MediaConvert is the new Amazon Web Service for video encoding which replaces the old Elastic Transcoder. It has a better pricing model where you only pay for the encoding features which you are actually using and it supports all the new standards, such as 4K video.
IAM User Role
Before you start using MediaConvert you need to create the IAM Role which you will use together with it.
1. Start by opening Services -> IAM ->Roles -> Create role.
2. Pick the MediaConvert service and then just keep hitting "Next", three times.
3. In the last step of the Create role wizard, you need to provide the name of the new role. Just enter "MediaConvert".
Now it's time to create your first video encoding job. Click "Create role".
Creating a new MediaConvert video encoding job
We assume that you have an S3 bucket in place to which you already upgraded your video in an MP4 format. Always use the highest quality version of your video, otherwise the video encoding process might degrade the quality too much.
4. Open Services -> MediaConvert and click "Get started".
5. You will get to a screen which outlines the whole process on the left hand side, and lets you edit all the properties on the right hand side. Make sure you are in the "Input 1" section and click the "Browse" button.
6. Use the popup dialog to pick your S3 bucket and the input file. Once your file is selected click "Choose".
7. Now you need to add the Output group, so click the "Add" button, next to it.
8. Use the popup to pick "Apple HLS". Click "Select".
9. You will get to the "Apple HLS" section where you need to click "Browse" to specify the output location.
10. Use the popup dialog to pick your S3 bucket and enter the location path. You have to use the forward slash in order to put it all into a new folder, and then also enter a filename - without the extension. So if you have multiple courses where each course consists of multiple lessons you can works with a structure like this:
Course-01/Lessons-01/index
You can browse through your existing folders too. Once you are done click "Choose".
11. Now that your destination is set, you need to add all the outputs. Click "Output 1" to enter information about the desired video output.
12. Pick the "Preset" and enter the "Name modifier".
Just make sure what you pick matches your video aspect ratio, frame rate, and resolution. So for a Full HD video start by picking "System-Avc_16x9_1080p_29_97fps_8500kbps" and enter "-1080p" as the Name modifier.
13. Now, click on Output Groups -> "Apple HLS" to go back to that section, and click "Add output" to add another quality.
14. "Output 2" will be displayed. Click on it and repeat steps 12. and 13. until you have set all the qualities you need. We recommend using the following setup:
- Output 1:
System-Avc_16x9_1080p_29_97fps_8500kbpswith Name modifier -1080p - Output 2:
System-Avc_16x9_720p_29_97fps_5000kbpswith Name modifier -720p - Output 3:
System-Avc_16x9_540p_29_97fps_3500kbpswith Name modifier -540p - Output 4:
System-Avc_16x9_360p_29_97fps_1200kbpswith Name modifier -360p - Output 5:
System-Avc_16x9_270p_14_99fps_400kbpswith Name modifier -270p
Just make sure what you pick matches your video aspect ratio, frame rate, and resolution.
15. To really protect your video from downloading you also need to encrypt the HLS stream. Click "Apple HLS", then click "DRM encryption".
If you don't need to encrypt your video, you can skip to step 17.
16. In the DRM box select the following properties:
- Encryption method: AES-128
- Key provider type: Static Key
- Static key value: enter a random hex encoded 16 byte string, you can use this tool to get it:
-
URL: It's important to get this one right otherwise the video won't play. The format of that URL is:
https://your-wordpress-site.com/?fv_player_hls_key={Location from step 10.}If your website is using https:// then this URL needs to use https:// as well. If your website is using a domain with www. in front of it, make sure it's included as well.
Example:
In this guide our location was set to MediaConvertTest/index and our WordPress site is https://foliovision.com so the URL for the Static key will be:
https://foliovision.com/?fv_player_hls_key=MediaConvertTest/index
17. Then go to Job Settings > Settings, and pick your IAM role.
18. Scroll down to the very bottom and click "Create".
19. You will see that your job has been submitted. You can click the "Refresh" button to see if it's done yet.
20. Once it's done, you can access the folder with the encoded stream using the link in the "Outputs" section.
File permissions
21. To make the new stream accessible to public you need to either:
- Make sure you are using a CloudFront distribution with your S3 bucket. The guide for that is here. Keep in mind that:
- You should not use the the "Restrict Viewer Access" option (signed URLs won't work with encrypted HLS stream)
- You will need to check the "Restrict Bucket Access" along with the "Grant Read Permissions on Bucket"
- Fix the file permissions to make your HLS stream file publicly accessible.
In case you are using CloudFront, you can skip to step 23.
The stream file permissions need to be fixed in the S3 bucket. First locate the folder in the S3 bucket, right click it and select "Make public".
22. You will be asked to confirm your action in a popup box.
Posting the video to your website
23. To insert and play your encrypted HLS stream make sure you are using FV Player Pro Beta. Here's how to switch to it: Switching FV Player Pro to Beta
This guide and the whole process is new, we will of course make it part of the stable version of FV Player Pro soon. But for now it's in Beta.
24. Bring up the FV Player editor and:
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Enter the video URL into the shortcode editor. You can get the file path from the S3 bucket which gives you something like:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/{bucket name}/MediaConvertTest/index.m3u8If you use CloudFront you need to replace the bucket path with your CloudFront URL, so it ends up being like this:
https://{CloudFront domain ID}.cloudfront.net/MediaConvertTest/index.m3u8Note that you can also used the FV Player S3 Browser feature, if you have your S3 bucket access keys set in FV Player -> Hosting -> Amazon S3. That way the URL will automatically use the proper CloudFront URL if it's set up.
- Paste in the "Static key value" from Step 16. into the Encryption HLS field. Or you can get it from the "Job summary" screen, just go to Details -> Apple HLS -> "DRM encryption".
- Click "Insert" to save the player
- Save your post and test the video
Note about pricing
With MediaConvert a single minute of video encoding costs $0.03 for each video quality at 720p and above and $0.015 for each video quality below 720p. That way if you encode at 1080p, 720p, 540p, 360p and 240p you pay - $0.105 per minute which is $6.3 per hour. That is actually the same as Elastic Transcoder. The prices differ from region to region too, you can check that here:
However if you use the System-Avc_ encoding presets these actually use the 2 pass encoding ("Quality tuning level" is set to "MULTI_PASS_HQ" ) which is more expensive - $0.084 for 4K video, $0.042 for each video quality at 720p and above and $0.021 for each quality below 720p. That way if you encode at 1080p, 720p, 540p, 360p and 240p you pay - $0.147 per minute which is $8.82 per hour. That is the Professional Tier which also gives you the DRM.
