This double eleven singles day, Alibaba video cloud takes you to the carnival

Alibaba video cloud ApsaraVideo

In 2017, the Double Eleven Singles Day, Tmall Global Carnival Night became a highlight. In order to let users watch the live broadcast with low latency and high quality, Alibaba Cloud uses the full hybrid cloud solution from the party scene to the video cloud live broadcast center. At the same time, the video cloud also uses the multi-machine room master and standby mode to ensure any fault and the business is not damaged. .

Live broadcasts for the first time in the cloud using Alibaba's unique narrow-band high-definition transcoding technology, which is based on the optimization of human visual sense, through complex real-time calculations, allowing SD live broadcasts to reach the regular HD live broadcast experience.

It is understood that in the live broadcast user experience, a lot of work has been done from the number of nodes to the quality, live broadcast and on-demand peaks, 302 scheduling guarantees on-demand service traffic can be quickly scheduled, ensuring that the live broadcast service is not affected by the node water level, and the user terminal It has cold and hot flow switching, as well as various emergency response measures to ensure that the live broadcast has the ability to quickly switch when there is any problem. Through the above means, the user can smoothly watch the double 11 singles day party.

In the past few years, the live broadcast of the fire, in addition to the massive emergence of content, is actually the calculation, storage, bandwidth upgrade and cost reduction. The emergence of ApsaraVideo makes the technical threshold of live broadcast drop rapidly, which enables enterprises to quickly launch their own video services. As the siege lion who participated in the double 11 singles day video cloud, I hope to share with you how Alibaba Video of Alibaba Cloud can quickly create this large-scale live broadcast scene for the scene of Double 11 Singles Day.

In the traditional video business, we usually face these technical pain points:

Generally, it is necessary to deploy an upload service, a cache service, a storage server, a video transcoding service, and a scheduling service.

The hardware needs to prepare a series of hardware and facilities such as IDC room and CDN node.

For start-up teams or individuals, it is difficult to overcome the barriers of this technology and hardware setup. The biggest pit is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it is difficult to obtain flexibility.

In the double 11 singles day, the old drivers got these advantages with Alibaba Cloud ApsaraVideo:

Fast online: Based on the customer SDK provided by Alibaba Cloud Video Service, the server openapi, users can launch a large-scale video service as soon as one week.

Mature and stable technology: Based on years of technology accumulation and precipitation of Alibaba Cloud Video Service, it can output high-quality video codec service and stable and reliable CDN distribution service.

Savings: ApsaraVideo service inherits the characteristics of cloud computing and pays for usage. It is connected to the traditional IDC and builds a large amount of human and material resources for building a CDN network.

How to build a video service with Alibaba ApsaraVideo:

Generally speaking, a video service is divided into three important parts. Let us take the live broadcast service as an example: First, the functions on the client, including the collection, encoding, and streaming of the live video, may also be It will include advanced features such as beauty, barrage, and even wheat interaction. Second, the functions of the service server, including live room management, live stream status display, live recording and on-demand, Boss system, etc. Third, the CDN network part includes functions such as live domain name management, domain name acceleration, bandwidth traffic extension resource monitoring, and so on.

In the case of Alibaba Cloud Video Service, the client SDK is provided in each of the three parts, which not only includes the functions required on the live broadcast service. Also done a lot of push network optimization of the weak network environment, the first screen second open and other functions. Live OPENAPI provides an open API interface, which can be used to manage live broadcasts, observe live streaming status, and configure live recording screenshots. The management of the CDN network provides functions such as adding and deleting live domain names, distributing accelerated configuration and optimization, and bandwidth traffic monitoring. Therefore, users can use the SDK provided by Alibaba Cloud Video Service, and openapi can quickly and easily build their own business.

This year's Alibaba organized a double eleven party, a large number of popular stars joined this year. And this evening will be live broadcast on the mobile phone Taobao client, Tmall client, Youku potato client three traffic portals with huge active users. The live broadcast of the video behind it can be imagined.

In this live broadcast of the party, we adopted the following live optimization solution:

The live streaming terminal uses the H.264 code stream to push the live stream to the cloud. The narrowband high-definition transcoding technology at the server can process the video effect according to the human visual model and achieve the H.264 video effect of H.264.

In the network line and the live broadcast center, their main and standby plans and emergency measures are adopted to ensure that the party can be broadcast live in various emergencies. This live broadcast is based on actual calculations without reducing clarity. Can save about 30% of the bandwidth cost.

Provide a complete set of solutions for content screening: In addition to standard transcoding, recording, and screenshot functions required for live broadcast, the live cloud service also adds artificial intelligence related functions such as intelligent yellowing, face recognition, and voice recognition.

Dynamically expand the required bandwidth resources at any time, and if the peak bandwidth changes too much, you can also use the experience accumulated by Alibaba Cloud in the video field for system optimization.

The live optimization plan for the Double Eleven Party is just one of the hundreds of live broadcast optimization programs that Alibaba Cloud Live Service has done in the past year. With the outbreak of live broadcast this year, our customers will face the peak of traffic at any time. In addition to computing, storage, and bandwidth resources can be dynamically expanded by using live cloud services, Alibaba Cloud's experienced live cloud architects also help our customers optimize the architecture of the live broadcast system every day, trying to help customers through one live broadcast traffic. The peak.

As a video cloud service, in addition to convenient access, the pressure on the network can be handled with ease. The in-depth study of video codec is the core technology of ApsaraVideo products. Alibaba Cloud's video technology experts have smaller bit rate and clearer video. The direction has been researched and accumulated for several years.

We have always been obsessed with the cinematic experience, and we have exclusively launched the image quality rebirth service, integrating the research results of Alibaba and the universities and research institutes in the video field for many years, so that the video perception of using Alibaba Cloud customers is quality. Flying over. After the rejuvenation of the image quality, the nostalgic old film decades ago can also provide high-definition picture quality playback. The 30-frame/second video image captured by the conventional camera can also provide the ultimate smooth look of 60 frames/second, and the mosaic caused by multiple compressions. The picture jitter caused by mobile shooting can be removed or alleviated, greatly improving the viewing experience.

The following are our radio and television grade video processing products:

1. High frame rate video reproduction

Most of the movies and TV programs that people watch now refresh 24-30 frames per second. This frame rate can meet the basic viewing needs, but in fast-moving scenes, the 30-frame/second movie player is perceived to be A sense of frustration. As the mainstream resolution of the video industry is getting higher and higher, the frustration of normal frame rate video is becoming more and more obvious. On the popular 4K TV, the refresh rate of 60 frames per second has become a basic requirement for viewing. However, due to the performance of the shooting device, except for a small number of large-scale production films (such as "Hobbit") using 48-60 frames / sec shooting technology, the frame rate of most film and television programs is still at 30 frames / sec. Below, it is difficult to meet the needs of ultra high definition video viewing. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud launched a high frame rate video re-creation service. Whether it is a classic episode stored in the user program library for many years or the latest captured program content, any normal frame rate source can be re-made through the interpolation algorithm. High frame rate video of 60 frames/second or even 120 frames/second. With this service, any video service provider has the ability to deliver an extremely smooth, high frame rate video viewing experience.

2. 2K to 4K reproduction

At present, 4K TV has gradually become the mainstream of home TV, 4K large screen content can indeed bring a huge impact on the visual sense. However, due to the current lack of film sources, viewers who purchase 4K TVs are still watching video content of 1080p and below. Therefore, many 2K to 4K services have been launched in the industry, and video processing algorithms have been used to make 1080p movies into 4K versions. At present, most of the 2K to 4K functions mainly rely on the classic super-resolution algorithm, so the pseudo 4K film on the market The effects of the source are similar, with obvious artifacts - such as oil painting effects. Alibaba Cloud's 2K to 4K re-service, in addition to introducing the latest super-resolution algorithms in academia, also draws on Alibaba Cloud's research results in video quality assessment. After years of polishing in the film industry, the re-production effect is second to none in the industry.

3. Source repair

Today's 1080p, 4K resolution videos have gradually become mainstream, but many nostalgic old films still have a large audience, but due to low resolution, medium aging and other factors, the picture quality is fuzzy and full of noise. On the other hand, even the UGC content in recent years, due to excessive compression on the Internet platform, contains a large number of mosaics and burrs, which is difficult for the audience to accept. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud has launched a picture quality restoration service for such damaged film sources. Through deep learning networks, it removes mosaics, noise, and restores erased lines, so that the low-definition source captured on the Internet can regain the collection value. Let the nostalgic old film renew its vitality.

ApsaraVideo products fully inherit all the characteristics of cloud computing products, such as “pay-per-use” and “sharing economy”, so that the expression of video is no longer exclusive to the film industry. Using video cloud services, ordinary enterprises and individuals can also It's easy to have a more intuitive representation of video.