Monitoring AWS Elemental MediaConnect source metadata - AWS Elemental MediaConnect
Source metadata details Using source metadata monitoring (console) Using source metadata monitoring (AWS CLI)

Monitoring AWS Elemental MediaConnect source metadata

MediaConnect source metadata monitoring displays information about the transport stream and its program media. You can view status messages about the flow's source as well as details about the program's video, audio, and other data. Source metadata monitoring can be used with the MediaConnect console, API, AWS CLI, or SDK. For more information about the API, see: DescribeFlowSourceMetadata in the MediaConnect API Reference.

Note

If you are using more than one source for your flow, source metadata is only displayed for the source currently used by the flow.

Source metadata details

The following sections provide details about the type of information displayed by source metadata monitoring.

Alerts and messages

The active alerts section of the Source metadata console tab and the messages section of the DescribeFlowSourceMetadata API/CLI response can contain status messages with more information about the transport stream. If MediaConnect detects an issue or cannot retrieve the source stream metadata, an associated status message will be displayed.

Programs

The programs section contains information about the individual programs contained in the transport stream. This section contains the following fields:

Field Details
Program number The program number of the program.
Program PID The program Packet Identifier (PID).
PCR PID The Program Clock Reference (PCR) PID of the program.
Program name The name of the program. The program name is sourced from the service name value in the Service Description Table (SDT).
Streams The nested sections contain info about the video, audio, and data stream types.

Streams

The streams section is nested within each individual transport stream program. This section contains the following fields:

Field Details
Stream type The type of content that the stream contains. This value can be video, audio, data, or unknown.
Codec The codec of the stream. This value will vary depending on the type of stream. Example: a video stream type might display a value of H264 while an audio stream type displays AAC.
PID The Packet Identifier (PID) of the stream.
Frame rate The frame rate of the video stream, displayed in frames-per-second (fps).
Frame resolution The resolution of the video stream. In the console, this field will display the frame width followed by the frame height.

Example: A frame width of 1920 and a frame height of 1080 is displayed in the console as 1920 x 1080.

In the API/CLI response, the frame height and frame width are displayed as separate values.

Channels The number of channels in the audio stream.
Sample rate The sample rate of the audio stream. In the API/CLI response, the sample rate is displayed in hertz (Hz). In the console, the sample rate is displayed in Hz, unless it exceeds 1000 Hz, then it is displayed in kilohertz (kHz).
Sample size The sample size of the audio stream. The sample size is displayed in bits.

Using source metadata monitoring (console)

You can retrieve the latest source metadata from MediaConnect by using the console.

  1. Open the MediaConnect console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/mediaconnect/.

  2. From the Flows screen, select the flow you want to inspect.

  3. Select the Source metadata tab.

  4. The source metadata tab contains an expandable list of every active alert, program, and stream for the selected flow's source.

Using source metadata monitoring (AWS CLI)

You can retrieve the latest source metadata from MediaConnect by using the AWS CLI. The following example shows the AWS CLI command and return value for a typical scenario.

  1. In the AWS CLI, use the describe-flow-source-metadata command with the --flow-arn option of the flow you want to inspect. 

    aws mediaconnect describe-flow-source-metadata --flow-arn arn:aws:mediaconnect:us-east-1:111122223333:flow:1-23aBC45dEF67hiJ8-12AbC34DE5fG:AwardsShow

  2. The return value will contain the media information for the selected flow's source. The following is a generic example of the format of the return value. In this example, there are no messages to display.

    {
    "FlowArn": "arn:aws:mediaconnect:us-east-1:111122223333:flow:1-23aBC45dEF67hiJ8-12AbC34DE5fG:AwardsShow",
    "Messages": [],
    "Timestamp": "2023-12-06T19:57:54Z",
    "TransportMediaInfo": {
        "Programs": [
            {
                "PcrPid": 1000,
                "ProgramNumber": 1,
                "ProgramPid": 2000,
                "ProgramName": "AwardsShow HD",
                "Streams": [
                    {
                        "Codec": "H264",
                        "FrameRate": "59.94",
                        "FrameResolution": {
                            "FrameHeight": 1080,
                            "FrameWidth": 1920
                        },
                        "Pid": 256,
                        "StreamType": "Video"
                    },
                    {
                        "Channels": 1,
                        "Codec": "AAC",
                        "Pid": 257,
                        "SampleRate": 50,
                        "SampleSize": 16,
                        "StreamType": "Audio"
                    },
                    {
                        "StreamType": "Data",
                        "Codec": "SCTE35",
                        "Pid": 258
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
}

Example source metadata API/CLI response

The following is another example of the response from the DescribeFlowSourceMetadata API/CLI. In this example, there are two programs. Each program has one video stream and two audio streams. The first program has a SCTE-35 data stream. The second program has an invalid stream type on PID 139. The invalid stream type is indicated by the status code in the messages section and the Unknown stream type in the program section.

{
    "FlowArn": "arn:aws:mediaconnect:us-east-1:111122223333:flow:1-23aBC45dEF67hiJ8-12AbC34DE5fG:BasketballGame",
    "TransportMediaInfo": {
        "Messages": [
            {
                "StatusCode": "InvalidType",
                "Message": "We could not determine the type of pid 139 on program 2"
            }
        ],
        "Programs": [
          {
                "ProgramNumber": 1,
                "ProgramPid": 16,
                "PcrPid": 56,
                "ProgramName": "Basketball HD",
                "Streams": [
                    {
                        "Codec": "H264",
                        "FrameRate": "59.94",
                        "FrameResolution": {
                            "FrameHeight": 1080,
                            "FrameWidth": 1920
                        },
                        "Pid": 126,
                        "StreamType": "Video"
                    },
                    {
                        "Channels": 1,
                        "Codec": "AAC",
                        "Pid": 127,
                        "SampleRate": 50,
                        "SampleSize": 16,
                        "StreamType": "Audio"
                    },
                    {
                        "Channels": 1,
                        "Codec": "AAC",
                        "Pid": 128,
                        "SampleRate": 50,
                        "SampleSize": 16,
                        "StreamType": "Audio"
                    },
                    {
                        "StreamType": "Data",
                        "Codec": "SCTE35",
                        "Pid": 129
                    }
                ]
          },
          {
                "ProgramNumber": 2,
                "ProgramPid": 26,
                "PcrPid": 66,
                "ProgramName": "Basketball SD",
                "Streams": [
                    {
                        "Codec": "H264",
                        "FrameRate": "29.97",
                        "FrameResolution": {
                            "FrameHeight": 480,
                            "FrameWidth": 640
                        },
                        "Pid": 136,
                        "StreamType": "Video"
                    },
                    {
                        "Channels": 1,
                        "Codec": "AAC",
                        "Pid": 137,
                        "SampleRate": 50,
                        "SampleSize": 16,
                        "StreamType": "Audio"
                    },
                    {
                        "Channels": 1,
                        "Codec": "AAC",
                        "Pid": 138,
                        "SampleRate": 50,
                        "SampleSize": 16,
                        "StreamType": "Audio"
                    },
                    {
                        "StreamType": "Unknown",
                        "Codec": "Unknown",
                        "Pid": 139
                    }
                ]
          }
       ]
    },
}