This topic describes the features of ApsaraVideo Live and how to use them.
Feature overview
In addition to basic services such as stream ingest and playback, ApsaraVideo Live provides features such as live streaming security, media processing such as recording and transcoding, stream relay, and log management. The following table provides more details.
Category | Feature | Description | Usage notes |
Basic live streaming services | Domain name configuration | Configure domain names. Associate ingest domains with streaming domains. Associate main and sub-streaming domains as needed. | |
Stream ingest and playback | Ingest and play live streams. | ||
Stream management | Stream management lets you view active and historical streams. You can also interrupt or disable stream ingest. | ||
Live streaming security | RAM user management | Resource Access Management (RAM) is an Alibaba Cloud service for identity management and access control. Use RAM to grant permissions to RAM users. This allows them to use features within their authorized scope. | |
Video encryption | Alibaba Cloud video encryption encrypts video data. Even if downloaded, the video remains encrypted and cannot be maliciously redistributed. Video encryption effectively prevents video leaks and hotlinking. | ||
Access control | Access control provides features such as URL signing, Referer-based hotlink protection, IP blacklists and whitelists, protocol-based playback blocking, and remote authentication. | ||
HTTPS | ApsaraVideo Live supports HTTPS secure acceleration and force redirect. | ||
Automated review for live content | Live stream review uses captured frames and audio to automatically detect if video or audio content violates regulations. Use this feature with Stream Management to interrupt or disable ingest for non-compliant live streams. | ||
Live stream acceleration | Edge ingest | ApsaraVideo Live uses edge ingest to push live streams. It prioritizes pushing streams to the optimal acceleration node. | |
Latency configuration | Configure the latency based on the streaming protocol. | ||
Real-Time Streaming (RTS) | Provides an easy-to-access live audio and video service with millisecond latency, high concurrency, and smooth, high-definition streaming. | ||
Live stream media processing | Live stream recording | Use the live stream recording feature to record live content for record-keeping and later viewing. | |
Live stream transcoding | Live stream transcoding can convert parameters such as video resolution, encoding format, and bitrate to meet different playback requirements. | ||
Live stream watermarking | The live stream watermarking feature adds watermarks to live videos. This is useful for scenarios such as copyright protection and annotating live stream information. | ||
Live stream snapshots | The live stream snapshot feature captures and saves frames during a live stream. | ||
Time shifting | Time shifting lets you watch the live video from the start time to the current time. | ||
Live stream encapsulation | The basic live streaming service supports playback protocols such as RTMP, HTTP-FLV, and HLS. The live stream encapsulation feature supports more playback protocols, such as LL-HLS and DASH, and different segment formats, such as TS and CMAF. | ||
Real-time captions (Public preview) | ApsaraVideo Live provides a real-time caption feature. It uses real-time speech recognition to convert the audio of a live stream into captions and supports translation. | ||
Callback management | ApsaraVideo Live provides event callbacks for features such as stream ingest status, live stream recording, live stream snapshots, and automated review. | ||
Live+ | Real-Time Streaming (RTS) | Provides an easy-to-access live video service for clients with ultra-low latency, high concurrency, and smooth, high-definition streaming. | |
ApsaraVideo Real-time Communication | Adds more interactive elements to traditional live streaming, such as voice chat, video co-streaming, and game interactions. This allows viewers to be participants, not just observers, and enhances the connection between platform users. | ||
Interactive messages | Provides a rich, easy-to-integrate SDK to easily add features like comments, live comments, and likes to your live streaming application. | ||
Production studio | The cloud-based production studio leverages Alibaba Cloud's ApsaraVideo Live and ApsaraVideo Media Processing services to reinvent traditional video production tools. It integrates video AI recognition, bilingual translation, and various interactive capabilities to create innovative production effects. It supports dynamic labels, ET bilingual captions, and ad replacement. | ||
Broadcast monitoring | Provides real-time monitoring for various live streaming projects. It sends alerts for anomalies such as changes in frame rate and bitrate, audio/video synchronization issues, latency, and stuttering. This ensures the reliability of professional live streams. | ||
Live stream relay | Center relay | Center relay pushes live streams to other platforms through the live center. Center relay can trigger stream processing tasks such as recording and transcoding. | |
Stream pulling and relay | Use the stream pulling and relay feature when you need to relay a third-party live source or convert a recorded video into a live stream. This feature lets you scrape content from different live or video-on-demand sources and broadcast it to viewers in real time. | ||
Origin-pull streaming | The origin-pull streaming feature pulls third-party live streams to the Alibaba Cloud live center for stream processing and accelerated distribution. | ||
- | Dual-stream disaster recovery | The dual-stream disaster recovery policy lets users push two identical content streams to the same URL path simultaneously during critical live events or high-traffic scenarios. The system monitors the availability and quality of both streams in real time and switches when necessary to ensure the continuity and stability of the live stream. | |
- | HTTP headers | HTTP headers are the header information in HTTP requests and responses. | |
Data center | Usage query | Query the usage of playback bandwidth/traffic, transcoding, watermarking, relay, review, snapshots, and more within a specific time granularity. | |
Operational analytics | View data on live playback traffic and bandwidth, unique visitors, user distribution, and origin fetch data. | ||
Real-time monitoring | Provides monitoring features for stream ingest, traffic, and bandwidth. | ||
Log management | The Log Management service provides log download features. | ||
SDK quality monitoring | Query stream ingest data from the ApsaraVideo Live SDK for the last three days. Metrics such as playback success rate, first frame latency, and stuttering rate help you quickly understand the quality of live playback. | ||
Toolbox | URL generator | Use the URL generator to generate ingest and streaming URLs. | |
Self-service troubleshooting | Diagnose common live stream ingest and playback issues and provides solutions based on specific anomalies. | ||
Certificate Service | Supports the HTTPS secure acceleration service. You can upload a custom certificate or deploy a certificate hosted in Alibaba Cloud SSL Certificate Service to the acceleration platform. Enable the HTTPS secure acceleration service to achieve encrypted data transmission across the entire network. | ||
IP address detection | Check if a specified IP address belongs to an Alibaba Cloud acceleration node. Also, check the region and carrier of the IP address. | ||
Basic live streaming workflow
Basic ApsaraVideo Live workflow
The streamer uses a capture device to collect live content and pushes the live stream to an ingest node using the Push SDK.
ApsaraVideo Live uses edge ingest to push the live stream to the Alibaba Cloud live center. Edge nodes accelerate the video stream to ensure stable uplink transmission.
ApsaraVideo Live pushes the live stream from the Alibaba Cloud live center to acceleration nodes.
Viewers can watch the live stream using the Player SDK.
Procedure
Number | Node | Method | Operation | API reference | References |
1 | Preparations | Console | ApsaraVideo Live console | Not applicable | Not applicable |
2 | Add a domain name |
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3 | Associate domain names |
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4 | Configure access control |
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5 | Generate URLs | Console | Not applicable | ||
6 | Stream ingest | Ingest tool |
| Not applicable | |
7 | Playback | Player |
| Not applicable |