Functions

Audio/Video Upload

After enabling VOD, you can upload audio/video files to VOD for management.

VOD supports the following methods for uploading audio/video files:

• Local upload: You can upload audio/video files stored on a local disk to VOD.
• Pull from URLs: You can pull source audio/video files from their URLs and then upload them to VOD.
• APIs for file upload and server SDKs in Java, Python, Go, Node.js, .Net, PHP, and C++ languages are provided.

Audio/Video file upload mechanism:

• Each video file is split into multiple small files (20 MB by default) and uploaded to VOD.
• The timeout interval for uploading a small file is 60 minutes.

Formats of audio/video files that can be uploaded:

• Video: MP4, TS, MOV, MXF, FLV, MPG, WMV, AVI, M4V, F4V, MPEG, 3GP, ASF, MKV, WEBM, RMVB, VOB, RM, MTS, DV, DAT, QT, M2T, SWF and M3U8. An M3U8 file can be uploaded only by pulling it from its URL.
• Audio: MP3, OGG, WAV, WMA, APE, FLAC, AAC, AC3, MMF, AMR, M4A, M4R, WV, MP2, RA, and CAF.

Audio/Video Categorization

You can categorize uploaded audio/video files to facilitate file search. For details, see Category Settings.

• You can add up to 128 categories.
• You can create up to three levels of subcategories.
• If no category is set, the uploaded audio/video files fall into the Other category by default.

Audio/Video Transcoding

VOD can transcode audio/video files during or after the file upload. VOD provides four preset templates and allows you to customize transcoding templates. For details, see Transcoding Settings.

Input audio/video files of the following formats can be transcoded:

• Supported input audio formats: MP4, TS, MOV, FLV, MPG, MXF, WMV, ADTS, AVI, MKV, MPEG, VOB, RM, and MTS
• Supported input video codecs: H.264, H.265, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MJPEG, WMV1/2/3, and ProRes 422
• Supported input audio codecs: AAC, AC3, EAC3, HE-AAC, MP2, MP3, PCM (s16le, s16be, s24le, s24be, DVD), and WMA

Input audio/video files can be transcoded into the following formats:

• Output audio file formats: DASH, HLS, MP4, MP3, and ADTS
• Output audio file codecs: H.264, H.265, HE_AAC, AAC, and MP3
  

  If you need to transcode a media file into different formats, submit a service ticket to obtain the permission.

Audio/Video Transmuxing

Transmuxing changes only the audio/video file format, not the resolution and bitrate. The preset template group original_template_group on the transcoding settings page is the audio/video transmuxing template. For details, see Transcoding Settings.

• The container format of audio/video files in FLV and HLS formats can be changed to MP4.
• The container format of audio/video files in MP3, MP4, and FLV formats can be changed to HLS.

Audio/Video Review

VOD supports audio/video review to detect and filter out pornographic, terrorism-related, and politically sensitive information in audio/video files. In doing so, inappropriate media files can be removed in a timely manner to avoid or reduce the adverse impact.

Audio/Video Management

Audio/Video management capabilities:

• You can transcode, pre-load, categorize, publish, export, and delete audio/video files, as well as cancel the transcoding.
• You can extract audio from video files and save it as MP3 format.
• You can upload a thumbnail and subtitles for a video file.
• You can view the streaming URL, subtitles, and thumbnail of an audio/video file.
• You can change the storage class of an audio/video file in OBS.
  • The storage class of an uploaded audio/video file is Standard by default, and can be changed to Infrequent Access or Archive.
  • Infrequent Access and Archive can be restored to Standard.

Media Asset Cold Storage

Media asset cold storage can be based on media asset ID or intelligent cold storage policy.

• Based on media asset ID: The storage class of media assets can be batch changed from Standard to Infrequent Access or Archive by media asset ID.
• Based on intelligent cold storage policy: The storage class of media assets can be batch changed by creating and enabling an intelligent cold storage policy, which specifies the upload time or storage duration, category, and storage class of media assets.

Workflow Management

You can create a workflow template to transcode an audio/video file and change its container format, perform content moderation, take snapshots, and extract audio. All tasks in the workflow are executed at the same time, boosting media processing efficiency. For details, see Workflow Settings and Workflow Management.

Snapshot Capturing

You can take snapshots of uploaded video files at a specified interval or at a specified time. After a snapshot is taken, you can set the snapshot as the video thumbnail. You are charged by the number of snapshots. For details, see Snapshot Capturing.

• At a specified interval: The system takes snapshots at regular intervals from the first frame to the last frame. The interval cannot exceed 12 seconds.
• At a specified time: The system takes snapshots at fixed time points. A maximum of 10 time points can be set for a video.

Video Watermarking

You can upload an image as the watermark template for your video. During video transcoding, the watermark is overlaid at a specified position of the video. For details, see Watermark Settings.

HLS Encryption

VOD supports HLS video encryption to prevent video leakage and hotlinking. Encrypted videos cannot be distributed after downloaded by malicious users. For details, see HLS Encryption Settings.

See Protecting Videos with HLS Encryption to learn about how HLS encryption works.

Notifications

VOD sends notification messages to notify you of the execution status of tasks such as transcoding and snapshot capturing in real time. Currently, two notification services are available: MFS and SMN. If you are a new user, MFS is used by default. If you want to use SMN, submit a service ticket. For details, see Notifications.

The callback message forwarding mode can be switched only when you have modified the callback message logic.

HTTPS Secure Acceleration

You can configure HTTPS secure acceleration to protect your VOD resources. If you use your own domain name for VOD acceleration, you must enable HTTPS. Otherwise, you cannot preview and play media files on the VOD console.

URL Authentication

VOD provides referer validation and URL validation to identify and filter out malicious visitors. Only authenticated visitors can use VOD. For details, see Configuring Hotlink Protection.

• Referer validation: You can set a referer blacklist or whitelist to identify and filter out malicious playback requests.
• URL validation: You can customize the authentication key and expiration time and use multiple authentication algorithms provided by VOD.

Pseudo-Streaming

Pseudo-streaming leverages the playback control capability of VOD to play VOD files like a livestream. You can generate VOD files, specify the time of starting a livestream, and use VOD to distribute streaming-like content, reducing livestream risks and costs. Pseudo-streaming does not support fast forward and is ideal for online teaching videos, gala livestreaming, and broadcasting and television.

Data Analysis

VOD provides data analysis for you to view data such as the traffic, bandwidth, and traffic hit ratio on CDN. You can also query the number of playback times and the most played audio/video files by domain name.

Usage Query

VOD provides usage query for you to view the traffic and peak bandwidth statistics on CDN, as well as the storage space and transcoded file duration on the VOD origin server.

There is a delay of about one hour in usage statistics.

Monitoring and Alarms

VOD has integrated with Cloud Eye. You can use the console or APIs of Cloud Eye to query and search for the monitoring metrics (traffic, access requests, and status codes) and alarm information of VOD domain names. For details, see Viewing Monitoring Metrics.

Note that the configuration of domain name monitoring by Cloud Eye on the console is still not available. To use this function, submit a service ticket.

Audit

VOD has integrated with Cloud Trace Service (CTS). With CTS, you can record operations related to ECSs for later query, audit, and backtrack. For details, see Querying Real-Time Traces.

CTS retains operation records generated in the latest seven days.