Try using YouTube API to stop/start stream broadcast during splits.

[tfabris]

When I'm deliberately splitting the stream, for instance, when I am splitting the stream in the middle of the day to keep the video lengths manageably short, there is a problem.

The problem is that I stop the stream by shutting it off at the Synology end. Though this is consistent with the instructions given by YouTube, it has a drawback. I have to shut it off for a long time (a couple of minutes) in order for the stream to actually get split into two different segments. I'm not sure if this is a Synology bug (maybe the RSTP stream is supposed to send a "stop" signal and doesn't?) but even if it is, I have to work around it if I want to truly split the stream.

YouTube hangs onto the stream, and does not split it, for a good reason: It's to cover network hiccups. If the stream briefly goes down they want to make sure it comes back up again. However this means that if I want a midday split, I've got to bouncedown for a couple of minutes. Sometimes this makes me lose interesting antics happening on the screen (if the bouncedown happens at the same time the antics are happening).

To do:

• Investigate using the YouTube API "Transition", and setting it to either "Complete" when bouncing down or "live" when bouncing up. API: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/docs/liveBroadcasts/transition
• Only do this on deliberate splits. not on quick bounces to fix network problems.
• Continue to stop and restart the RSTP stream from the Synology headend as always.
• If it works, shorten the bounce time to the shortest you can get away with. See how quick you can get the splits.

[tfabris]

This is difficult. I'm not sure I'm going to be successful at this. I ran into the following problems when trying this:

• My code seemed correct, and the ID of the video was correct, but I kept getting a response from the Google API which said "not found". As if the video ID was wrong, but it wasn't wrong because....
• When I tried doing it through the Google web site's "Try it now" screen, and plugged in that same ID, it flippin' WORKED and actually set the stream to "completed" and really did the thing that I was trying to make it do. The only difference between my code and the google test screen was the fact that I'm using an access token. The google test screen hides all my auth stuff from it.

  # This worked in the Google test screen:       https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/liveBroadcasts/transition?broadcastStatus=complete&id=Earv89e6IyM&part=id
  # This got "not found" when run from my code:  https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/liveBroadcasts/transition?broadcastStatus=complete&id=Earv89e6IyM&part=id&access_token=xxxxxxxxx

• So I don't know what's wrong with my code and it would take a long time to ferret out the issue.
• Even when it worked from the Google test screen, there was a problem. After it went down, it could not come back up again for a long time (longer than the long bounce would have had it).
• The code, even if it worked, will not work by just sending a "complete" followed by a "live". After "complete", you've got to re-create the broadcast again from scratch and wait for it. Then you have to put it in testing mode an wait for that. Then you can go "live". Described here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35083880

That's not what I wanted - I wanted a quick stop and restart, and this is looking not so quick. Looks like doing it this way is prohibitively annoying, and the old way of bouncing is easier and takes equally as long.

I'm saving off my experimental code in a side branch just in case, but I think I'm abandoning this idea overall.