AWS Unit Introduces Media Services Suite

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced a new AWS Elemental Media Services offering that is made up of five integrated services for its wide range of OTT and multiscreen video streaming partners.

AWS, which will use Media Services to tighten competition with companies such as Microsoft and Google, said its latest offering will lean on an on-demand, pay-as-you-go approach for video processing and storage capacity.

The five services comprising Media Services included three based on existing product lines from AWS Elemental and two new ones that “solve bigger challenges” faced by the market, Keith Wymbs, AWS Elemental’s chief marketing officer, explained in media briefing.

The first three include MediaLive (a live compression engine), MediaPackage (just-in-time packaging technology), and MediaConvert (a file-to-file transcoding engine).

Two total new components include MediaStore (video delivery from storage that is optimized for media), and MediaTailor, a targeted ad insertion platform.

MediaTailor, Wymbs pointed out, has been key to the ad delivery Amazon has been using for its streaming coverage of NFL Thursday Night Football.

All five components that make up Media Services can be integrated with third-party business and control systems, he said.

AWS is launching AWS Elemental Media Services about two years after acquiring Elemental Technologies.

RELATED: Amazon Paid $296M for Elemental Technologies

“We believe this is the first time such a deep set of capabilities for media processing and delivery resides in the cloud for native services,” Wymbs said in a statement. “They can be used by any company in the video ecosystem as a core building block for their, or their customers’, video offerings.”

AWS said more than 50 customers are already on board with AWS Media Services. Examples include corporate cousin Amazon Prime Video (including the Thursday night NFL streaming package); BT; Pac-12 Networks; Fox Sports Australia Pty Limited; Nine of Australia; M2A Media; Cinépolis; Imagica Corp. (a Japan-based post-production company for movies and TV shows); and fuboTV, the sports-focused virtual MVPD.

AWS introduced the new offering in tandem with its re:Invent event in Las Vegas.