mpd514 B

DASH, Intentionally Corrupt: Malformed ISO 8601 Duration

An 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.

Streaming manifests Video QA

Preview, first 11 linesmpd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<MPD xmlns="urn:mpeg:dash:schema:mpd:2011" profiles="urn:mpeg:dash:profile:isoff-live:2011"
     type="static" mediaPresentationDuration="14.0" minBufferTime="PT4.0S">
  <Period id="1">
    <AdaptationSet mimeType="video/mp4">
      <SegmentTemplate timescale="1000" duration="4000" initialization="init.mp4" media="seg-$Number$.m4s"/>
      <Representation id="360p" codecs="avc1.4d401e" width="640" height="360" bandwidth="700000"/>
    </AdaptationSet>
  </Period>
</MPD>

Specifications

Corruption: mediaPresentationDuration="14.0" is not an ISO 8601 duration
Expected: PT14.0S
Well Formed Xml: yes
Schema Valid: no
Alt Text: An intentionally corrupt DASH manifest whose mediaPresentationDuration is the bare number 14.0 instead of the ISO 8601 form PT14.0S
Alt Text Source: description

Testing contract

Expected to fail

Scenario: Parse the manifest as XML, then validate it against the DASH schema, then load it in a player.
Expected result: The XML is well formed so parsing succeeds, and only schema validation fails: `mediaPresentationDuration` is the bare number 14.0 where ISO 8601 requires `PT14.0S`. Most players skip schema validation, so the observable result is a duration of zero or NaN and a seek bar that never populates, with no error raised anywhere - which is why this needs an explicit assertion rather than a smoke test.

What is a .mpd file?

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 this 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.

How to use this file for testing

“DASH, Intentionally Corrupt: Malformed ISO 8601 Duration” is a deterministic Testaroo fixture for Streaming manifests, Video QA. HLS playlists and DASH MPDs covering multi-bitrate ladders, byte-range addressing, and segment templates. Served inline with permissive CORS under /files/stream/, so a player can load them from any origin without re-hosting.

Documented properties for this file: MPD · 514 bytes. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.

Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such, expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.

Media fixtures are short and synthetic by design. Prefer waveform or transcript ground truth in the same group when measuring ASR, trim, upscale, or sync tools; do not assume broadcast-quality masters.

Code examples

# manifests resolve their own segments, so pass the URL, not a local copy
ffprobe -v error -show_entries stream=codec_name,width,height bad-duration.mpd
ffplay bad-duration.mpd

Generated by generation/video_timedtext.py. Free for any use, no attribution required, license.