Alibaba Cloud introduces video solutions to support European customers
© 2021 Olympic Broadcasting Services
Alibaba Cloud, the digital technologies and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has announced the introduction of new video solutions – ApsaraVideo Live and ApsaraVideo VOD – to support customers including broadcasters in Europe with live broadcast services and holistic video production and management tasks.
“Video content and formats are increasingly diversified and rich in the new media era, with growing demand for fast yet reliable multimedia services such as live streaming and automatic transcoding,” said Raymond Ma, general manager of Europe, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “Underpinned by our robust infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies, we are introducing cost-effective and robust media solutions to the European market to meet our customers’ evolving demands for optimised video experiences.”
ApsaraVideo Live is an end-to-end live streaming platform for both audio and video supported by Alibaba Cloud’s large-scale real-time transcoding technology. It is said to provide high-definition and uninterrupted live audio and video services with low latency and high concurrency. Alibaba Cloud’s proprietary Narrowband HD TM 2.0 technology provides high-definition videos at 50 frames per second, while its 8K live streaming services deliver vivid images with a resolution up to 7680×4320.
There are also tailored live streaming solutions for various industries, covering ecommerce, entertainment, online education, gaming, finance and large-scale events. AsperaVideo Live has a wide range of live streaming encryption technologies that provide comprehensive detection and protection of multimedia content. The platform provides media processing capabilities including material management, content recreation and media distribution.
ApsaraVideo VOD is an all-in-one video solution that supports functions including video online editing, uploading, media management, automatic transcoding, video review and analysis, as well as video delivery acceleration. Leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s resilient infrastructure and high-quality video transcoding technology, the solution is designed to enable the easy and cost-effective management of video-on-demand services.
It can provide bandwidth of 150Tbps to deliver high-quality video playback services, and uses the industry-leading narrowband HD transcoding technology to reduce 30% of the bandwidth costs without losing video quality. The solution also supports multiple video protection functions, including anti-leeching, playback authentication and video encryption.
“We will continue to enhance our video service offering with local partners by introducing innovative media solutions to the market,” said Ma. “We hope to facilitate our customers to capture the new growth opportunity amidst the changing media consumption landscape.”
As the official Cloud Services partner of the International Olympic Committee, Alibaba Cloud’s media technologies were deployed during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, as part of an effort to increase broadcasting efficiency while bolstering the coverage of the Games through more innovative and inclusive viewing experiences for global sports fans.
In collaboration with Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), Alibaba Cloud rolled out Live Cloud during the Beijing Games. It enabled OBS to deliver live multilateral content in high quality over the public cloud with a fraction of the cost and minimum time for set-up. That led to a significant increase in productivity for broadcasters, while the stability, elasticity and worldwide agility of cloud also ensured a high quality of broadcasting, even during a surge in demand for live streaming of the most popular events.