Microsoft today introduced a private preview for a new live encoding service for media content on its growing Azure public cloud. It’s the kind of thing that could appeal to big media companies that want to offload complex computations to a reliable external service.
“Common use cases include event-based streaming with dynamic ad-insertion and 24/7 linear streaming with cloud DVR requirements,” Sudheer Sirivara, the director of Azure Media Services at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post today.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1695625,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"cloud,dev,enterprise,media,","session":"A"}']The news follows Microsoft’s introduction of livestreaming through Azure Media Services back in September and the addition of PlayReady encryption for live streams in December.
A wide range of services like this should help Microsoft distinguish itself in the crowded and highly competitive cloud-infrastructure market, where Amazon, Google, and Microsoft lead the way. Amazon has been the clear leader. Microsoft is wise, then, to focus on complicated domains like video streaming, where it could pick up a following.
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The private preview of the new service “is the same solution that has been used to power some of the largest events on the planet such as the Super Bowl 2015 and 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics,” Sirivara wrote.
Microsoft will announce more detail on the new feature in the next few days, he added.
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