All Products
Search
Document Center

ApsaraVideo Live:Overview

Last Updated:Mar 11, 2024

ApsaraVideo Live leverages the capabilities of ApsaraVideo Media Processing (MPS) to provide the Production Studio feature, which is a modern, cloud-based tool for video production. Production Studio supports innovative features such as dynamic tagging based on AI-powered video recognition, real-time bilingual subtitles, and advertisement replacement. Production Studio also supports auto scaling without the need to purchase hardware. You can use Production Studio anytime, anywhere. This topic describes the architecture, benefits, and features of Production Studio.

Architecture

Benefits

Benefit

Description

Low latency

The latency of video switching is as low as 600 milliseconds. You can switch between videos almost instantly.

Low costs

The cloud-based end-to-end processing architecture eliminates the need to purchase hardware or install software. You can use Production Studio anytime, anywhere and pay only for what you use.

Support for multiple content types

Production Studio allows you to load videos from live streams or media files along with images, documents, and web pages. You can mix videos from up to 12 sources at the same time.

Robust cloud infrastructure

Production Studio leverages the cloud infrastructure of Alibaba Cloud to incorporate capabilities such as AI-powered video recognition, translation, and live interaction.

Flexibility and ease of use

Production Studio is available in multiple forms. You can configure and manage Production Studio in the ApsaraVideo Live console for no-code integration. You can also create custom cloud production projects by calling API operations.

Elasticity

You can purchase or release Production Studio instances based on your business requirements.

Key features

Feature

Description

Switching among live streams and media files

You can add videos from up to 12 sources and switch between the videos almost instantly.

PVW and PGM modes

You can quickly switch between the preview (PVW) and program (PGM) modes.

Custom layouts

You can create a custom layout to mix live streams in landscape or portrait mode.

Standby resources and stream delay

You can play warm-up videos before live streaming or display standby resources in case of emergencies. You can also delay the playback of live streams for up to 5 minutes.

Audio mixer

You can adjust the volume of output audio, adjust audio gain, and enable or disable the audio follows video (AFV) feature for multiple sources.

Component overlay

You can overlay image, text, and subtitle components to insert watermarks, logo images, banner text, and real-time subtitles into live streams.

Real-time subtitles

Production Studio integrates the speech recognition technology to automatically generate bilingual subtitles for live streams in real time.

Note

This feature is unavailable in the live center of the Singapore region.

Automatic cloud-based recording

The output live streams are automatically recorded as video files in multiple formats.

Wide range of definitions

You can choose from a wide range of definitions to accommodate various screen sizes across different devices.

Production Studio in playlist mode

A Production Studio instance in playlist mode allows you to play multiple video programs in a live streaming session, which can significantly enhance user experience with diversified content. You can perform the following operations to manage the video programs in a flexible, efficient, and easy manner:

  • Create an episode list to start live streaming.

  • Add up to 1,000 episodes to an episode list.

  • Live stream multiple episode lists in multiple rooms at the same time.

  • Play an episode list in loop mode or only once.

  • Replace an episode or change the playback order of an episode list during playback.

  • Stop playing an episode list.

  • Delete an episode list.

  • Revise an episode list.

  • Redesign an episode list.

Feature specifications

Category

Feature

Specification

Input content

Live streams

You can select a live stream from a live center or enter a streaming URL in the ApsaraVideo Live console. The stream or streaming URL must meet the following requirements:

  • The streaming URL is in the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Real-Time Streaming (RTS), Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), or HTTP-FLV format.

  • The stream is ingested by using Push SDK for iOS, Android, or Web.

  • The stream is ingested by using popular third-party software, such as Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), XSplit, and Flash Media Live Encoder (FMLE).

Media files

The following video formats are supported:

  • 3GP, ASF, AVI, DAT, DV, FLV, F4V, GIF, M2T, and M3U8.

  • M4V, MJ2, MJPEG, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPE, MPG, and MPEG.

  • MTS, OGG, QT, RM, RMVB, SWF, TS, VOB, WMV, and WEBM.

Important

You must upload all media files to the media library of ApsaraVideo VOD. For more information, see Media asset management.

Output content

Live streams

The following protocols are supported:

  • RTMP

  • HLS

  • HTTP-FLV

Live stream recordings

You can specify the length of each recording. The following recording formats are supported:

  • FLV

  • MP4

  • M3U8

Media processing

Video layouts

You can create a custom video layout and add live streams or media files to each pane of the layout.

Live stream switching

You can switch among live streams.

Media file switching

You can switch among media files.

Component overlay

You can overlay text watermarks and image watermarks on videos.

Multi-view merging

You can merge multiple input streams from different viewpoints into a multi-view stream.

Cloud production

PVW and PGM modes

You can create a custom video layout and add live streams or media files to each pane of the layout.

Standby resources

You can prepare a standby resource to switch in the event of a problem during live streaming. Only media files can be used as standby resources.

Stream relay

You can relay a live stream to third-party platforms to facilitate content distribution.

Stream delay

You can delay the playback of a live stream.