Resources & FAQ

Q: How do I upgrade the Video on Demand on AWS solution?

A: You can upgrade the Video on Demand on AWS solution by updating the AWS CloudFormation stack. For update instructions, refer to the deployment guide. Note that there is no update available for the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation at this time, since it's in its first release.

Q: What source video formats do the Video on Demand on AWS and Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solutions support?

A: By default, both solutions can encode MP4, MPG, M4V, M2TS, and MOV files. They can be customized to encode any media file type supported by AWS Elemental MediaConvert.

Q: What output formats do these solutions create?

A: The Video on Demand on AWS solution can encode your source videos into H.264 and H.265; SD, HD, and 4K MP4; and SD and HD HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). The workflow can be configured to encode all videos in the same or to use metadata files to apply encoding settings on a video-by-video basis.

By default, the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution includes a sample encoding job settings file that encodes your source videos into MP4, SD and HD formats of HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and SD and HD formats of Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). You can overwrite the provided encoding job settings with your own to output whatever format you need that’s supported by AWS Elemental MediaConvert.

Both solutions support AWS Elemental MediaConvert Quality-Defined Variable Bitrate (QVBR) encoding mode which ensures consistent, high-quality video transcoding with the smallest file size for any type of source video content.

Q: What resolutions do these solutions output?

A: The Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution outputs 1080p MP4, and any combination of 1080p, 720p, 540p, 360p, and 270p HLS and DASH.

The Video on Demand on AWS solution outputs the same resolutions with the addition of a 4K and 720p MP4.

Q: Can I customize and extend these solutions for my specific needs?

A: Yes. The Video on Demand on AWS solution leverages AWS Step Functions, which breaks the workflow into individual steps that each perform a discrete function, making it easier to customize or extend the architecture for your specific video-on-demand needs. For example, you can modify or replace the encoding steps to produce different content sets. You can also add steps to extend support for more complex workflows, including image processing for poster artwork or additional custom data to the metadata file that will then be stored in Amazon DynamoDB.

You can customize the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution by adding or replacing Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) with Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) to allow upstream workflows to subscribe and get notifications on the workflow outputs. You can also add multiple folders and job settings files in the source S3 bucket to accommodate different use cases.

Q: Can I customize the AWS Elemental MediaConvert job templates to create different outputs?

A: Yes. The Video on Demand on AWS solution leverages MediaConvert job templates to define the solution’s encoding options. You can customize the solution to work with any valid MediaConvert template.

The Video on Demand on AWS Foundation leverages a MediaConvert job settings file which is stored in the source S3 bucket. This file can be updated to meet your specific output requirements.

For more information, refer to the implementation guides for each of the solutions.

Q: Can I deploy these solutions in any AWS Region?

A: You can deploy these solutions in any AWS Region that supports the services they use.

The Video on Demand on AWS solution uses AWS Step Functions, AWS Elemental MediaConvert, AWS Elemental MediaPackage, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS), and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3).

The Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution uses MediaConvert, Lambda, CloudWatch, Amazon SNS, and Amazon S3.