The service aims to give customers the ability to add live and interactive video in their mobile and web applications in minutes, using the same technology as Twitch.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the availability of Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS), a new fully managed service that makes it easy to set up live, interactive video streams for a web or mobile application in just a few minutes.
Amazon IVS uses the same technology that powers Twitch, one of the most popular live streaming services in the world with nearly 10bn hours of video watched in 2019, giving customers live content with latency (the time video takes to go from the camera to the viewer) that can be less than three seconds.
Customers can easily configure and stream live video through their own website or mobile application, with scalable delivery that supports millions of concurrent viewers globally. With the Amazon IVS SDK and APIs, customers can also build interactive features into their live streams like virtual chat spaces, votes and polls, moderated question and answer sessions, and synchronised promotional elements.
There are no additional charges or upfront commitments required to use Amazon IVS, and customers pay only for video input to Amazon IVS and video output delivered to viewers.
Amazon IVS removes the cost and complexity associated with setting up live, interactive video streams, allowing customers to focus on building engaging experiences for their viewers. It is a fully managed service that makes high-quality, live-streaming video available to viewers around the world with latency that can be less than three seconds (as opposed to 20-30 seconds), so customers no longer need to make a tradeoff between interactivity and quality of service.
To get started, customers simply send their live video to Amazon IVS using standard streaming software like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). Amazon IVS ingests the video, then automatically transcodes and optimises it, making it available for live delivery across AWS-managed global infrastructure in seconds using the same video transfer technology Twitch uses for its live streaming service.
Content creators and developers can use the Amazon IVS player SDK to give audiences a consistent, low-latency live streaming experience across different viewing platforms and devices, without compromising video quality or increasing buffering.
Customers can then combine the Amazon IVS SDK and APIs to attach structured text data to video streams and create interactive content, including polls, surveys, and leaderboards, all of which are automatically synchronised to the live video.
“Customers have been asking to use Twitch’s video streaming technology on their own platforms for a range of use cases like education, retail, sports, fitness, and more,” said Martin Hess, GM, Amazon IVS. “Now with Amazon IVS, customers can leverage the same innovative technology that has taken Twitch over a decade to build and refine. Any developer can build an interactive live streaming experience into their own application without having to manage the underlying video infrastructure.”
Amazon Live is a page on Amazon.com where shoppers can discover Livestream content and browse recorded live streams. “With Amazon IVS, handling live video streams is very simple, which means we can devote more time to producing engaging content and features that allow viewers to interact with creators in real-time,” said John Katsavrias, Senior Development Manager, Amazon Live. “Amazon IVS enabled us to move quickly to unlock our creators’ ability to live stream so they can produce awesome content that inspires customers and helps them discover new products.”
The Amazon IVS Management Console and APIs for control and creation of streams are available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) regions, with video ingestion and delivery available around the globe over a separately managed network of infrastructure that is optimised for live video.
