On the 22 of January 2013, Microsoft announced that general availability (GA) for Windows Azure Media Services.
One work flow is to upload a raw video file, encode into a web consumable format, make the file available for wide distribution and finally consume the file.
Upload of the file is straight forward. This is can been done over HTTP(S) using the REST API or one of the SDKs. The file is placed within Windows Azure blob storage. There is functionality to allow for bulk uploading of files and transfer files between storage accounts.
Windows Azure Media Services supports number of encoding formats. The specifics can be found within the document named ‘Supported File Types for Media Services.’
For delivery, Windows Azure Media Services has added a feature called ‘dynamic packaging.’ This feature allows for one file to be stored and stream the content to many adaptive protocol formats. When compared to the traditional model of encoding a file into multiple formats before distribution. It is easy to see a cost savings in storage and managing the files.
The last piece is to consume or play the file. Window Azure Media Services provides a set of client player SDKs. This makes it possible to build rich media application for: Windows 8, iOS, Xbox, Sliverlight, Window Phone, and Android.
Pricing for seems reasonable. Encoding services start at $1.99 per GB for the first 5 TB / Month. Microsoft is also offering Encoding Reserved Units. This allows you to purchase parallel processing for media tasks.
Resources
- Announcing Release of Windows Azure Media Services
- Supported File Types for Media Services
- Client Ecosystem for Windows Azure Media Services
- Windows Azure Media Service Dev Center
- Windows Azure Media Services Opens Up, Adds New Platform For Developers
- Windows Azure Media Services Now Generally Available
- Windows Azure Media Services Pricing
