In our previous blog on AWS Elemental MediaLive for Media & Entertainment Industry Use Cases, we read about the three use cases to create live output for broadcast & live streaming. Now that we are familiar with most of the use cases that AWS offers under its Elemental MediaLive service, let’s have a look at another use case in this second and final part of the blog series on AWS Elemental MediaLive Use Cases for Media & Entertainment Industry.

But first let’s get familiar with the Video on Demand (VOD) services. 

What is Video on Demand Service (VOD)?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides two media solutions for cost-effectively delivering Video on Demand (VOD) content to a global audience using the AWS Cloud. The “VOD on AWS” and “VOD on AWS Foundation” solutions provide the AWS services needed to build scalable, distributed workflows for VOD processing and delivery. Let’s find out the basic differences between the two:

1. VOD on AWS Foundation

This solution is designed to help you get started encoding video files with AWS Elemental MediaConvert. It can be easily customized and used as a starting point to create a more complex workflow.

This solution will help you do the following out of the box:

1. Automatically transcode videos uploaded to S3 into formats suitable for playback on a wide range of devices.

2. Customize MediaConvert job settings by uploading your own file and using different job settings for different inputs.

3. Store transcoded files in a target bucket and use Amazon CloudFront to deliver to end viewers.

4. Manage costs, view logs, implement fixes and run automation runbooks for this solution from a central location.

2. VOD on AWS

This solution extends the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution with additional features and several options that can be customized blank.

This solution provides the following features:

1. Amazon Step functions for orchestrating ingest, transcoding (including pre-and post-processing steps), and publishing workflow steps.

2. Choice of video launch file or metadata file.

3. Deliver videos to viewers using Amazon CloudFront, formatted for playback on various devices.

4. File input metadata, job settings, and output details are stored in a DynamoDB table for easy access by downstream customers.

Optional automatic archive of video inputs to help reduce storage costs.

Now that we are familiar with various VOD solutions provided by AWS, let’s jump to the “VOD to Live” Use Case using AWS Elemental MediaLive for the Media & Entertainment Industry.

Use Case 4: VOD to Live

You have one channel to process only MP4 file inputs or mostly MP4 file inputs on a 24/7 basis.

A channel is set up with a series of file inputs to play one after the other. Each file is encoded from start to finish, and the next file starts. Sometimes, we want to clip a file and play only a part of that file. We want this channel to run without interruption until the next scheduled maintenance period, which may be in several weeks.

To overcome the limit of 20 inputs per channel, we take advantage of the dynamic input feature. We create some file inputs with variables replacing all or part of the path and file name. A schedule is set up to use this dynamic input repeatedly, each time slotted into a variable with a different file name. We can set several dynamic inputs.

Wrapping Up

As we mentioned in our previous blog, as the adoption of live streaming keeps spiking across various sectors, the requirement for quality live streaming services and inclusion of various add-ons is rising even further. So you can leverage the AWS’ Video on Demand (VOD), necessary to build a scalable, distributed video-on-demand workflow.

We hope these use cases would be beneficial for you to make a decision on using AWS ELemental as your preferred platform for MediaServices. You can also get in touch with our expert AWS Elemental developers for a detailed discussion on features and solutions and to help you make the right decision.