Startup delivers multi-view streaming service for concerts, corporate events, and other live productions with help from AWS Elemental Link and AWS Elemental Media Services

Whether binge-watching a new series, catching a baseball game live or tuning into an online event, modern audiences favor personalized viewing experiences. In tune with this trend, UK-based media delivery startup Streamly envisioned a portable multichannel encoding and processing solution built on AWS Media Services that’s transforming how audiences watch live events online, from concerts to corporate webinars and beyond. With it, event organizers can easily synchronize and aggregate multiple HD camera feeds from a venue for cloud video processing and make them accessible to audiences for live and on-demand viewing with dynamic graphics overlays and geographically tailored ad insertion. Audiences can then select from a host of camera angles to drive their own viewing experience.

Streamly’s solution comprises six rack-mounted AWS Elemental Link encoders on-site, one for each channel served online. The Streamly team monitors the feeds remotely from Streamly’s main facility in the UK, while an on-site engineer provides hands-on support. Link encoders synchronize live feeds from camera or video production equipment on the ground for secure, reliable transfer to the AWS Elemental MediaLive cloud-based video processing service and recording to AWS Elemental MediaStore AWS Media Services handle a majority of the backend processing, while proprietary Streamly software and an SDK allows others to add the Streamly app into their own streaming environments. After the event, users can mix the MediaStore recording and make it available for on-demand viewing.

“The whole idea of Streamly is to help give event organizers a more secure, cost-efficient way to live stream shows into people’s homes and at the same time give viewers more control over what they’re seeing,” Streamly Founder Rich Allen said. “AWS Elemental Link, MediaLive, and MediaStore make that possible, helping to ensure a more positive viewing experience for audiences as they toggle between camera feeds, whether watching live or on demand.”

In addition to harnessing AWS Elemental Link and Media Services, Streamly also leverages AWS as its preferred cloud provider and taps Amazon CloudFront for cloud-based content delivery. “We needed a cloud provider to get the signals where we wanted them to go, and our application isn’t standard, so we knew we’d also need the expertise of AWS Elemental to handle all of the intense, real-time processing it requires. Having AWS Elemental’s premium support 24/7 has been priceless to us and our clients,” Allen added. “We can now do things that we couldn’t before and eliminate points of failure. Rather than encoding HLS at the ground level and moving it to a CDN, with AWS, we have one solution that oversees the entire workflow in a tight little package that’s easy to use.”

Allen is confident that Streamly is on to something new for music and theatre fans, corporate employees, tradeshow attendees, and other live event audiences. With a hybrid solution built on AWS technologies, it can support live event production anywhere in the world with centralized monitoring from its UK office. Allen concluded, “AWS Media Services help us ensure a positive user experience for live event streams that can add value and at the same time open up previously untapped revenue streams for artists, record labels, corporations, and other event organizers. We think it’s a win-win for the industry overall and can’t wait to continue advancing the service as our international user base grows.”