Introducing AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere: Cloud-controlled live video encoding on your own infrastructure

Background

Today, broadcast, live streaming, and video distribution customers with on-premises sources or local network destinations have a range of choices when building live video workflows. These options all have trade-offs, and none are ideal when hybrid deployments on both ground and cloud are required.

Customers can purchase and deploy on-premises encoding appliances and software, such as AWS Elemental Live from Amazon Web Services (AWS). However, the operational costs to maintain appliances and keep software updated can be a barrier to unlocking new features and video quality improvements. If a customer has hybrid deployments of both ground and cloud live video workflows, management and monitoring complications only increase. Customers who want to migrate to the cloud may also have hardware already deployed in data centers or long-term leases in place.

Many customers prefer using the fully managed capabilities of AWS Elemental MediaLive, but have video sources, such as serial digital interface (SDI), anchored on premises. One way to solve this is to use a cloud-controlled device such as AWS Elemental Link, but these devices may not meet the needs of a multi-channel environment or where customers want precise control of encode settings. Some customers also require encoding for last mile delivery on a locally managed content delivery network (CDN) or packager, and round trips to the cloud for processing add unnecessary complexity and cost.

Introducing AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere

AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere is a feature of MediaLive that lets you run live video encoding on premises while using the cloud for management. As the name implies, you now can encode video using MediaLive just about anywhere. MediaLive Anywhere is deployed on your hardware, with video processing performed on premises while configuration, control, monitoring, and management tasks are done in the cloud. With MediaLive Anywhere, you can improve hybrid workflow operations, minimize video transit, and connect to on-premises video sources and destinations.

“When you can’t get your live video sources to the cloud, MediaLive Anywhere brings the cloud to you,” said Manish Rao, GM, AWS Elemental. “If you have a video source or destination anchored on premises or a compute investment that you want to continue to use, MediaLive Anywhere brings the same great capabilities, APIs, monitoring tools, console, and pay-as-you-go pricing that you get with MediaLive to enable encoding anywhere.”

Streamline live video operations and simplify on-premises encoding

Using MediaLive Anywhere, you can manage hybrid or on-premises video encoding with consistent APIs, channel profiles, logs, and metrics. All of your channels can be configured, controlled, and monitored in one place — even when you have multiple on-premises locations. Each time you start a channel in MediaLive Anywhere, you receive the latest features and updates. This means you get the latest in video processing capabilities, including new codecs and encoding quality, without having to worry about updating software.

“AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere has the ability to transform the way we deliver live video to our subscribers,” said Flavio Ribeiro, Senior Engineering Manager, Live Encoding Technologies at Netflix. “The consistent experience between on premises and cloud workflows, automated software updates, and integrated support will make it simple to deploy and control new video workloads anywhere.”

If you have video sources anchored on premises, such as SDI, or local network destinations, such as a managed CDN or packager, connectivity is critical. With MediaLive Anywhere, you can reduce complexity by encoding from on-premises video sources. Similarly, you can reduce overhead and avoid unnecessary round trips to the cloud when you need to send live video to local network destinations.

“MediaLive Anywhere simplifies our operation of on-premises and cloud live encoding immensely,” said Loke Dupont, Staff Engineer for Live Technology at TV 2 Danmark. “Being able to control everything from a single point in the cloud and having software upgrades happen automatically and transparently gives us time to focus on user experience instead of operations.”

Ease migration and improve streaming efficiency

In some cases, AWS Elemental Live appliances and software remain the right choice, especially when live video workflows are almost entirely on premises. AWS and the AWS Partners that resell these appliances are committed to providing the most versatile and feature-complete physical encoding appliances for customers to use in their own data centers, including the new lineup of next-generation AWS Elemental Live L900 series appliances released in April 2024.

If you have hybrid ground and cloud deployments, MediaLive Anywhere is a better choice. In addition, you might be waiting for existing facility leases to expire or have longer term capital expenditure investments in place and face delayed cloud migration. MediaLive Anywhere is designed to ease the migration from managing on-premises hardware to fully managed cloud encoding. You can repurpose hardware deployed in data centers as cloud-controlled encoders, depending on the hardware. Customers with existing AWS Elemental Live L800 and L900 series appliances can migrate to MediaLive Anywhere in just a few steps.

With MediaLive Anywhere, you can also improve the economics of linear streaming by moving to pay-as-you-go pricing. Paying for only the channels you run, and only at the times they need to run, can make it more cost effective to stream 24/7 channels and live events. You also have flexibility in the number of channels you run on each hardware device, and aren’t locked into purchasing software licenses that you may not fully utilize.

Every day, PBS and its more than 330 member stations fulfill their essential mission to the American public, providing trusted programming that is uniquely different from commercial broadcasting, and treating audiences as citizens, not simply consumers. MediaLive Anywhere will enable PBS to streamline the ingestion and delivery of local programming to their stations’ online viewers while consolidating the operational management of their entire linear video stream catalog in the cloud.

Get started

AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere consists of a pay-as-you-go service and appliances that can be purchased through an AWS Partner. AWS recommends you purchase MediaLive Anywhere hardware from a partner that assembles, integrates, and tests hardware to ensure it’s ready for you to use. You can purchase both hardware and AWS services through a partner, or use your own AWS account to pay for services. To convert existing AWS Elemental Live appliances or to evaluate options for alternative hardware, you will need to contact sales.

“We are excited to offer sales, integration, and priority support for MediaLive Anywhere,” said Richie Murray, Founder and CEO of Bridge Digital Inc. “The combination of COTS hardware with MediaLive delivers a robust hybrid solution, ideal for seasonal events with pay-as-you-go pricing. With our deep experience selling AWS Elemental appliances, Bridge Digital is proud to be a supplier of MediaLive Anywhere to our customers.”

“Insys Video Technologies is thrilled to be a launch partner for MediaLive Anywhere, delivering hardware and enabling our clients to manage live encoding workflows in the cloud and on premises through Cloud Video Kit,” said Krzysztof Bartkowski, CEO at Insys. “With our integration, customers don’t need to run multiple tools and distinct workflows. They just choose the optimum resource usage using a single tool, including content protection through drm.cloud service.”

Jens Gnad, Managing Director at LOGIC media solutions GmbH, said, “We are honored to contribute to the innovative approach introduced by AWS with AWS Elemental Live Anywhere in our software PORTAL. This hybrid solution aligns perfectly with the recommendations we provide to our customers on their journey to the cloud. PORTAL offers an easily accessible, browser-based front end to deploy, control, and monitor MediaLive Anywhere on our customers’ local infrastructure.”

Now available

AWS Elemental MediaLive Anywhere is available in all AWS Regions where AWS Elemental MediaLive is available.

To learn more, contact an AWS Partner reseller today or read the MediaLive Anywhere User Guide in the AWS documentation.