AWS for M&E Blog

Addressing the needs of media customers during unprecedented times

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, IT and communications leaders of commercial businesses, government agencies, schools, and religious organizations around the world are working quickly to keep the lines of communication open. The ability to quickly set up streaming platforms and to scale video infrastructures in the cloud helps government agencies keep first-line responders informed and the public safe; lets companies and employees maintain business continuity; connects religious leaders with followers; enables educators and students impacted by school closures to resume classes; and, provides a new virtual alternative to on-site tradeshows and training events.

This blog provides practical information and curated AWS resources, including reference architectures, webinars, case studies, services, and support — to help you quickly set up reliable communications channels and video platforms in the cloud. To support remote work and learning, AWS has a set of resources to work securely from any location.

Religious Organizations

Religious organizations have been impacted by the recent guidance against public gatherings. Live streaming solutions help these institutions reach their followers of any size, delivering engaging videos to any connected device. Additionally, houses of worship may host scriptural studies and other educational content where interactivity is necessary.

Here are additional resources to help you get started:

Education

Educators, students, and parents in school districts and higher educational institutions affected by closures need remote and extended learning at home. To help educational institutions power remote learning, AWS has expanded access to its suite of services used by educational institutions to provide students with the tools to continue their courses and learn online.

  • AWS Media Solutions — Simple streaming of a lecture or presentation—whether live or on-demand—can be enabled via the AWS Live Streaming on AWS or the Video On Demand Streaming solution, respectively. More complex, bespoke solutions can also be designed to fit any educational workflow. Both live and VOD encoding can use Quality-Defined Variable Bitrate (QVBR) to reduce bandwidth while maximizing quality. Contact us for assistance >>
  • Secure communication and collaboration — Amazon WorkDocs makes it easy to collaborate with others from anywhere and lets educators and students easily share content, provide rich feedback, and collaboratively edit documents. Amazon AppStream 2.0 supports rapid deployment of virtual computer labs that provide students the resources they need to continue learning from home and at a distance.

Here are additional resources to help you get started:

Government

Municipalities, states, and federal agencies are turning to live and on-demand video streaming to quickly get information into the hands of those who need it, such as medical practitioners and first responders, and to keep the general public safe. Equally important is governmental entities’ ability to address multi-lingual audiences and to enable constituents to easily find and access content.

Here are additional resources to help you get started:

Remote Working

Office closures, social distancing and shelter-in-place orders have caused a substantial and sustained surge in users of collaboration, corporate streaming, and virtual event solutions. AWS provides a set of solutions to help employees, contractors, and contact center agents remain productive and connected while working remotely.

  • AWS Media Solutions — The AWS Live Streaming on AWS CloudFormation template serves mission-critical use cases such as secure town-hall meetings to a geographically diverse employee base, accessing content from anywhere and on whichever device they choose. Contact us for assistance >>
  • Secure communication and collaboration — Amazon Chime enables companies to continue to engage in secure group conversations, while Amazon WorkDocs makes it easy to collaborate with others from anywhere and lets you easily share content, provide rich feedback, and collaboratively edit documents. Learn more >>

Here are additional resources to help you get started:

Virtual Workstations for Digital Content Creation

For artists and editors, project due dates aren’t delayed or postponed. Production needs to keep moving while content creators work from home or other safe locations. Cloud-based virtual workstations on AWS let you work remotely and improve collaboration with your team(s) while using your favorite tools.

  • Remote work for artists and editors – Artists and editors can build their own cloud-based virtual workstation for VFX, animation, and video editing workflows. Amazon EC2 G4 instances featuring NVIDIA Quadro technology are powered by the latest generation of NVIDIA GPUs, the NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPUs, for high-performance simulation, rendering, and design. If you happen to work in Southern California, these G4 instances are now also available in our newly launched Local Zone in Los Angeles for sub-millisecond latency for creative professionals in the Hollywood and surrounding LA metro area.
  • Collaborate – Content created using cloud-based virtual workstations, in conjunction with established processes and/or Digital Media Asset Management tools, is stored immediately on AWS, reducing the need to move or sync data. Data that is accessible from anywhere helps facilitate artist collaboration.
  • Use your favorite tools – You can use all your favorite content creation tools and experience performance that surpasses your expectations. AWS Virtual Workstations support the broadest set of artist tools and offer color/pixel accuracy and video/audio sync.

For more information about Virtual Workstations, visit the AWS Thinkbox website, the Studio in the Cloud tutorials, or the Cloud Video Editing Quickstart. Hear from Untold Studios about how it is taking advantage of virtual workstations on AWS.

As the situation continues to develop, we remain focused on the safety and well-being of our colleagues, customers and partners. We hope this guidance will help you and your team stay safe and productive.