Flows in AWS Elemental MediaConnect
A flow is a transport between a source and one or more destinations. When you create a flow, you specify the source, a name, and an Availability Zone. After you create a flow, you can add outputs to indicate where you want your content to be sent and how you want it transported.
MediaConnect supports two types of flows:
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Transport stream flows transport compressed content that is muxed (audio, video, and ancillary data are combined) into a single stream. The quality is high enough to use as a source for creating final encodes that are delivered to consumer devices. You can add outputs to indicate where you want the content to be sent and how you want it transported.
You can grant an entitlement to share the content with another AWS account. A user of the subscriber account can then create a new MediaConnect flow using your flow as the source. When this happens, the service generates an output on your flow to represent the stream that feeds the subscriber's flow.
It is important to manage the number of outputs and entitlements on the flow. Each transport stream flow can only have 50 outputs. Although you can grant up to 50 entitlements on a flow, each of those entitlements will generate an output. For example, you create a flow named
BasketballGame
and you add 40 outputs that send content to on-premises encoders. You also grant 30 entitlements to share your content with other AWS accounts. When your subscribers create flows usingBasketballGame
as their source, the service generates new outputs for each of those subscribers. After the first 10 subscribers create flows, yourBasketballGame
flow reaches its maximum number of outputs (40 for the original outputs that you created and another 10 that the service created for the subscribing flows). When the 11th subscriber tries to create a flow usingBasketballGame
as a source, the service returns an error. -
CDI flows transport high-quality uncompressed or lightly compressed content into and out of the AWS Cloud. You can configure a CDI flow to use JPEG XS to transport lightly compressed content. The content is demuxed into separate media streams for audio, video, or ancillary data. Each CDI flow can use multiple media streams for the source and multiple media streams for each output. MediaConnect uses AWS Cloud Digital Interface (AWS CDI) network technology to transport content that adheres to the SMPTE 2110, part 22 transport standard.