Manifests are text files whose function consists in describing other files, which are obtained through adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming. Two other important terms can be identified in relation to the manifest:
- Rendition manifest. Describes and provides information about a list of fragments and/or segments from audio and video data.
- Master manifest. Represents a list of rendition manifests that is accompanied by important characteristics such as bit rate or resolution.
They work as a list of all the resources included in a deployment (read-only version). Deployment manager has to create a new manifest file for each update made on this deployment. The most commonly used formats for manifests are MPEG-DASH (.mpd) and HLS (.m3u8).
