Image Media Playlist for HLS

In HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), the I-Frame playlist provides a sparse track of video frames for a client to use during trick-play and seek operations. The format currently specified by HLS is a coded video I-frame. This approach is efficient because it references frame data directly from the video stream and has the added benefit of supporting digital rights management. However, additional video decoding resources are required to process these I-frames for display, which can be problematic in some cases. To make these images more accessible on a wider range of client devices, this specification defines a second format using compressed graphic image files.