clearLeadSegments

Reduce video startup latency by leaving initial segments unencrypted while DRM license retrieval occurs in parallel. This optimization allows immediate playback startup while maintaining content protection for the remainder of the stream. Specify the number of initial segments to leave unencrypted. Omit this field to disable Clear Lead. The HLS manifest will omit #EXT-X-KEY tags during clear segments and insert the first #EXT-X-KEY immediately before the first encrypted segment. Because encryption is applied at the fragment level, the actual duration of unencrypted content may be slightly longer than expected if the segment length is not evenly divisible by the fragment length. In such cases, encryption begins at the next fragment boundary after the specified clear lead segments, rather than at the exact segment boundary. This feature is supported exclusively for CMAF HLS (fMP4) outputs and is compatible with all existing key provider integrations (SPEKE v1, SPEKE v2, and Static Key encryption). Supported codecs: H.264, H.265, and AV1 video codecs, and AAC audio codec.