What is a .mpd file?
application/dash+xml
MPD (Media Presentation Description, .mpd) is the XML manifest at the heart of MPEG-DASH adaptive streaming. It describes periods, adaptation sets, representations, and segment templates, telling a player which bitrate ladders exist and how to construct segment URLs. It is the DASH counterpart to an HLS .m3u8 playlist.
How to use a .mpd file
Use an example .mpd to test DASH players, manifest parsers, and ABR ladder logic. Files under /files/stream/ are served inline with permissive CORS, so a player can fetch this manifest and its segments from any origin without re-hosting them.
Download example .mpd files
- DASH — Static MPD With a Segment TemplateA DASH manifest with separate video and audio adaptation sets, three video representations, and $RepresentationID$/$Number$ segment-template addressing — the standard VOD packaging shape. Served inline as application/dash+xml with permissive CORS, so dash.js can load it cross-origin. A manifest-parsing fixture: it describes segment URLs rather than shipping the segments.
- DASH — Multi-Period Manifest With a Mid-Roll BreakThree DASH periods — content, an ad break, then content again — each with its own initialisation segment. Period boundaries are where players most often break: the decoder must be reset, the buffer cannot span the discontinuity, and rendition selection restarts. Pairs with the VMAP and SCTE-35 fixtures, which describe the same break from the ad-signalling side.
- DASH — Explicit SegmentList AddressingThe same content addressed with an explicit SegmentList — every segment URL enumerated rather than derived from a template. Verbose, but it is what older packagers emit and it permits non-uniform segment naming. A DASH client must support both this and SegmentTemplate; the paired template manifest in this group is the direct contrast.
- DASH — Dynamic (Live) Manifest With a Time-Shift BufferA live DASH manifest: type is dynamic, there is no total duration, and the client must compute which segment is currently available from availabilityStartTime, the wall clock, and the segment duration. Declares a one-minute time-shift buffer and an eight-second presentation delay. The timestamps are fixed so the fixture stays deterministic — a real client will compute a segment number far in the future, which is itself a useful edge case to handle gracefully.
- DASH — Intentionally Corrupt: Malformed ISO 8601 DurationAn intentionally corrupt DASH manifest whose mediaPresentationDuration is the bare number 14.0 instead of the ISO 8601 form PT14.0S. The XML is well-formed, so it parses cleanly and only fails at schema validation — which most players skip. The usual result is a duration of zero or NaN and a seek bar that never populates, with no error anywhere.
- DASH VOD — Manifest (Playable Package)A complete, playable MPEG-DASH manifest for the same 320x180 at 300 kbps, 480x270 at 700 kbps, 640x360 at 1400 kbps ladder as the HLS package, produced from the same encoder run — so the two can be compared directly as packaging rather than as content. Every segment it references exists in this group. Served inline as application/dash+xml with permissive CORS, so dash.js can load it cross-origin.