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ApsaraVideo Media Processing:Overview

Last Updated:Mar 06, 2024

ApsaraVideo Media Processing (MPS) offers a cost-efficient, elastic, and scalable solution to transcode media files into different formats that are suitable for playback on various platforms. MPS performs multimodal analysis on the content of media files based on large amounts of data and provides various features such as automated review, intelligent production, and copyright protection. This topic describes the features provided by MPS and how to use the features.

Usage notes

To better understand the service process of MPS, we recommend that you learn the core terms of MPS, such as job, queue, workflow, and template, before you use the features of MPS. For more information, see Terms.

Process overview

MPS supports various media processing jobs, such as transcoding videos, capturing snapshots, obtaining media information, and using video AI features. The jobs of MPS follow basically the same core service process and can be performed in synchronous or asynchronous mode. For more information, see the following figures.

In most jobs, files are downloaded, analyzed, and processed, which take a period of time to complete. Therefore, only jobs that can be complete within a short period of time, such as capturing a single snapshot and obtaining media information, support both the synchronous and asynchronous modes. Other jobs, such as transcoding and video AI, support only the asynchronous mode.

Process of jobs in synchronous mode

image.png

Applicable jobs

Capture a single snapshot and obtain media information.

Description

You can use SDKs or API operations to submit a synchronous job. The result of the job is immediately returned. You can also query the job result by calling API operations. However, you cannot receive notifications of the job result by configuring the notification feature of Message Service (MNS).

  1. Upload a video to Object Storage Service (OSS).

  2. Call an API operation to submit a synchronous job. For more information about how to set the mode of a job to synchronous, see the following topics:

  3. Obtain the job result from the API operation that you call.

    Note

    A timeout error may occur if the size of the input file is too large. Configure a retry mechanism based on your business requirements.

  4. Optional. Call an API operation to query the information about the job. For more information, see the following topics:

  5. Optional. Obtain the job result from the API operation that you call.

Process of jobs in asynchronous mode

image.png

Applicable jobs

All types of MPS jobs support the asynchronous mode, including transcoding, snapshot, media information, and video AI jobs. Transcoding jobs include regular transcoding, Narrowband HD™ 1.0 transcoding, Narrowband HD™ 2.0 transcoding, and audio and video enhancement jobs. Video AI jobs include intelligent production, smart tagging, automated review, media fingerprinting jobs.

Description

In the MPS console, you can use SDKs or API operations to submit asynchronous jobs, or configure a workflow to submit asynchronous jobs when the workflow is triggered. After you submit asynchronous jobs, the jobs are queued up and scheduled to run within the concurrency limit based on the job priorities and the sequence in which the jobs are submitted. Therefore, the jobs may not be complete when the response parameters are returned from the API operations. You need to query the information about the jobs by calling API operations or configuring the notification feature for the corresponding MPS queue or workflow.

  1. Upload a video to OSS.

  2. Submit an asynchronous job.

  3. Call an API operation to query the information about the job.

  4. Obtain the response parameters from the API operation.

  5. Optional. Use MNS to send notifications.

  6. Optional. Receive and parse the notifications sent by MNS.

Global configurations

Category

Description

Reference

Activate services

Activate required services such as MPS and OSS, and grant MPS the permissions to access Alibaba Cloud resources.

Activate MPS

Complete account authorization

MPS supports Resource Access Management (RAM) and Security Token Service (STS). You can use one of the following methods to perform authorization operations:

  • Attach system policies to a RAM user.

  • Attach custom policies to a RAM user.

  • Use STS to request a temporary access token for a RAM role.

Overview of identity and permission management

Manage MPS queues

MPS uses MPS queues to manage production queues.

Create an MPS queue

(Optional) Configure the notification feature of MNS

MPS allows you to use the notification feature of MNS to receive notifications.

Enable the notification feature for MPS jobs or workflows

(Optional) Configure CloudMonitor

MPS allows you to use CloudMonitor to monitor metrics such as the request success rate and the number of transcoding job requests.

Set alert rules for an MPS queue

Features of MPS

Feature

Description

Reference

Manage media files

You can use MPS to upload media files to OSS and manage the media files that are uploaded or generated after the media processing. The media files contain the basic information about the media files, information about the source files, playback information, and AI data. You can query, update, search for, download, or remove media files.

Manage media files

Obtain media information

You can use MPS to query the information about the audio and video files that are stored in OSS, including the resolution, bitrate, frame rate, encoding format, and file format.

Transcode media files

You can use MPS to perform the following transcoding jobs: video transcoding, audio transcoding, container format conversion, Narrowband HD™ transcoding, audio and video enhancement, and high-speed transcoding. You can use transcoding templates to simplify the operations.

Edit videos

You can use MPS to edit videos. For example, you can extract audio clips and video clips, merge videos, set the opening and ending scenes, and mix audio.

Add watermarks

You can use MPS to add visible image watermarks, or visible text watermarks to videos.

Add subtitles

You can use MPS to add subtitles to multi-language videos and muted videos. Subtitles enable people to enjoy videos in noisy scenes or enable hearing-impaired people to enjoy videos. MPS supports hardcoded subtitles and packaged subtitles.

N/A

Capture a video snapshot

You can use MPS to capture a frame in a video at the specified point in time and specify the height and width of the image. This helps you generate the video thumbnail, image sprites, and preview thumbnails on the progress bar.

Video snapshots

Use video AI

MPS supports the intelligent production, automated review, media fingerprinting, and smart tagging features.

Use workflows

You can use a workflow to encode, review, package, and analyze uploaded files and generate media files.

You can create a media processing workflow in the MPS console or by calling API operations based on your business requirements.