Challenges & Solutions
Challenges
- Video transcoding is compute-intensive and expensive at scale
- Live streaming requires <5 second end-to-end latency globally
- DRM must protect premium content across all devices
- CDN costs are the largest infrastructure expense
- Subscription billing system must handle millions of recurring payments
CloudFormation Solves
- MediaConvert Spot Fleet reduces transcoding costs by 70%
- MediaLive + MediaPackage + CloudFront for low-latency live streaming
- MediaPackage DRM with Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady in one config
- CloudFront with intelligent caching reduces origin CDN egress cost
- Stripe or Recurly billing infrastructure scaffolded with Terraform
Architecture Patterns
Video Transcoding Pipeline
S3 upload → EventBridge trigger → MediaConvert on Spot Fleet (720p/1080p/4K variants) → S3 output → CloudFront distribution. 70% cheaper than on-demand instances.
Live Streaming Infrastructure
MediaLive encoder → MediaPackage packager (HLS/DASH/CMAF) → CloudFront with 5s latency. Auto-scales channels. MediaTailor for server-side ad insertion.
Content Recommendation Engine
User viewing history → Kinesis → SageMaker collaborative filtering model → real-time personalised recommendation API. A/B test new models with Evidently.
Subscription & Entitlement
API Gateway + Lambda subscription management → Stripe webhooks → DynamoDB entitlement store → CloudFront signed URLs for premium content access control.
Business Outcomes
Supported Providers
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