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In an era marked by the increasing popularity of live video content, the need for high-quality production tools and scalable cloud solutions is on the rise. As audiences worldwide increasingly turn to live streams for entertainment and information, content creators are challenged with delivering multi-source live video experiences. In response to this demand, one popular solution is the deployment of vMix on AWS through Terraform, combining live video production capabilities with cloud infrastructure and automation.

The subsequent sections below explore the key features and benefits of vMix and Terraform. The article then delves further into the synergy between vMix and AWS, showcasing how this integration offers a versatile platform not only for creating high-quality live video streams but also for facilitating the transition from live streaming to Video-on-Demand (VOD) content. 

About vMix

vMix is a professional live video production and streaming software that allows users to mix multiple video sources, apply transitions and effects, add graphics, and stream live to various platforms. It serves as a versatile and feature-rich live video production software, facilitating the creation of professional live productions. 

vMix Key Features

Multiple Inputs: Offers compatibility with a diverse array of video and audio inputs, ensuring flexibility in capturing various sources for live productions.

Real-time Mixing and Effects: Facilitates the creation of complex multi-camera productions, smooth transitions, overlays, and other visual effects, elevating the quality of live video content.

Live Streaming: Enables live streaming, allowing the broadcast of productions to a global audience in real time.

Recording and Playback: Allows recording live productions for future use or playback, providing content longevity and reusability.

Advanced Audio Mixing: Offers advanced audio mixing tools, ensuring optimal sound quality and balance for a professional live production experience.

vMix Use Cases

Live Events: vMix excels in covering live events by seamlessly integrating various audio and video sources, enabling real-time mixing, transitions, and effects. Events such as concerts, sports matches, or corporate conferences are ideal scenarios in which vMix can be leveraged to deliver high-quality live streams.

Webcasting and Webinars: A valuable tool for webcasting and webinars, vMix offers features such as multi-camera support, overlays, and live streaming capabilities to ensure a professional and engaging presentation. vMix is particularly useful for educational webinars, product launches, or any content requiring interactive online broadcasting.

Live-to-VOD Workflows: When used in conjunction with AWS Media Services, vMix facilitates the transition from live streams to Video-on-Demand (VOD) content. By capturing and storing content in real time, it enables the creation of on-demand content libraries, making it ideal for platforms requiring both live and archived video content.

vMix on AWS

AWS cloud infrastructure offers a robust foundation, characterized by its scalability and reliability, thereby ensuring that vMix can effortlessly adapt to fluctuating workloads and sustain uninterrupted availability.

Ease of Provisioning Infrastructure

One notable benefit of utilizing vMix on AWS is the remarkable ease with which infrastructure can be provisioned and de-provisioned. This feature is particularly valuable in the context of live video production, where rapid turnarounds are often required. This agility can be particularly advantageous when new productions show up unexpectedly, as the infrastructure can be seamlessly scaled up to accommodate additional requirements without causing disruptions.

Integration with AWS Services

The comprehensive suite of integrated services offered by AWS further amplifies vMix’s functionality. Amazon CloudFront aids in content delivery, ensuring that the produced content reaches viewers with low latency and high performance. Amazon S3 offers secure and durable storage for media assets, simplifying content management. The AWS Elemental family provides a suite of tools and services designed specifically for video processing and delivery, enhancing the quality and reliability of video streams.

Reduced Carbon Footprint

The solution aligns harmoniously with the Sustainability Pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework by significantly reducing the carbon footprint associated with traditional live video production practices. Historically, live video productions necessitated the transportation of substantial hardware and often required the deployment of outside broadcasting (OB) vans to event locations. This entailed not only the consumption of considerable fuel resources but also contributed to air emissions and increased road congestion.

With vMix on AWS, the need for physical hardware transport and OB vans is substantially diminished. Instead, the infrastructure resides in the cloud, allowing video production teams to harness its power remotely. This transformative shift minimizes the carbon emissions attributed to travel and logistics, as operators no longer need to commute to event locations with cumbersome equipment. Consequently, there is a notable reduction in the overall environmental impact associated with live video production.

About Terraform

Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tool used for provisioning and managing cloud resources. It helps rapidly deploy or dismantle a production environment on AWS within a matter of minutes, enhancing operational agility and efficiency.

Terraform Benefits

Simplicity: Reduces the complexity and automates the provisioning and configuration of resources, reducing manual effort and potential errors.

Scalability: Enables simple scaling of infrastructure resources across different environments.

Consistency: Ensures consistent infrastructure deployments through version-controlled and reviewable code.

Solution Overview: Terraformed vMix on AWS

vMix on AWS – Architecture Diagram

The solution illustrated in the architecture diagram above offers a comprehensive platform for live video production and streaming. It provides an integrated ecosystem that seamlessly incorporates AWS Media Services, enabling a smooth transition from live streaming to Video-on-Demand (VOD) content. The solution stands out for its scalability, flexibility, and customization capabilities, allowing it to adapt to a diverse range of workflows. 

AWS Services Used

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2): Provides the compute resources necessary to run vMix software and manage the live video production process on the AWS cloud.
• Amazon S3: Serves as a storage solution for vMix, storing recorded content, media assets, and other data generated during live video productions.
• AWS Elemental MediaLive: Used for encoding and compressing live video streams, ensuring efficient delivery and compatibility with various devices and platforms.
• AWS Elemental MediaPackage: Offers secure and reliable packaging and protection of live video streams, optimizing them for distribution to different endpoints.
• AWS Elemental MediaConvert: Handles the conversion of live streams into Video on Demand (VOD) content, supporting the transition from live to on-demand video.
• AWS Lambda: Leveraged for serverless, event-driven tasks within the vMix workflow, such as automated content processing or scaling based on demand.
• Amazon CloudFront: Serves as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to efficiently distribute vMix-produced content globally, reducing latency and enhancing viewer experiences.
• Amazon API Gateway: Serves as the gateway to manage API requests, facilitating communication between vMix and external systems for enhanced control, automation, and extensibility of live video production workflows.

Integration Points

1. API for Elemental MediaLive and MediaPackage Control: An API serves as the central interface for controlling both Elemental MediaLive and MediaPackage functionalities. The orchestration is initiated by AWS API Gateway, which triggers an AWS Lambda function to initiate the conversion process.

2. Code-based MediaConvert Job Triggers: Precisely engineered code is employed to activate MediaConvert jobs, initiating the transformation of live streams into video-on-demand (VOD) content. This workflow is managed through AWS Lambda functions that are triggered by events within the MediaLive S3 bucket, ensuring a seamless operational framework.

How it Works

Transitioning from Live Stream to VOD content	Role of AWS in this workflow	vMix integration with AWS Media Services
Content is captured in real time and stored as VOD content	AWS Media Services enables efficient content creation and distribution on a global scale in a secure and cost-effective manner	vMix seamlessly integrates with AWS Media Services such as MediaLive and MediaConvert which can be leveraged in multiple workflows

Solution Benefits

• Scalability: The solution dynamically adapts computing resources to cater to high-traffic events, ensuring uninterrupted live video production.
• Flexibility: Flexibility in instance type selection based on CPU, memory, and GPU capabilities helps tailor the vMix workflow to meet specific performance requirements.
• Reliability: AWS offers a highly reliable infrastructure with inherent redundancy and fault-tolerant features, guaranteeing consistent and dependable live video streaming experiences.
• Global Reach: Leveraging AWS’s extensive global infrastructure, the solution allows the deployment of vMix instances in regions worldwide, ensuring a wide-reaching audience for your live productions. CloudFront strategically uses Edge locations (distributed data centers closer to end-users) to reduce bandwidth consumption. This leads to reduced data transfer costs and reduced latency for end-users. 
• Cost Optimization: Aligning resource usage with fluctuations in demand helps achieve cost efficiency. Expenses can further be reduced through the strategic utilization of Reserved Instances.
• Integration with AWS Services: Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, enabling the creation of customized workflows that enhance the overall efficiency and functionality of live video production setups.

Conclusion & Next Steps

The deployment of vMix through Terraform on AWS, complemented by AWS Media Services, significantly elevates the potential for enhancing live video content.

For companies seeking to harness the full potential of vMix and customize solutions to meet their specific needs, it is recommended to collaborate with an experienced AWS Media & Entertainment (M&E) partner like TrackIt. Partnering with TrackIt ensures a seamless deployment process and access to specialized expertise in modern software development, infrastructure-as-code, and high-performance computing environments. 

Resources

The vMix on AWS GitHub repository contains a README file with comprehensive deployment instructions. Readers can also watch the vMix demo video on YouTube for more information.

About TrackIt

TrackIt is an Amazon Web Services Advanced Tier Services Partner specializing in cloud management, consulting, and software development solutions based in Marina del Rey, CA. 

TrackIt specializes in Modern Software Development, DevOps, Infrastructure-As-Code, Serverless, CI/CD, and Containerization with specialized expertise in Media & Entertainment workflows, High-Performance Computing environments, and data storage.

In addition to providing cloud management, consulting, and modern software development services, TrackIt also provides an open-source AWS cost management tool that allows users to optimize their costs and resources on AWS.