All Products
Search
Document Center

ApsaraVideo VOD:Server API/SDK

Last Updated:Jun 13, 2025

ApsaraVideo VOD provides numerous OpenAPIs for media asset management and control scenarios. You can use the Alibaba Cloud SDK, Alibaba Cloud CLI, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools to call these API operations.

ApsaraVideo VOD OpenAPI

ApsaraVideo VOD provides OpenAPIs for the entire lifecycle of media, including media upload, management, processing, distribution, and playback. You can integrate these OpenAPIs into your business as needed to control cloud resources. If you are unfamiliar with OpenAPI and its principles, see What is OpenAPI.

OpenAPI version guide

Alibaba Cloud API uses version numbers to manage the lists of operations in major versions of cloud service APIs.

For example: ApsaraVideo VOD currently supports the 2017-03-21 version of the API list. 2017-03-21 represents the API version number rather than a time concept, and displays the latest public API data.

API version number

Description

2017-03-21

Recommended

Online debugging

ApsaraVideo VOD supports features such as API debugging in the OpenAPI portal. Before you call API operations, make sure that you understand concepts such as the API version, endpoint, and integration method.

API debugging entry: https://next.api.alibabacloud.com/api/vod/2017-03-21/

Endpoint description

Select an endpoint based on the region where your resource resides to reduce latency.

ApsaraVideo VOD service deploys management and control services in multiple regions. You can use region-specific domain names in the format of vod.{regionId}.aliyuncs.com.

For faster response times, you can also use VPC domain names in the format of vod-vpc.{regionId}.aliyuncs.com.

For more information about endpoints, see Service endpoints.

Supported identities

Note

You can call API operations by using the following identities. We recommend that you use a RAM user or RAM role and grant the required permissions based on your business requirements before you call API operations.

After you log on to the OpenAPI website with your Alibaba Cloud account, OpenAPI uses your current Alibaba Cloud user identity by default for online OpenAPI debugging. We strongly recommend that you call API operations or perform routine O&M as a RAM user. Before you call API operations, grant the required permissions to the RAM user based on your business requirements. The RAM user must have the required permissions. For more information, see Use RAM for access control.

Identity

Support

Alibaba Cloud account

Supported

RAM user (recommended)

Supported

RAM role (recommended)

Supported

More information

Supported calling methods

You can use one of the following methods to call the ApsaraVideo VOD API.

Alibaba Cloud SDK (recommended)

Alibaba Cloud SDK is the easiest to integrate and best-supported method for calling OpenAPI operations. We recommend that you use the SDK. ApsaraVideo VOD provides SDKs in multiple mainstream programming languages. You can write code based on Alibaba Cloud SDK to call ApsaraVideo VOD API operations. Without complex programming, you can implement features such as video playback, video image and text watermarks, video clips, and live-to-VOD. For more information, see Server SDK.

Alibaba Cloud CLI

Alibaba Cloud CLI helps you interact with Alibaba Cloud services and manage cloud resources when you use the command line terminal with the aliyun command. For more information about Alibaba Cloud CLI, see What is Alibaba Cloud CLI.

Custom API call encapsulation

If none of the preceding methods meets your business requirements, you can encapsulate API requests on your own. To make native HTTP calls, you must implement the signature algorithm yourself, construct custom requests, and initiate HTTP calls. For more information about the signature mechanism, see V3 request body & signature mechanism.

Notes

  • If an error is returned after you call the ApsaraVideo VOD API, check whether the request parameters are valid based on the error code. For more information, see Common error codes.

  • You can also record the RequestID returned by the call or the SDK error message, and use the Alibaba Cloud OpenAPI diagnostic platform for self-diagnosis.