Microsoft Azure – Uploading Files Into Azure Media Services And Encoding Them

Introduction

This article is about uploading media files into Microsoft Azure Media Services and encoding them.

Requirements

1. Microsoft Azure account.

Note - Please work on my previous article before stepping into this demo.

• Link – Creating Microsoft Media Services and Storage Account.

Uploading files into Azure Media Services Account

Step 1

Log into your Microsoft Azure account. www.portal.azure.com 

Step 2

Click on the Media Services account that we have already created.

Note - If you haven’t created the Media Services account, create one, using this article.



Note - amsnaju is the Media Services account that we have created here. Click on it. If we can’t find the Media Service account of ours, search for it in Search resources.



Step 3

Scroll down and go to Media Services. There, click on Assets.



We can find an option named “Upload” in the Assets panel.



Click on the "Upload" option now. This will take us towards “Upload a video asset” – Here, we can upload the video file that we need. We can also check the list of supported input formats over here, where we can find an option for it.



We can find the file getting uploaded now as “Uploading MediaAsset”.



Now, the video file has been uploaded into our Azure Media Services account.



We can find the video which we have uploaded in the Assets panel of Azure Media Services account.



Encoding the Azure Asset using Media Encoder

Delivering Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABS) is an important fact that has to be noticed in Microsoft Azure Media Services when we deliver the media content to our client.

Media Services in Microsoft Azure support for the following Adaptive Bitrate Services (ABS) Technologies.

1. HTTP Live Streaming (HLS)
2. Smooth Streaming
3. MPEG DASH

We need our media content to be encoded into multi bitrate files, Media Encoder Standard Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABS), and to do this, we should use Media Encoder Standard encoder to encode the videos.

Media Services also supports us with dynamic packaging, that helps us to deliver our multi-bitrate MP4s in different streams, like MPEG DASH, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and Smooth Streaming with repacking it into different steam formats. Here, in Dynamic Packaging, we will just store the files and we will be paying for the single file storage format. Azure Media Services will help us to build and deliver the exact response for the request which has been given by the client.

Step 4

Click on the Media Services account and go for Media Services. Now, click on Assets.



Step 5

Click on the media file which you want to encode.



Step 6

Click on "Encode" now in the Asset panel.



We can select the Encoding preset format for which we wish to encode.



We can define the thumbnail format, mention a job name, and output media asset name over here. After configuring the media file, encode it by clicking on “Create”.



The Asset file gets encoded now. This should take a few seconds.



After the encoding process has been done, we will be getting a notification, as shown below.



Keynotes in Short

1. Uploading files into Azure Media Services account
2. Encoding the Azure Asset using Media Encoder