Windows Azure Media Services vs. Amazon Elastic Transcoder. Part 3: Comparison
Good day to all residents of Habr! I recall that last time I described working with cloud multimedia services: Windows Azure Media Services and Amazon Elastic Transcoder. Naturally, the mechanism of work using the SDK, described by me, is not the only one. Of course, there is still the possibility of working through REST API, UI or CLI, but it is impossible to embrace everything in one article. Therefore, I hope the beginning of the "investment" of these services. It remains for me only to give a comparison of these services among themselves. Go!
It should be noted that, as I noted in the description of Amazon Elastic Transcoder, despite the release of the SDK for this service, there are several errors that need to be circumvented when working with it. In addition, unlike Amazon Azure Media Services, Amazon’s cloud service is in beta mode. Accordingly, no one guarantees its stable operation.
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Nevertheless, let's try to create a table of cloud multimedia services.
Consider the capabilities of each of the services in more detail.
Windows Azure Media Services supports the so-called Dynamic Packaging. If in brief, then you put on the storage file, only in one format and set the description (asset) in what formats this file will be available. When requesting such a file for viewing, it will be automatically encoded into the correct format for the client, thus reducing the cost of storage (see detailed description ).
Amazon Elastic Transcoder allows you to insert the so-called watermarks when encoding video. The image can be any JPEG or PNG file.
Unfortunately, both services, at the moment, do not support the possibility of gluing several input files into one (concatenation).
For content protection, Windows Azure Media Services offers DRM technology, which, as you know, is not supported on all devices.
And finally, the most interesting thing is price comparison. However, here too, several differences should be noted. Windows Azure Media Services takes money for video encoding (encoding) and for its broadcasting in the Live mode (on-demand streaming), and Amazon Elastic Transcoder - only for encoding.
Another difference is that Microsoft takes money for input multimedia data (input data) and encoding into output data formats, while Amazon only for weekends. This refers to the encoding process itself, not storage. As for storage, both providers charge for using it both at the entrance and at the exit.
As for video encoding, Amazon Elastic Transcoder charges a fee depending on the length of the video output format (output duration). At the same time, Windows Azure Media Services focuses on video size in gigabytes and charges for the number of gigabytes of video processed per month. By the way, in the case of Amazon Elastic Transcoder, the duration of the video is always rounded to minutes. That is, let's say a video with a duration of 4 minutes and 38 seconds will cost as much as 5 minutes and 4 minutes and 54 seconds, etc.
Thus, it is clear that the comparison of services in connection with different pricing is not a trivial task. However, let's try to create the corresponding table.
Well, we see quite interesting results. As you can see the main role in comparing Elastic Transcoder vs. Media Services plays a couple of file length / size. I would venture to suggest that Windows Azure Media Services is more attractive in terms of price when processing video of small size, while Amazon Elastic Transcoder is focused on processing large files.
I have it all. Thanks to everyone who followed the progress of publications and have a good day!
Opportunities
It should be noted that, as I noted in the description of Amazon Elastic Transcoder, despite the release of the SDK for this service, there are several errors that need to be circumvented when working with it. In addition, unlike Amazon Azure Media Services, Amazon’s cloud service is in beta mode. Accordingly, no one guarantees its stable operation.
')
Nevertheless, let's try to create a table of cloud multimedia services.
Consider the capabilities of each of the services in more detail.
Amazon Elastic Transcoder
- The service supports video encoding in H.264 and VP8 formats.
- AAC, MP3 and OGG Vorbis can be used as the output audio format, which Microsoft does not have.
- MP4, MPEG2-TS and open WebM can act as a container.
- Video streaming is in HLS format.
- To generate thumbnails, there is a built-in feature when creating a Job (see the description of working with Amazon Elastic Transcoder , ThumbnailPattern property).
- CloudFront service can be used to deliver content to the regions.
Windows Azure Media Services
- The service supports video encoding in H.264 and VC1 formats.
- AAC and, of course, Microsoft’s own format, WMA, can be used as an output audio format.
- MP4 and its own formats can serve as a container: WMV, Smooth Streaming.
- Video streaming is carried out in the HLS and Smooth Streaming format.
- To generate thumbnails you need to create a separate task (see here).
- A CDN service can be used to deliver content to the regions.
Differences
Windows Azure Media Services supports the so-called Dynamic Packaging. If in brief, then you put on the storage file, only in one format and set the description (asset) in what formats this file will be available. When requesting such a file for viewing, it will be automatically encoded into the correct format for the client, thus reducing the cost of storage (see detailed description ).
Amazon Elastic Transcoder allows you to insert the so-called watermarks when encoding video. The image can be any JPEG or PNG file.
Unfortunately, both services, at the moment, do not support the possibility of gluing several input files into one (concatenation).
For content protection, Windows Azure Media Services offers DRM technology, which, as you know, is not supported on all devices.
Prices
And finally, the most interesting thing is price comparison. However, here too, several differences should be noted. Windows Azure Media Services takes money for video encoding (encoding) and for its broadcasting in the Live mode (on-demand streaming), and Amazon Elastic Transcoder - only for encoding.
Another difference is that Microsoft takes money for input multimedia data (input data) and encoding into output data formats, while Amazon only for weekends. This refers to the encoding process itself, not storage. As for storage, both providers charge for using it both at the entrance and at the exit.
As for video encoding, Amazon Elastic Transcoder charges a fee depending on the length of the video output format (output duration). At the same time, Windows Azure Media Services focuses on video size in gigabytes and charges for the number of gigabytes of video processed per month. By the way, in the case of Amazon Elastic Transcoder, the duration of the video is always rounded to minutes. That is, let's say a video with a duration of 4 minutes and 38 seconds will cost as much as 5 minutes and 4 minutes and 54 seconds, etc.
Comparison
Thus, it is clear that the comparison of services in connection with different pricing is not a trivial task. However, let's try to create the corresponding table.
Well, we see quite interesting results. As you can see the main role in comparing Elastic Transcoder vs. Media Services plays a couple of file length / size. I would venture to suggest that Windows Azure Media Services is more attractive in terms of price when processing video of small size, while Amazon Elastic Transcoder is focused on processing large files.
I have it all. Thanks to everyone who followed the progress of publications and have a good day!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/210446/
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