Goal
I want to generate a single HLS segment (.ts file) from an .mp4 file, given a segment number n, assuming each segment is 4 seconds long (matching -hls_time 4).
The goal is for the segment to play smoothly, just like it does when generated as part of a full HLS playlist.
What works
When generating the full playlist with FFmpeg, playback is great:
ffmpeg -i ./file.mp4 \
-c copy \
-map 0 \
-f hls \
-hls_time 4 \
-hls_list_size 0 \
-hls_segment_type mpegts \
-hls_flags independent_segments \
-hls_playlist_type vod \
-hls_segment_filename ./segment_%04d.ts ./playlist.m3u8
This outputs segments like segment_0000.ts, segment_0001.ts, etc., and they play cleanly one after another.
The problem
When trying to generate just a single segment (e.g., segment_0002.ts) in isolation, using variations with -ss, -t, etc., playback is never as smooth.
Question
What’s the right FFmpeg approach to generate a single .ts segment that will be played smoothly together with other consecutive segments - the same way it would if it came from the full HLS output?
No need for perfect binary identicality — just clean playback.
- I cannot pre-generate the segments.
