This document discusses running media workloads on AWS. It begins with an overview of industry trends in media and consumption patterns. It then covers the value proposition for media customers in using AWS, including benefits like scalability, elasticity, and reducing costs. Various approaches for running media workflows on AWS are presented, along with examples of common media workloads like acquisition, post-production, playout and distribution, digital asset management, media supply chains, and digital publishing. Specific customer use cases are also highlighted, such as Netflix, Hulu, Discovery Communications, and The Guardian.

1. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Ben Masek, WW BD for Media
& Entertainment
Customer Media
Workloads on AWS

2. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Agenda
• Industry Mega Trends
• Value prop for M&E customers
• Approaches to running media workflows on AWS
• Media workflow basics on AWS
• Hi-level review of media workload customer use cases
• Focus on AI/ML media use cases on AWS

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Media Flywheel: All About Happy Viewers
Better
Decisions Content
More
Viewers
Data
More Happy
Media
Consumers

4. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
Media Flywheel: All About Happy Viewers
Better
Decisions Content
More
Viewers
Data
More Happy
Media
Consumers
Targeted
Decisions
Grater
Agility

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Changing Media Consumption Patterns

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Shifts in Global Ad Spend and Programming

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Industry Mega Trends
• Content is King, Bigger is Better
• Personalization & AI
• Media Industry Verticalization
“Over 75% of what people watch come
from recommendations”
Source: TheGuardian May 7, 2016
Source: CNN Money Dec 2017
Source: Netflix blog
Source: The Economist October 29, 2016
“DirecTV is able to command
advertising rates two to three times the
rates that Turner now receives…”
http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/randall-stephenson-att-time-
warner-hate-mail-1202580496/

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Media challenges and cloud benefits
Content Growth
More content, higher
quality (4K, HDR…).
Scalable Storage
Peak Demand
Unpredictable,
bursty workloads
Elastic Compute, Pay
as you go
Competitive Pressures
Changing consumption
patterns
Agility and Innovation
Core Competency
Datacenters vs.
core biz
Outsource

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NASA/JPL
AWS Media Customers

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Approaches to Running Media Workloads on AWS
Custom
APIs
Marketplace
AMIs
Other 3rd
party
Interface(s)Interface(s)
Partner Platform /
App (e.g. Aspera,
Ooyala)
Interface(s)
AWS Media Services (e.g.
MediaLive, MediaConvert,
MediaPackage,
MediaStore, MediaTailor)
Other 3rd
party
Appliance VM
AWS
SERVICES
On-Premises
CUSTOM:
BUILD YOUR OWN
AWS ELEMENTAL
MEDIA SERVICES
PARTNER-BASED
Deadline
Render Workloads
(e.g, Hybrid, Cloud)
THINKBOX
S3/
Glacier/
EFS
EC2
Cloud
Front
RDS,
Aurora,
Redshift,
DynamoDB
Lambda
SWF
AML/
Kinesis
Rekognition
Polly/ Lex

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File transfer
(DX, S3
transfer
accelerator,
Aspera,
Signiant…)
Ingest
Snowball,
Snowmobile
MediaLive
Process
MediaConvert,
MediaPackage,
QC, Protect,
Render (ThinkBox)
Stream
(MediaPackage,
MediaStore),
Playout, Publish
Deliver
Edit,
Review,
Model…
Visualize/ Create
Manage
Rights, Tag,
Admin
Common Digital Media Workflows on AWS
Store
Amazon S3, IA, Glacier, EBS, EFS, MediaStore
Analyze/ AI/ Monetize
Collect, Process, Analyze, Monetize
(MediaTailor, Kinesis, Redshift, AML,
Rekognition…)

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Simplifying Media Workflows on AWS
12
ORIGINATION AND DISTRIBUTION
Notification
Through
CloudWatch
Events
Media Files
SOURCE
DEVICES
Amazon
CloudWatch
AWS Elemental
MediaStore
Amazon
CloudFront
Amazon
S3
Watch Folder
Amazon
Lambda
Publish
Amazon
Lambda
 Quickly develop media workflows with AWS Media Services
 No setup or management of underlying infrastructure
 Jobs processed in parallel and the service allows scaling up to thousands of assets
Amazon S3
STORAGE
AWS Elemental
MediaConvert
FILE-BASED PROCESSING

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Acquisition
Scripps, Amazon
Video
Post Production
Sony Imageworks,
FuzeFX, Scripps,
Bebop
Playout & Distribution
Discovery
Communications
DAM & Archive
Discovery, Sony DADC,
Turner, Wazee
OTT
Hulu, Netflix, MLB,
BBC, PBS, Thursday
Night Football
Media Supply Chain
Turner (CNN), Sony
DADC, Discovery, Fox
Publishing
The Guardian, Financial
Times, Gannett,
Newscorp, Time inc.
AI/ Analytics
C-Span, Nat Geo, Viacom,
Channel 4, NFL, MLB
AWS Enabled Media Workloads

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Acquisition
MediaLive, DX,
Snowball, S3/ Glacier,
S3 Txfr Accel
Post Production
MediaConvert, Thinkbox,
GPU, Spot, EFS, DX,
Snowball
Playout & Distribution
MediaLive, GPU, DX,
EC2, S3, Cloudfront, EFS
DAM & Archive
MediaConvert, MediaStore, S3/ Glacier,
Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, ETS, EC2,
Lambda, Rekognition, Polly, Lex
OTT
MediaTailor, MediaStore,
MediaPackage, MediaLive,
Cloudfront, EC2, S3
Media Supply Chain
MediaConvert, CloudFront,
EC2, S3/ Glacier, DX, EFS,
Snowball, GPU, Lambda,
Rekognition
Publishing
MediaConvert,
Cloudfront, EC2, ELB, S3/
Glacier
AI/ Analytics
Redshift, AML, Kinesis, EMR,
DynamoDB, Rekognition, Lex, Polly
AWS Enabled Media Workloads: AWS Media Services

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Content Acquisition
Encode content
(push to Elemental Cloud)
Securely Transfer
Content
Write/ encrypt
content to S3
Capture source
content

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Customer: Scripps
Problem Statement:
• Needed quick way to migrate media assets into AWS
Use of AWS:
• Snowball
• S3, Glacier
Business Benefits:
• Performant and simplified asset migration
• Massive scalability and elasticity
AWS Import/ Export Snowball

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Production & Post Production
Access source files
located in S3
Create, edit, &
collaborate in the cloud
In case of render job,
scale out Spot Fleet
and render away
Creative application is
spun up on GPU/ EC2
in cloud
.

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Sony Pictures Imageworks
Problem Statement:
• Can we manage cloud machines like on-prem machines?
• The Emoji Movie calls and needs cores … a lot of cores
• One half of the movie left to render 7 weeks out from delivery
The Solution:
• AWS Spot Fleet
• Avere vFXT NFS caches
• AWS Direct Connect service
• AWS VPC
• Proprietary queuing system
Business Benefits:
• ~60,000 vCPUs/day (30k cores)
• Artist quota increased from 1 – 1.5 shots/week (50% gain)
• On-time, under budget and all client requests met
• Spot fleet a viable and capable burst option
Rendering at Scale in AWS
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
Total Render Cores
Feature A Feature B Feature C
Owned Cores

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Customer: Sony MCS
Problem Statement:
• Need media platform to manage content at scale
• Provide flexible, adaptive media platform to support post production
workflows in a SaaS based environment
Use of AWS:
• S3 for massively scalable ingest
• EC2 content processing and SWF, SQS, SNS for media workflow
automation
• S3 for storage, Glacier for content archive
• CloudFront to securely deliver the proxies and content for
collaboration workflow
Business Benefits:
• Centralized workflow coordination
• Massive scalability and elasticity
• Simplified metadata management across teams
On-demand cloud-based media production solutions

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Remote Application Visualization
• Remote application visualization for
post-production tools, VFX modeling
• Content stays in the Cloud
• Powerful workstations in the cloud when needed
Amazon S3
GPU
Content
Amazon
Appstream
Remote
Dumb Terminal
Amazon EC2
EFS

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Digital Asset Management &
Archive Storage
Manage asset Tag content - add
metadata
Preview, share,
download content
Ingest and secure
media

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Media Solution: Sony DADC
Problem Statement:
• Challenged by on-prem legacy infrastructure
• Over 20 PB library w/ 800,000 hours of content
• Provide a performant, secure and economic media distribution
solution.
• Decrease time to market for their customer’s finished content.
Use of AWS:
• EC2 content processing and SWF, SQS, SNS for media workflow
automation
• S3 for storage, Glacier for content archive
• CloudFront for OTT.
Business Benefits:
• Workflow pipelines can be run in a highly parallelized fashion
through AWS elastic scalability.
• Significantly shorten their content delivery SLA with a new
AWS enabled target of 1-hr.
• Fully migrating away from on-prem infrastructure.
On-demand cloud-based archive library w/ media supply chain and delivery solution

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Customer: Leading Network
Problem Statement:
• Legacy DAM not fit for growing library nor agile workflows
• Keeping existing integration yet modernize the back-end
• 4M Assets, video and images to migrate with low disruption
Use of AWS & Vidispine:
• AWS EC2, S3, CloudFront
• Vidispine as a Service
Business Benefits:
• Faster access to content
• Lower TCO
• Expandable User Experience fit for ever-developing requirements
and formats
Cloud Migration from on-prem to AWS with Vidispine Server

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Media Supply Chain
Manual Quality Control Prepare, process,
protect and package in
the cloud
Distribute content to
playout/OTT solution
Import mastered
content, along with
metadata into S3

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Problem Statement:
• Ability to support short term media delivery events
(e.g. OTT/Broadcast and B2B delivery) w/out large
capital outlay.
• CNN, CN, TBS, AdultSwim
• Capital expense storage (CNN Archive)
Use of AWS:
• Serverless Media Supply Chain using Lambda
• Lambda, SNS/SQS, EC2, S3IA, Glacier, Direct
Connect, DynamoDB
Business Benefits:
• Being able to meet the needs of the growing
distribution channels
“Connecting CONTENT
PRODUCERS with CONTENT
MONETIZATION PLATFORMS to
drive Turner’s business
across all brands, networks
and products”
Turner moves CNN library to Amazon Glacier

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Example Customer Media Supply Chain
Migration of Content
Distribution workflow to
the cloud
• Info. Gathering/Prep
• Content intake/staging
• Assembly/packaging
• Distribution
Media Supply Chain Management
Linear Broadcast
Distribution Platforms
Single sign-on & 2-factor
authentication
Video Content
MAM, ESB,
Message Bus
Content
Metadata Non-linear
Distribution
Platforms
Linear OTT
Distribution
SDVIs Media Supply Chain Partners

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OTT
Prep, process and protect
(e.g. DRM, watermark)
content using Elemental
Originate source content
(live feed or VOD files)
Stream content via
CloudFront

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Problem Statement:
• Hulu had been running their VOD services on-prem for several
years, but needed a more scalable approach
• Needed to ingest over 600 streams (networks 20 Gbps) requiring
high capacity cloud provider
• Didn’t know how many subscribers they would get - needed pay-as-
you-go approach
Solution:
• Used Direct Connect for content ingest
• Transcode and re-package content using AWS compute
• Leveraged CloudFront as an easy-to-use, performant CDN
Business Benefits:
• Attained aggressive target launch date in May, and service has been
running smoothly
• AWS operations supported launch, and now helping optimize costs
• Hulu has now been able to extend its on-prem VOD service that can
handle bursty demand
Customer: Hulu
Hulu LiveTV

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Problem Statement:
• Need massive scalability and elasticity
Use of AWS:
• Nearly 100% of its online video service on AWS
• Global use of Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SQS,
Amazon EMR, Lambda, etc.
• 30-50K EC2 instances
Business Benefits:
• Application achieves near zero downtime
• Massive scalability and elasticity
• Transcoding entire library to ~60 output renditions
“AWS is the market leader and has been able to create a continuous and virtuous cycle.”
– Kevin McEntee, VP Content Engineering, Netflix
Customer: Netflix

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Problem Statement:
• Amazon Video needs massive elasticity and scalability for their
content processing and delivery
Solution:
• AWS’s scalable and resilient services enable Amazon Video to:
• Transcode their massive content library
• Provide 24/7 real-time encoding and catchup-tv services
• Store their content library on highly durable and cost
effective S3
• Deliver streaming video to a large user base
Business Benefits:
• Operational efficiencies, converting capex to opex, new
revenue opportunities, scalability and better service
performance
Customer: Amazon Video
Global OTT live linear, live event and VOD content distribution

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Playout & Distribution
Encode, QC and prep feed
based on layout spec.
Send stream via direct
connect to transmission
solution
Acquire source feed onto
GPU instance running
playout solution

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Problem Statement:
• Not in the data center business
• Rapid changes in technology landscape
• Ability to support short term broadcast playout
events (e.g. Olympics) w/out large capital outlay
Use of AWS:
• Leveraged Pro-Serve to accelerate roll-out
• Highly available, redundant dual region architecture
• EC2, GPUs, S3, Direct Connect, RDS
Business Benefits:
• 150 channels over the next 12 months
• Greater scale and agility
• Lower TCO, flexible business model
• Short-run channels for major events
Customer: Discovery Communications

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Digital Publishing
Manage content to be
published via CMS running
on EC2
Aggregate/ create source
content onto S3
Stream published content
via CloudFront

34. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates.
”
“ • Global media company needed a platform to boost
digital services and features
• Using a wide range of AWS services to deliver content
and conduct analytics on customer patterns
• New agility boosted annual feature releases from 25 to
40,000 over course of three years
• Analytics dashboard gives editors real-time views into
trending stories
• Self-service model lets developers get new features to
customers faster
Guardian News Boosts Releases 1,600X in Three Years Using AWS
Guardian News and Media is a major media
organization based in London.
Graham Tackley, Director of Architecture
”
“AWS enables us to move faster
than ever before—to innovate faster
and drive the innovation that
necessary for our survival in the
news industry.

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”
“ • Decided to migrate its brands and data centers
to AWS cloud
• Worked with AWS tools and partners to ensure
security of customer data
• Found successful solutions for wide range of
security challenges
• AWS tools and solutions expected to save
millions in security cost savings
• Lower costs
Time Inc. Protects Customer Data, Saves Money in Move to AWS
Time Inc. is a leading global media and entertainment
company. It is based in New York City.
AWS gives us the environment to
be 100% ready as we complete
our move to the cloud.
Keith O’Sullivan
Vice President, Global Information Security
Time Inc.
”
“

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Artificial Intelligence, Machine & Deep Learning
in Media & Entertainment

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Artificial Intelligence at Amazon
Investments in AI for more than 20 years.
Thousands of engineers focused on AI.
Search &
Discovery
Fulfilment
&
Logistics
Existing
Products
New
Initiatives
More AI is built on AWS that any
other platform in the world.

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AWS AI/ML: The Stack
Services
Platforms
Frameworks
Infrastructure
Apache
MXNet
KerasGluonPyTorch
Cognitive
Toolkit
Caffe2
& Caffe
Tensor-
Flow
AWS Deep Learning AMI
GPU
(P3)
MobileCPU
IoT
(GreenGrass)
SageMaker
Mechanical
Turk
AWS
DeepLens
Amazon ML
Spark &
EMR
Speech:
Polly &
Transcribe
Vision:
Rekognition Image &
Rekognition Video
Language:
Lex, Translate &
Comprehend

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How AI/ML will play into M&E Workloads
Automate the creation of rich metadata index, extracted from audio visual content
AWS SOLUTIONS: REKOGNITION, SAGEMAKER, TRANSCRIBE, COMPREHEND (AUDIO)
Automated Media
Metadata Tagging
Convert speech into local language text for real time broadcasts and stored video, which also require
translation into other languages for distribution
AWS SOLUTIONS: TRANSCRIBE, TRANSLATE
Closed Captioning
Rekognition, Transcribe and Translate are all services that allow users to obtain visual and audio
information that can help reduce the manual time it takes to perform compliance workflows
AWS SOLUTIONS: REKOGNITION, TRANSCRIBE, SAGEMAKER
Automated
Compliance Marking
Identify visual content that is associated with a specific brand, to provide a powerful content index
AWS SOLUTIONS: REKOGNITION, TRANSCRIBE, SAGEMAKER
Brand Detection
ACQUISITION POST PRODUCTION
MAM/DAM &
ARCHIVE
DIGITAL SUPPLY
CHAIN
PUBLISHING ANALYTICS
BROADCAST
PLAYOUT
OTT

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How AI/ML will play into M&E Workloads
Identify the precise timecodes when actors and other public figures enter and leave a scene, both
visually and in spoken dialog (off-screen voice)
AWS SOLUTIONS: REKOGNITION, TRANSCRIBE
Person in Scene
Detection
Use Translate to convert transcripts and metadata to 12 other languages. Improve localization
workflows and search experience. Real-time translation to support captioning
AWS SOLUTIONS: TRANSLATE
Language
Translation
Amazon has several tools to support the centralization and analysis of massive amounts of disparate
data formats to allow businesses to make predictions and personalize services
AWS SOLUTIONS: AMAZON ML, SPARK/EMR, SAGEMAKER
Content
Recommendations
AWS has the tools to seamless integrate personalized ads into subscriber video streams
AWS SOLUTIONS: AMAZON ML, SPARK/EMR, SAGEMAKER, MEDIATAILOR
Ad Personalization
Amazon provides several ML based options to help analyze looks and monitor systems for security
compliance and intrusions
AWS SOLUTIONS: AMAZON ML/DL, SAGEMAKER, MACIE, GUARDDUTY
Fraud Detection

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Use-Case: C-SPAN
• Over 200,000 hours of content
• Only a portion of content is manually tagged
• How can we enrich our metadata in AWS?
• How can we unleash the value of content we already
own once in AWS?
Opportunity
• Large scale video library
• High accuracy required
• Limited budget
• Ability to extract from video
• Keep up with daily increase in content
Challenge
• Solution developed within three weeks
• Live video frame based analysis
• Established, searchable baseline archive
• All content is now tagged and indexed
• Over 99,000 faced indexed and searchable
Results

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Thank You