windows PC or Mac? In fact, M3U8 is definitely a strange format for most users. You won't notice it until you have one and can't play it one day. Then here comes the question, what video player plays M3U8?

• Part 1. What is M3U8 and HLS
• Part 2. Top 6 best M3U8 players online
• Part 3. Play M3U8 in browser with Chrome extension
• Part 4. Play M3U8 on Windows/Mac with VLC

Part 1. What is M3U8 and HLS

M3U8 is a multimedia playlist file format based on HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). A M3U8 file is one kind of UTF-8 encoded audio playlist file. M3U8 carries multimedia playlist including online files for music playlist, internet radio station, or some videos. It can be used to describe where media files are located, for both audio and video players.

In general, we take a file as M3U8 when it is with .m3u8 file extension or a m3u file encoded in UTF-8. This plain text based playlist format can be opened by a text editor or a M3U8 player. Similar to M3U8, M3U also uses UTF-8 character encoding.

HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) is one HTTP-based media streaming communications protocol implemented by Apple Inc. as part of their QuickTime, Safari, macOS, and iOS software. It is able to traverse any firewall or proxy server. In that way, it lets through standard HTTP traffic. What's more, it allows content to be offered from conventional HTTP servers and delivered over widely available HTTP-based content delivery networks. For playing the M3U8 files, you need the M3U8 player apart from the M3U8 converter.

Part 2. Top 6 best M3U8 players online

When you want to directly play M3U8 files on Windows PC or Macstrong>, you need to find a good M3U8 player app first. In case you don't know which M3U8 online player you should use, here we list 6 best ones for you to choose from.

Online Streaming Player For Free

https://www.hlstester.com/

Online Streaming Player For Free is a popular free M3U8 player which can help you play and test your streams online. Any frequently-used stream types are supported, such as M3U8, RTMP, MP4 and stream URLs. It enables you to directly analyze and play your streaming video.

HLSPlayer.net

https://www.hlsplayer.net/

HLSPlayer.net is one very famous online M3U8 player. You can directly paste the HLS .m3u8 file or M3U8 playlists in the box and then click Play to open it. More than just a M3U8 player, HLSPlayer.net can work as a good RTMP player or MP4 player to help you enjoy other media files.

Castr Live Streaming Player

https://castr.io/hlsplayer

Castr Live Streaming Player is an easy-to-use M3U8 player which can help you test HLS/M3U8 streams. Just put the .m3u8 file into the URL box and click Play Stream button, you can easily view M3U8 on web. You should make sure that, your streaming URL must be HTTPS compatible. When you stream HLS or DASH, you need to enable CORS.

OSMF HLS Plugin

http://osmfhls.kutu.ru/

OSMF HLS Plugin is a OSMF based player which enables you to play Apple's HLS format M3U8 files, VOD, Live and DVR streams with ease. It is compatible with decodes H.264 video and AAC/MP3 audio, decrypt AES-128/SAMPLE-AES Encrypted streams, audio streams, ID3v2.X tags and more.

Web IPTV Channel Player

http://player.streamingtvguides.com/

Web IPTV Channel Player is one simple web-based IPTV channel player. With its help, you can easily play M3U, M3U8, MP4, RTMP, TS, etc. online. You can start streaming by easily entering the URL. One thing you should know is that, you are limited to stream a single stream, not playlists.

JW Player Stream Tester

https://developer.jwplayer.com/tools/stream-tester/

JW Player Stream Tester supports Widevine, Playready, Fairplay, and Clearkey DRM. Its DRM solutions are available for both HLS and MPEG-DASH adaptive streaming. It enables you to stream secure HTTPS. When you have the need to test insecure HTTP streams, deprecated stream tester is required.

Part 3. Play M3U8 in browser with Chrome extension

Chrome M3U8 player extension is also a good choice when you want to play M3U8 on web.

Here we take Play HLS M3u8 as an example to show you how to play M3U8 files with Chrome extension.

Step 1Open Google Chrome browser on your computer and navigate to chrome web store.

Step 2Search and locate the Play HLS M3u8 extension. Click Add to Chrome button to download and add it to chrome. You need to sign in your Google account during this step. Then you can see the M3U8 player extension icon on the top-right corner.

Step 3Input M3U8 to the Google Chrome URL box and then you can open it in browser. Make sure the M3U8 player extension is enabled.

Part 4. Play M3U8 on Windows/Mac with VLC

VLC Media Player is an free open source player which has the capability to play M3U8 on your Windows PC or Mac. If you have VLC installed on your computer but don't know how to play M3U8 files, you can check the following guide.

Step 1Launch VLC player on your computer.

Step 2Click on "Media" on the top bar menu and then select "Open Network Stream" option from the drop-down list.

Step 3A new window will pop up and here you need to copy and paste the M3U8 link in the URL box.

Step 4Click "Play" button to play the M3U8 with VLC player.

Best media player you may want to know:

Here in this post, we mainly talk about M3U8 player. You can get basic information about M3U8 and HLS. 5 great free M3U8 online players are recommended for you in case you want to directly play M3U8 in browser. We also show detailed steps to play M3U8 videos with Chrome extension and VLC.

M3U8 player is the most directest way to play M3U8 files. However, if you want to play M3U8 files without the specific player, just try M3U8 converters to convert M3U8 to M3U, MP4, MOV, WMV, etc. for easy playback.