AWS taps up Twitch tech for new Interactive Video Service

Amazon Web Services is using the technology that powers Twitch as the basis for a new fully managed distribution service that it says will make it easy to set up live, interactive video streams for a web or mobile application.

Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) will deliver live content with a latency “that can be” less than three seconds and is considered suitable for sports, entertainment, education, retail and work.

“Customers have been asking to use Twitch’s video streaming technology on their own platforms for a range of use cases,” said Martin Hess, general manager of Amazon IVS. “Now with Amazon IVS, customers can leverage the same innovative technology that has taken Twitch over a decade to build and refine. Any developer can build an interactive live streaming experience into their own application without having to manage the underlying video infrastructure.”

Users can configure and stream live video through their own website or mobile application, with scalable delivery that supports millions of concurrent viewers globally.

With the Amazon IVS SDK and APIs, customers can also build interactive features into their live streams like virtual chat spaces, votes and polls, moderated question and answer sessions, and synchronized promotional elements.

There are no additional charges or upfront commitments required to use Amazon IVS, and customers pay only for video input to Amazon IVS and video output delivered to viewers.

Users send their live video to Amazon IVS using standard streaming software like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). Amazon IVS ingests the video, then automatically transcodes and optimises it, making it available for live delivery across AWS-managed global infrastructure.