KickStart With Azure Media Service Explorer

In this article, we will learn about working with Media Service Explorer using Azure cloud platform. Here, we are using Version 3.44.1.0 of Azure Media Service Explorer, available on GitHub. 

Before reading this article, please go through the following articles that will help you for easy understanding.

The following are some of the requirements that we need to fulfill before running the Azure Media Service Explorer. 

  • Visual Studio 2015 with any update
  • Azure Media Service Explorer (mandatory)
  • Azure Account

Let’s get started

Before moving to the steps, let's know about Modules available in Azure Media Service Explorer. Media service dashboard contains the following modules.

  • Assets
  • Global filters
  • Transfers
  • Jobs
  • Live
  • Processors
  • Streaming end points
  • Storage
  • Chart 

Asset upload/download/management 

  • Asset upload from files, folder, in batch mode, with a watch folder.
  • Asset import from Azure Storage or from any http source.
  • Asset download to local, and export to Azure Storage.
  • Asset files management (upload or delete) within an existing asset.
  • Duplicate/merge assets. 

Process assets 

  • Encode with Azure Media Encoder (standard and custom presets, video stitching, audio or video overlay, etc).
  • Extract keywords and TTML caption files with Media Indexer.
  • Generate thumbnails for your existing assets.
  • Call any Media Processor generically.
  • Manage jobs (progress, priority…)
  • List all available processors in your account. 

Live streaming 

  • Enable live channels and programs (creation, start, stop, delete, reset).
  • Live preview playback, program playback. 

Publish assets 

  • Dynamic encryption setup (AES, Common Encryption) and key/license delivery service.
  • SAS and streaming locators creation/deletion.
  • Playback assets with web based players (Silverlight, Flash, HTML5/Dash).
  • Manage streaming endpoints management (creation, deletion, settings). 

Display and reporting 

  • Display detailed information on assets (locators, protection), jobs (tasks), live channels, programs, streaming endpoints.
  • Send email report for jobs and assets.
  • Links to players and online documentation and offline help file for Media Services. 

Steps to be followed in Azure Media Explorer.

Open Azure Media Service package in Visual Studio and click on "Start" to run the AMS Explorer. Then, the following screenshot will be displayed. In that, fill the mandatory fields such as, 

  • Media service Account name.
  • Media service Account key.
  • Default storage access key it is optional.
  • Media service Account ID.
  • The description is also an optional one.
 
Now click on "Connect" button to connect with Azure Media Service account.
 
 

Once the AMS dashboard appears, click Assets tab to upload a video, as shown below.

Assets ->Upload ->Upload files to new single file assets. The progress of the video uploads is shown in the below screenshot.
 
 
 
 
 
Once uploaded, select the Assets windows to access the uploaded media.
 
 

Now, right click on the uploaded assets and select "Media Analysis"  >> "Azure Motion Detection",  as shown below.

 
 
 

Then, the Motion Detection wizard will appear. Here, fill all the mandatory fields and click "Launch processing".

A job is submitted to Azure Media Service. It takes some time to process the media into motion detection output.
 
 
 
 

Now, right click on the completed job and select Publish -> Create a locator.

 

Now, the "Publish Assets" window appears. Select Locator type as Streaming locator and click "Create Locator".

 

Now, you will receive the output link. Click on Progressive output URLs to retrieve the results.

 

The output for Motion Detection is given below.

 

Related article – Getting started with Azure Media Service

Conclusion

In this article, we learned how to work with Azure Media Service Explorer and the output is projected. I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Thanks for Reading.

 
Happy Coding !

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