Azure is coming is with new Video Analytics API under the Azure Media Analytics(AMA) bracket, and looks promising. In the meantime, Azure Cognitive Services has also come up with Video API which can do some of the analytics jobs which already exist in AMA.
Why is Microsoft following these two different tracks to come up with analytics solution, rather than having one team look at it completely ?
Cognitive Services was designed to be a lightweight series of API's enabling cognitive capabilities for application developers. This suite comprised different forms of AI such as speech and image analysis, in addition to Video.
In the case of the Video APIs, these are actually hosted as Media Processors on the Azure Media Services (AMS) platform at the core.
In addition to what Adarsh has stated above, the other area to watch out for is compliance requirements. There are different terms of use for Cognitive Services like Video Indexer vs. Azure Media Services. At this time, if you need a fully compliant service with the Azure Terms of services, then you should look at Azure Media Services/Analytics. If you are ok with the Cognitive Services terms of service and lack of full compliance that Azure has, then you can look at videoindexer.ai.
Over time, we will be bringing more compliance to the Video Indexer platform as well, but since that is a newer set of features it will take some time.
I was looking for an answer for almost the same question but in relation to audio transcription only. Found that:
Microsoft has been developing a set of services for speech, face and
emotion recognition for quite some time, previously known as “Project
Oxford”. These services have now been bundled together in a single
pack called as Microsoft Cognitive Services. All of its components are
now made available to Azure Media Services and branded as “Azure Media
Analytics”. It makes video searchable and more accessible to users by
indexing its content.
As I understand Azure Media Services use "Cognitive Services" for analytics.
Update: Apparently, they don't know yet either.
Related
To clarify: I have a website hosted in Azure. I want to add a 1.5 minute howto video. I can't imagine it will get shown more than a few tens or hundreds a month (maybe a few thousand if the site takes off).
I was planning on using Azure Media Player to play the video.
In relation to this I thought the video would sit in a streaming endpoint.
But this seems an expensive way of doing this. Are there better ways (especially cheaper)?
EDIT: is it possible to host the video elsewhere and have it embedded in Azure?
The cheap way to do this would be to place the video in a blob storage then play it using a web page.
There is a video explaining how to do this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmzns7PgP0A
I would recommended to use Media Service: video-on-demand, content delivery service with an Azure Media Services application in the Azure portal.
Azure Media Services lets you deliver any media, on virtually any device, to anywhere in the world using the cloud. The collection of services provide encoding, live or on-demand streaming, content protection and indexing for video and audio content.
The Windows Azure Media Services platform has four types of services: content uploading, encoding, encrypting content and streaming.
Media Service Pricing: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/pricing/details/media-services/
Additional information : Streaming Videos from Azure ( Blob or Media Services)
New to Azure and would like to know what the difference between Azure API Management and Logic Apps is.
Some pros and cons would be nice. Also what the costing for each of these is like.
Thanks
Seems you want to know about Azure API Management and Azure Logic Apps
Well let me help you what that actually are...
Azure API Management
Azure API Management allows organizations to publish APIs more securely, reliably, and at scale. Use API Management to drive API consumption among internal teams, partners, and developers while benefiting from business and log analytics available in the admin portal
Pros are
Consistent and modern API gateways for existing back-end services
Verifies API keys, JWT tokens, certificates, and other credentials
Help you to publish APIs to external, partner, and internal
developers to unlock the potential of their data and services
High availability Responds to requests to perform operations at
least 99.9% of the time.
Analytics, metrics and many more
For further details you could have a look on official docs
Pricing
There are different categories of pricing available based on type and uses. See the below screen shot:
You even can read more details about pricing here
Logic Apps:
Azure Logic Apps is a cloud service that helps you schedule, automate, and orchestrate tasks, business processes, and workflows when you need to integrate apps, data, systems, and services across enterprises or organizations. Logic Apps simplifies how you design and build scalable solutions for app integration, data integration, system integration
Pros are
Maximum automation with hassle free service
Process and route orders across on-premises systems and cloud
services
Can move uploaded files from an SFTP or FTP server to Azure Storage
Help you connect legacy, modern, and cutting-edge systems more
easily and quickly by providing prebuilt APIs as Microsoft-managed
connectors
Pricing
Usually two categories of pricing you may have Consumption pricing model which depends on how much you consume and have to pay as per your consumption.
another one Fixed pricing model. See the screen shot:
You can have a look more details on official docs
Hope this would help you.
If I was to use Azure Media Services to consume encoding of small video files and then playing back on a web app and mobile app, do i need to turn on the 'Streaming Endpoint' option? I am getting charged ~$65 a month just to have streaming endpoint, not sure if i need it.
The pricing doesn't quite make sense because I can get the same basic features from Vimeo for $7 a month.
Am I consuming this correctly?
If I was to use Azure Media Services to consume encoding of small video files and then playing back on a web app and mobile app, do i need to turn on the 'Streaming Endpoint' option?
Yes, the official documentation explains that a streaming endpoint is the service that delivers content directly to the client application for live-streaming, video on demand, or progressive download.
So this means that you would need at least one streaming endpoint to be able to serve your videos to a client. A Media Services account already includes a default standard streaming endpoint. According to the documentation, this default streaming endpoint would be enough for the vast majority of workloads.
Take a look at the pricing page for more info: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/media-services/
According to the pricing page, the default streaming endpoint does cost ~$65/mo.
In regards to your comparison with Vimeo, the service that you end up using really depends on your particular case. While I understand pricing is a big factor when building an application, you should still consider the security of your videos at rest and in transit, scalability, availability of services, support, etc.
So, I'm working on an application where admins will be able to upload videos, for others to view on different platforms (mobile devices, computers etc). It is to be hosted on Azure, and I'm having a bit difficulty figuring out if I need to use Media services or simply a CDN.
When does it make sense to use the Media services over simply uploading to a blob and viewing through CDN? What are the advantages of using one over another?
Microsoft Azure CDN pulls content from Azure Media Services streaming server, so you could stream your content from the edge. You don't have to use a CDN if you don't need to deliver content in a large scale at a time. Rather, you could directly streaming content from streaming server offered by Azure Media Services.
The reason you maybe confused is because there are CDN vendors in the market (such as Akamai) offers streaming server capability. But by CDN itself, the edge network was just for caching the bits, not acting like a streaming server.
Cheers,
Mingfei Yan
There are many Azure projects on codeplex and scattered over MSDN. Some of them are so old that they use the code-based version of the storage client, and not the compiled version.
Which projects are current and relevant, and which are outdated?
Getting Started with Azure
http://blog.syntaxc4.net/post/2010/12/30/Essential-Resources-for-Getting-Started-with-Windows-Azure.aspx
Current and by MSFT:
MSDN Samples
Part 1 Demonstrates COMET via Silverlight and WCF among other samples
Part 2 Includes HTTP compression sample
How to... In Azure
Some entries contain code samples
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/gg432998.aspx
FabrikamShipping
Includes AD FS Federation, Facebook integration, and provisioning automation
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vbertocci/archive/2011/03/14/fun-with-fabrikamshipping-saas-ii-creating-an-enterprise-edition-instance.aspx
Azure SDK
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7a1089b6-4050-4307-86c4-9dadaa5ed018
Azure Training Kit
Located at C:\WAPTK\Default.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78
Patterns and Practices
Cloud Guidance (Greenfield and Brownfield scenarios)
Tailspin Toys Hands On Lab
Note there is a part 1 and part 2 to this
http://wag.codeplex.com/
Developing applications for the cloud
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff966499.aspx
All In One Samples
Has some Azure samples for oData and more. See both the 2008 and 2010 samples since each has different code.
http://1code.codeplex.com/
WCF Azure Samples
(looks up to date, but is located on "archive.msdn" which is disconcerting )
http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/wcfazure
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
3rd Party up to date
Encryption for Azure Table
Easily and transparently encrypt Table data
http://azuretableencrypt.codeplex.com/
Lokad.Cloud
An ORM for the cloud aka O/C mapper
http://code.google.com/p/lokad-cloud/
Facebook
http://facebooksdk.codeplex.com/
http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/
Azure Storage
http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/ (Oct of '10)
Azure Accelerators
http://azureaccelerators.codeplex.com/
Aside from makerofthings7's thorough answer, let me add one more:
David Pallman's 'Azure Storage Samples' - these are complete samples with two implementations each: .NET Storage Client Library and REST. This was published in February, 2011.
A project that probably contain all the providers you will ever need; Membership, Role, Session, and Profile providers. Stores in the Azure Table Storage and uses the Azure Queue http://azureproviders.codeplex.com