The Problem With Mixer Clips
Published: 2020-06-14 01:31:45

This post is more so of a rant about [Mixer](https://mixer.com), and some of the things they do wrong, this post focusing on Mixer Clips. For those of you who do not know what [Mixer](https://mixer.com) is, it is a streaming platform similar to [Twitch](https://twitch.tv).

#### TLDR
Mixer does not actually create clips. They save references to the VOD of the stream for clips. If you delete a VOD all your clips will be unwatchable that happened in that stream.

### How Mixer Create Clips
To start I wanted to go over how Mixer creates their clips. In order to even have clips enabled on your channel you have to have VODs enabled (taken from their [Knowledge Base for Clips](https://watchbeam.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005089311)). This in it of itself is not the worst part, however, should not be a requirement to create clips in my opinion.

Once you have VODs enabled you can now create clips. When you request to create a clip Mixer creates a clip `m3u8` file that references back to the timestamps in the VODs. The file looks like so (shortened):
```
#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-VERSION:3
#EXT-X-PLAYLIST-TYPE:VOD
#EXT-X-MEDIA-SEQUENCE:0
#EXT-X-ALLOW-CACHE:YES
#EXT-X-TARGETDURATION:4
#EXTINF:2,
https://clips-content.mixer.com/vods/bc379e2c-7ab2-4941-8bb4-6a8cfddde647/0002244.ts
#EXTINF:2,
https://clips-content.mixer.com/vods/bc379e2c-7ab2-4941-8bb4-6a8cfddde647/0002245.ts
#EXTINF:2,
https://clips-content.mixer.com/vods/bc379e2c-7ab2-4941-8bb4-6a8cfddde647/0002246.ts
...
```

Note how the URLs point back to the `vods` folder. Rather than creating a clip, Mixer instead points back to the VOD. This means if you delete a VOD your clips will not be playable. This also means that the clips cannot last longer than the VODs (which they only save for 14 days for non-partners).

### Why Does Mixer Do This?
This is a question that I still have myself. My only guess as to why Mixer would do this is maybe to save money on storage costs. This would be a pretty dumb reason for the limitations this brings in, however.

#### How Should Mixer Fix This?
This is such a simple fix that would take less than 3 seconds for any developer to make. They already know the exact file parts they need from the VOD. All they would need to do is copy that data over into a `clips` folder. This would allow user to delete their VODs and still keep their clips, and it would also allow Mixer to save clips for longer than the minuscule amount of 14 days.

The question here though is does Mixer care? My guess, probably not. Mixer clips have been in "beta" for 3 years, and they still just point references to the VOD. I have not seen a bigger joke than this. From my experience in development, I would be willing to bet the reason the developers do it like this is because of the higher ups at Mixer who just do not understand, and do not care.

### Further on Clips
Since clips for Mixer has been my passion as I am working on [SmartClips](https://smartclips.app), which is real clips, I wanted to go a little bit further on how Mixer can actually make a better clip system.

It is my opinion that VODs should not have to even be enabled for users to create clips. While most streamers will have VODs enabled it is still a limitation that shouldn't need to be there.

The change Mixer would need to make is rather than copying over the video parts from the VODs they would just need to copy over the files from the HLS stream while the user is still live, before those files are deleted. This is exactly what I do on [SmartClips](https://smartclips.app), and is not a hard implementation by any means.


#### Conclusion
Do you think that the higher ups at Mixer will ever realize the changes they need to do? I hope they will figure it out eventually. I want Mixer to succeed, that's why I started making 3rd party tools for Mixer (which is also a pain to do, but that's a rant for another day).