Native AWS Elemental MediaConvert in Vidispine API Through Vidinet

AWS Elemental Media Services are cloud-based services with pay-as-you-go pricing which provide customers the capability to ingest, process, package and deliver video content at scale. Vidispine has added MediaConvert as a Vidinet service and made it natively integrated with the Vidispine API, with MediaConvert output presets available to use for output transcoding.

Vidinet, Vidispine API and Elemental MediaConvert Vidinet allows customers to use AWS Elemental MediaConvert directly from the Vidispine API, with all AWS Elemental output system presets accessible through the Vidispine API as native transcode presets. MediaConvert can be used for all output transcoding in the Vidispine API, replacing the native Vidispine transcoder. Running AWS Elemental transcoding jobs through the Vidispine API also simplifies price calculations using the unique cost estimation feature in the Vidispine API.

In this blog post we'll walk you through what this means in terms of functionality in the Vidispine API, from setting up AWS Elemental MediaConvert to doing an actual transcode using MediaConvert from the Vidispine API.

MediaConvert transcoding and presets You will have access to all existing system output presets from AWS Elemental MediaConvert in the Vidispine API. An AWS Elemental transcoder will automatically be chosen if you select to transcode using one of the MediaConvert presets (see note in Developer Preview section).

Cost estimates / pricing Prices for MediaConvert transcodes are the same as you would get using MediaConvert directly, with the same pay-as-you-go pricing structure with a per minute charge.

As you may know it is possible to ask the Vidispine API for a cost estimate on any Vidinet media service, such as transcoding and QC. The cost estimate is of course also available for AWS Elemental MediaConvert jobs. Usually cost estimates are calculated on your source material, using bitrate as a base. With MediaConvert we instead calculate the cost based on the target (output) preset, using the same factors as AWS Elemental uses, such as codec, resolution, framerate and quality of output.

Note: This is not your AWS Elemental MediaConvert account that is connected to the Vidispine API. MediaConvert executes on Vidispine's AWS account and you will be billed through us.

Developer Preview What we are releasing now is a Developer Preview that have some limitations in what MediaConvert presets you can use, functionality and regions you can choose (Ireland only).

While you have access to all MediaConvert system output presets from the Vidispine API, we don't support all of them yet. When trying to do a cost estimate, or transcode using one of the not supported presets, Vidispine will return an error with an explanation.

VlgtNj1mYmU1OWE2NC00MDA0LTQzNjYtODE4Ny1lN2ZhM2E2ODZkOTE= https://my-vidispine-api.myvidispine.com/API/cost/estimate/VlgtNj1mYmU1OWE2NC00MDA0LTQzNjYtODE4Ny1lN2ZhM2E2ODZkOTE= FINISHED VX-6 My Elemental MediaConvert Transcoder ELEMENTAL_MEDIACONVERT FAILED Cant provide cost estimate, specified jobCriterion H_265 isnt accepted for job type ELEMENTAL_MEDIACONVERT

Specifically, we don't support the following codecs and features in MediaConvert:

HEVC (codec)

HLS (container)

Dash (container)

Audio Only, Dolby Audio, Audio Normalization (features)

The Vidispine Knowledge Base contains un updated list of supported MediaConvert presets to be used as a reference.

For now, you also have to specify the Vidinet resource you want to use when transcoding using MediaConvert. See the following knowledge base article to learn how to specify the resource.

Because AWS Elemental MediaConvert only works with S3 buckets in the same region as MediaConvert is running in, you can only use items on a storage in the same region, and also have to specify the destination storage using custom jobmetadata. To specify a transcoding destination storage the following parameter when executing your transcode job:

&jobmetadata=destinationStorageId%3dVX-8 In this case, I have set the destinationStorageId to VX-8 (you need to encode the = to %3d.

Setting up Elemental Ok, let's get started with MediaConvert. To be able to use AWS Elemental MediaConvert in Vidispine API you need to add the MediaConvert service to your Vidinet account.

Select the service, give it a name and select your region (AWS eu-west-1 (Ireland)). When you launch the service, you will be presented with instructions on how to set up the service. I'll go through those instructions here.

First, make sure you have set up the AWS S3 bucket(s) that you need to use as storage in Vidispine API, as MediaConvert only works with storages that are S3 buckets. When you have set up your storage, you need to add a new bucket policy according to the knowledge base article, or as in the instructions.

Next step is to connect your AWS Elemental MediaConvert service to you Vidispine API. Use the provided access keys to create the resource, per the published ResourceDocument.

POST /API/resource/Vidinet vidinet://{accesskey}:{secretkey}@ce4e3be7-7dac-42fa-8151-ac4fb119cb8e https://services.vidinet.net ELEMENTAL_MEDIACONVERT Almost there, now it's time to add all MediaConvert presets to your Vidispine API instance as shape-tags containing the mediaconvert element. To install MediaConvert system presets use:

PUT /APIinit/preset-mediaconvert-templates With that done you have access to

LINK:	https://www.vidispine.com/blog/native-aws-elemental-mediaconvert-in-vi...
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