AWS Elemental Live is an on-premises solution that processes live video for delivery to broadcast televisions and streaming to internet-connected devices. It allows you to easily and reliably compress live video sources into multiple versions for distribution. Deployed on-premises as appliances or as AWS-licensed software on your infrastructure, AWS Elemental Live lets you deploy reliable, high-quality live video processing at the source, within the studio, or inside remote facilities.
Key features
Advanced video workflows
Viewer expectations for broadcast and internet-connected video continue to increase, while consumer devices become more and more powerful and sophisticated. AWS Elemental Live incorporates advanced features and functionality to support an exceptional consumer experience. With AWS Elemental Live, you can launch a 24/7 4K Ultra HD service with improved color space, deeper luminance, and increased bit depth for enhanced picture quality. Create HDR 10, Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG), or Dolby Vision content from multiple ingest formats including standard dynamic range (SDR), HDR 10, and HLG sources. Incorporate captions into your content across different formats and languages.
Multiple output production
Preparing live events and live linear channels for distribution requires converting raw video into a full range of compressed outputs. AWS Elemental Live lets you generate a mix of video streams at different resolutions and bitrates at the same time, so your streams match each viewer’s screen and bandwidth, from smartphones to 4K televisions. Create all internet streaming formats directly within AWS Elemental Live or deliver a base format for downstream packaging.
Content monetization support
Video delivered over the internet offers new opportunities to monetize your content through advertising. You can integrate AWS Elemental Live with a number of ad insertion platforms, including
AWS Elemental MediaTailor. The software can read incoming ad markers directly or through APIs to enable frame-accurate insertion of video ads into output formats, supporting monetization of your live channels.
Built-in automation and management
Manage AWS Elemental Live via web interface or REST/XML APIs for integration with on-premises, cloud-based, or virtualized deployments. Group multiple AWS Elemental Live solutions into encoder clusters and easily manage them as a unit with
AWS Elemental Conductor Live. Conductor Live centralizes setup, maintenance, and upgrades of AWS Elemental Live, while offering easy deployment of redundant systems to support high availability and uninterrupted content delivery.
Detailed specifications
| * | Available with optional license |
| ** | Feature requires an L800 series appliance with a 25GbE Mellanox NIC or an L900 series appliance SKU with a -U designation |
| *** | Feature requires a 4K capable appliance SKU |
Input Support
| Live Input | - Single and Multiple Program Transport Streams (SPTS, MPTS) over UDP/IP and RTP/IP with FEC and SMPTE ST 2022-7 seamless protection switching - TR-01 with JPEG-2000 compression, PCM audio, and captions - SMPTE ST 2110-20 (uncompressed video) **, 2110-22 (JPEG XS compressed video *) **, 2110-30 (PCM) **, 2110-31 (AC3, EAC3) **, 2110-40 (Ancillary Data) with SMPTE 2022-7 seamless protection switching **, NMOS IS-04 discovery & registration **, and NMOS IS-05 device connection management ** - SMPTE ST 2022-6 with SMPTE 2022-7 seamless protection switching ** - SDI (uncompressed), optional: SD-SDI, HD-SDI, 3G-SDI, 12G-SDI, Quad 3G-SDI (4K), Interleave (4K) - AWS Elemental MediaConnect, SRT protocol (caller mode) - Packaged network inputs: Apple HLS TS with muxed audio and video - RTMPS - RTSP - Video codecs: ⦁ H.264 up to 4:2:2 10 bit ⦁ H.265 up to 4:2:2 10 bit including High Dynamic Range (HDR) * ⦁ MPEG-2 ⦁ Apple ProRes® ⦁ RAW ⦁ JPEG-2000 ⦁ JPEG XS * ** - Audio codecs: ⦁ AC-3 (Dolby Digital) ⦁ EAC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) * ⦁ Dolby E * ⦁ AAC ⦁ MPEG-1 Layer II ⦁ PCM |
| Live Input Redundancy | - Input integrity: Generate repeat, black, slate, or color when input is missing - Input failover, including seamless Hot Backup up to 4K *** (dual decode, single encode) |
| Live Input Redundancy Trigger Conditions | - User-configurable - Time-based errors ("Input Loss", "Video Loss", "Audio Silence", "Video Freeze", "Video Black") - Event-based errors ("Transport Error Indicator Flag", "Continuity Counter Errors", "RTP Packet Loss") |
| File Input | - Containers: MXF (AS-02, OP-1a-c, OP-2a-c, OP-3c), QuickTime, MPEG-4 - Packaged files: HLS - Discrete audio and caption inputs - OP-47 captions from 436M track of input MXF files |
| File Input Features | - Separate audio and video files - Audio delay offset - Audio PID tracking - Audio language tracking - Audio track selection - MPEG-2 deblocking - Source file clipping - Fast seek - Merge multiple sources to single output - Channel selection for multitrack inputs - Audio only Input - Amazon S3 support - Static image overlay per input |
| Multichannel Audio Input | - Per clip audio channel assignment - Unlimited audio tracks |
| Timecode | - Time code source embedded - Time code Source use local system clock - Override Time code date - Start encoding at specified timecode - External reference connector |
| Captions | - Ancillary, DVB-Sub, SCTE-20, SCTE-27, null, SCC, SMI, SRT, STL, Teletext, TTML, ARIB, EBU-TT-D - Source CC channel - 608 to 708 upconvert |
| Ad Avail | - ESAM - Virtual input switching via SCTE 35 or asynchronous ESAM messages - SCTE-35 splice insert - SCTE-35 with APOS - SCTE-35 Pullup - SCTE-104 digital cue tone passthrough - Ad avail blanking - Black-out capability |
| Nielsen | - Nielsen ID3 certification |
| Notifications | - Web callback |
| Scripting | - Pre and post processing scripts - Blank output during Ad avail |
| 608 Extended Data Services | - Line 21 passthrough, rewrite, strip, insert - Pre and post processing scripts - Line 21 passthrough, rewrite, strip, insert |
| Copy and Redistribution Control Packets | - Line 21 passthrough, rewrite, strip, insert |
Output Formats
| Video | - H.264 (Baseline, Main, High up to 4:2:2*), 4:2:2 High Profile Intra 10 bit * - H.265 (Main, Main10 up to 4:2:2*) including HDR 10, HLG, and Dolby Vision HDR * - JPEG XS * - MPEG-2 - Apple® ProRes (up to 4:2:2 10 bit) - Frame capture to JPEG (thumbnail creation, trick-play tracks) - I-Frame only mode - Uncompressed |
| Audio | - AAC-LC, AAC-HEV1, AAC-HEV2 (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, LATM/LOAS) - Uncompressed WAV, AIFF - AC-3 (Dolby Digital) *, AC-3 passthrough - EAC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) *, EAC-3 passthrough - Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos * , Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos passthrough - MPEG-1 Layer II - Audio only output support (TS, HLS, MSS, RTMP) |
| Multichannel Audio Output | - Per clip audio channel assignment - Unlimited audio tracks |
| Multilanguage Support | - Follow input type (ISO 639) - Insert audio type (ISO 639) - Follow language code - Insert language code |
| Output Locking | - Apple HLS, Microsoft Smooth, and TS outputs |
Output Containers
| Live Streaming Outputs | - Adobe RTMP Streaming (RTMP, RTMPS) - Apple HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HLS) - Microsoft Smooth Streaming (ISMV) - MPEG DASH (ISOBMFF) - MPEG-2 Part 1, Systems, CableLabs compliant (EBIF passthrough, EBP, PSI, RAI segmentation marker) (MPEG-TS) - Real Time protocol (RTP) - Single and Multiple Program Transport Streams (SPTS, MPTS) over UDP/IP and RTP/IP with FEC - SMPTE ST 2110-20 (uncompressed video) * **, 2110-22 (JPEG XS compressed video) * **, 2110-30 (PCM) * **, 2110-31 (AC3, EAC3) * **, 2110-40 (Ancillary Data) with SMPTE 2022-7 seamless protection switching * **, NMOS IS-04 discovery & registration **, and NMOS IS-05 device connection management ** - AWS Elemental MediaConnect, Zixi push protocol - SRT (caller and listener mode) |
| File Outputs | - Apple QuickTime and ProRes (MOV) - Sony XDCAM MXF (XDCAM) - RAW YUV or RGB formats (uncompressed) - MPEG-4 Part 12 (MP4) |
| Apple HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HLS) | - TS or fMP4 segment types - Byte range offset - Single file / multiple segments - Segment length - Minimum Segment length - Auto upload to CDN - Content Base URL - Manifest Base URL - Use subdirectories - Disable caching - Floating point manifests - Resolution tag - Compressed manifests - Use Pantos 7 CODEC identifiers - Program-date-Time flag - Closed-caption tag - Ad markers - Adobe - Ad markers - Simple - Ad markers - SCTE-35 enhanced - SMPTE ST 2038 ancillary data - Alternate Manifest destination - File transfer protocols (HTTP push, Akamai, Webdav) with ULL chunked transfer |
| Apple HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HLS) Encryption | - AES CBC, CTR, EBC - Key providers: 1Mainstream, Conax, Inside Secure, Irdeto, Piksel, PlayReady, Secure Media, Cisco, Verimatrix, SPEKE |
| MPEG DASH (ISOBMFF) | - Single file / multiple segments with ULL chunked transfer - Fragment length - Segment length - ULL chunked encoding - HbbTV 1.5 support - Base URL - Minimum buffer Time |
| MPEG DASH (ISOBMFF) Encryption | - DASH-CENC - Key providers: Widevine, Piksel, SPEKE, PlayReady |
| Microsoft Smooth Streaming (ISMV) | - Manifest level encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16) - Collapse identical audio streams |
| Microsoft Smooth Streaming (ISMV) Encryption | - AES CTR - PlayReady support - Key providers: Conax, Inside Secure, Seachange, Piksel, Irdeto, SPEKE |
| Reliable TS Output | - Deliver to AWS Elemental MediaConnect - Zixi push protocol - SRT caller and listener |
| Reliable TS Output Encryption | - AES-128, AES-192, AES-256 |
| SMPTE ST 2110 ** | - SMPTE ST 2110-20 uncompressed video (SD, HD, 4K) * ** - SMPTE ST 2110-22 JPEG XS compressed video (SD, HD) * ** - SMPTE ST 2110-30 PCM audio * ** - SMPTE ST 2110-31 AC3 and EAC3 audio * ** - SMPTE ST 2110-40 ancillary data * ** - SMPTE ST 2022-7 seamless protection switching ** - SCTE 35 to SCTE 104 passthrough ** - Precision Time Protocol (PTP) ** - NMOS IS-04 discovery & registration ** - NMOS IS-05 device connection management ** |
System Control
| CDN | - Integrated CDN support: Basic PUT, WebDav, and Akamai |
| Load Balancing | - Manual or automated load balancing options - Notifications and alerts |
| Monitoring | - System resource and statistics monitoring |
| User Authentication | - Multiple authentication tiers, Amazon S3 public and private keys |
| AWS Elemental Conductor Live | - Separate management system for control, monitoring, and worker failure recovery in a multi-system configuration - Provision and operate channels using templates |
| Network Management | - SNMP version 2c |
| Real-time Controls | - Stop, pause, and resume individual streams as well as archived files - Audio gain adjustment for real-time control of audio volume - Video and audio preview |
Image Enhancement
| Anti-aliasing Scaling | - Reduce distortion artifacts when downscaling |
| Lanczos Scaling | - Multivariate interpolation |
| Deblocking and Denoise | - Remove common blocking and noise video artifacts |
| Deinterlacing | - Motion adaptive interpolation - Motion adaptive blend - Motion adaptive interpolation with ticker |
| Inverse Telecine | - Removes 2-3 frame format, restores original 24 fps frame rate |
| Telecine | - None, soft, or hard |
| Gaming Optimizations | - Fast complexity changes and rapid quality recovery during transitions |
| Noise Reduction | - Noise filtering capability (Perceptual Motion-Compensated filtering, Conserve, Spatial, and Sharpen) |
| Static Logo Insertion | - Up to eight static image overlays (BMP, PNG, or TGA format), SDR or HDR - Apply image overlay to a single Input, a single output, or globally - Specify z-order and opacity |
| Motion Logo Insertion * | - Motion graphic overlay (HTML, MOV, or PNG sequence), SDR or HDR * - Overlay HTML motion graphics generated by third party authoring tools, switch overlays on or off with SCTE-35 signals * |
| Thumbnail Creation | - Create thumbnail JPEG images for any single frame or at custom intervals |
| Color Correction | - Brightness, contrast, hue, saturation - Full swing range or passthrough - 601, 709 color space conversion - HDR to SDR down conversion |
| MPEG-2 Error Concealment | - Temporal pixel substitution |
| Cropping | - Select pixel locations to crop |
| Timecode Burn In | - Text, font size, position |
Audio Enhancement
| Level Adjustment | - Volume control |
| Audio Loudness Management | - Audio loudness monitoring and correction; results stored to file (CALM compliant) * |
| Channel Mixing and Mapping | - Manual audio remixing - Broadcaster mixed Ad |
| Rate Conversion | - Adjust audio sample rate and frequency |
| Formats | - Encode multiple formats simultaneously |
| Multiple Audio Tracks | - Support for multiple audio streams for each video stream (SAP) |
Conductor Live
| Live encoder control | - Create, start, stop, delete, and schedule channels - Visually preview activity on each encoder via video thumbnails - MPTS management for Statmux pool |
| Resiliency | - Operator-defined, redundancy groups 1 + 1, N + 1, and N + M - Manual or automatic redundancy switching and customer-defined input source failover conditions - Simulated switchover - Cold backup - SDI router switching |
| System control | - Authenticated user access for system control and monitoring with configurable user levels - View all nodes - Monitor cluster status - Schedule backups |
| Communication | - RESTful API - HTML-based UI - Channel XML |
| Alerts & messages | - SNMP trap emit - Alert email notification - Configurable alerts - Alert history - WebCallBack |
| Other features | - High availability - Profile parameters |
Statmux *
| User Interface | - Conductor Live for MPTS configuration and monitoring - Statmux API |
| MPTS Output | - Up to 60 channels in a pool - Up to 125 Mbps per MPTS - MPEG-2, H.264 (AVC), and 10-bit H.265 (HEVC) codecs, at resolutions up to 4K with HDR - Combine MPEG-2, AVC, and HEVC encoded channels in a single MPTS |
| Bandwidth Management | - Video pool automatically optimized during run time - Dynamic changes in audio and metadata accounted for automatically |
| Latency | - Under 4 seconds (with software release 2.20.3, dependent on video formats used and operating conditions) - Controlled by multiplexer, optional parameters available to further reduce latency with slight compromises in picture quality |
| Redundancy | - 1+1 with coordinated failover - SMPTE 2022-7 internode communication |
| Passthrough Features | - All PIDs supported by Live |
Other Features
| Metadata | - VBI passthrough (V-Chip, CGMS-A) - KLV Data |
| Caption Extraction and Passthrough | - Inputs: ⦁ Embedded ⦁ SCC ⦁ Teletext - Transcaption Outputs: ⦁ CFF-TT ⦁ DVB-sub ⦁ Embedded ⦁ Embedded+SCTE-20 ⦁ SCTE-20+Embedded ⦁ SCC ⦁ SMI ⦁ SMPTE-TT ⦁ SRT ⦁ Teletext ⦁ TTML ⦁ WebVTT - Optical Character Recognition (OCR) - Open caption support - Caption burn in - Language flag insertion |
| Processing | - Rate control ⦁ CBR encoding ⦁ QVBR (Quality-Defined Variable Bitrate) encoding with support for Auto mode for Quality Level selection ⦁ VBR encoding ⦁ Statmux encoding * (also requires Conductor Live and Statmux appliances) ⦁ Look ahead - Adaptive Quantization ⦁ Intraframe or interframe perceptual QP variation ⦁ Machine Learning driven auto Adaptive Quantization mode - Insert / respond to AFD - Scene change detection - Minimum I-Frame interval - Force interlace mode - Variable GOP support - Content-Adaptive B frames - RTMP metadata insertion - EBIF passthrough - EBP, PSI, RAI segmentation marker |
| High Dynamic Range (HDR) Processing | - HDR 10 support (ST.2084, ST.2086, MaxFALL, MaxCLL) - HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) BT.2020 - Dolby Vision (Profile 5 and Profile 8.1) * - Conversion between SDR, HDR 10, and HLG - Rec.2020 color support |