Amazon's Cloud Not Being Used For New Video On Demand Service

Last week, numerous sites were reporting that Amazon would be storing and delivering the movies for their newly announced video on demand service from the Amazon cloud computing infrastructure. As of now, Amazon is not storing or using any of it's cloud computing infrastructure to store or deliver any of the movies and Amazon has confirmed that their Web Services group is not involved with supporting the video on demand offering. While this could always change between now and when then product rolls out of beta, today, the streaming and storage of content is being done via Limelight Networks.

This really comes as no surprise since Amazon's Web Services offering is not setup to do streaming, does not have a global footprint and as we saw this past weekend, still has problems with major outages. Not that traditional CDNs don't have down time, but I can't remember the last time an Akamai or Limelight was down for fours hours at a time.

I've also learned that even when the Amazon video on demand service rolls out of beta, HD quality videos will not be available. No one will confirm the time frame for when HD quality will be added, but as of now, it won't be anytime soon.

Comments

[Adrian Payne]

Dan – This touches on an interesting streaming model. I have worked with several CDN’s and ISP's to do video streaming since 1999. We have had good results by everybody so it usually comes down to costs and service.

Interestingly enough, the overall experience for the end user with Amazon Web Services has been the same as using a CDN. I was really surprised by this given that Amazon does not have edge delivery. Since May of this year, we have been streaming live IndyCar practices, qualifications and recently USAC races using Amazon’s Web Services.

On the cost side, Amazon lists their prices up front so you can estimate your costs quickly. With CDN’s you have to estimate how much bandwidth you will use to get your rates per year and you don’t get rollover usages. If you go over, you pay a higher rate.

Service is another matter. The reason Amazon is less expensive is because it puts the responsibility on the customer to configure, develop and maintain your networks. This is complex undertaking but the payoff in savings is well worth it.

If Amazon heads down the path of edge delivery or works with a CDN and keeps the cost the same, they will be a major competitor in the streaming arena.