Posted On: Nov 23, 2020
We announce the availability of Automated ABR Configuration for Amazon Elemental MediaConvert in the Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region, operated by NWCD. Automated ABR Configuration automatically customizes ABR encoding configurations to simplify transcoding setup, optimize video quality, and reduce ABR package sizes. Automated ABR Configuration is available in the MediaConvert on-demand multi-pass pricing tier at no additional charge.
Customers predominantly use Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) packages to encode video content for Over The Top (OTT) distribution to web players, mobile devices, and smart TVs. These ABR packages contain multiple renditions of the content, encoded in a range of bitrates. This allows each end-viewer's player to dynamically pick the rendition that meets their current bandwidth restrictions while playing back the content smoothly.
Customers creating ABR packages today are required to carefully select the quantity, bitrates, resolutions, and distribution of these renditions. The ideal package configuration varies depending on the specific content being encoded, because the visual complexity of the content effects how the content can best be compressed. Automated ABR Configuration automates this setup, allowing MediaConvert to pick the ideal rendition configuration based on the content. MediaConvert bases this automatic selection on content classification analysis that it performs during the encoding process.
Leveraging Amazon Elemental’s Quality-Defined Variable Bitrate (QVBR) technology to optimize the bitrate efficiency of each rendition, Automated ABR Configuration further optimizes the ABR package size by preventing redundant or overlapping renditions within each package. This reduces the overall content library size and origin storage costs by up to 40% as compared to a fixed ABR ladder. This is particularly advantageous for large libraries of long-tail (lower viewership) content.
You can get started with this feature by creating a new MediaConvert job from the Amazon Web Services Management Console and enabling Automated ABR Configuration in an HLS, DASH, CMAF, or Smooth Streaming ABR output group. Like all MediaConvert features, Automated ABR Configuration can also be invoked via the API or any of the available SDKs.
With MediaConvert, audio and video providers can easily and reliably transcode on-demand content for broadcast and multiscreen delivery. To learn more about MediaConvert, please visit our product page.