Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Jonathan B Corley

Bradley E Marshall

Tal Saraf

Craig Wesley Howard

Harvo Reyzell Jones

Ryan F Watson

Imran S Patel

Prashanth A Acharya

Lee B Rosen

John K Loendorf

Ronald James Snyder, Jr

Colm MacCarthaigh

James J Carrig

David Idris Alexander Sayed

Christopher Neil Hawes

Jeffrey Paul Ramsden

Jacob Adam Gabrielson

Piragash Velummylum

Nathan Dye

David Sayed

Chris Hawes

Jim Carrig

Jeff Ramsden

A transcoding service is described that is capable optimizing media transcoding jobs according to the licensing model associated with a particular transcoder being utilized. The service can receive a request to transcode the media content from a user and inspect an SLA to determine the parameters for the transcoding job, such as the time interval to complete the job or the price of performing the job. The service can then identify a licensing cost associated with transcoding the media content. For example, the licensing cost being based at least in part on a number of running instances of the transcoder. The transcoding service may apply a weight to the licensing cost when prioritizing the transcoding jobs. For example, the service may determine an optimal number of concurrently executing transcoder instances to utilize to reduce the licensing costs associated with the transcoding jobs.

Optimizing media transcoding based on licensing models

Techniques are described for managing preloading of data for client computing systems. A client computing system may provide one or more persistent data storage caches on local storage, such as to support a particular software program executing on the client computing system (e.g., a Web browser program, with the persistent data storage cache designed to store browser cookies and other data for later access by the Web browser program). Additional data may be stored in such a persistent data storage cache by preloading those data groups before they are requested by the client computing system (e.g., based on interactions of a user of the client computing system with an executing program on the client computing system). Particular data groups to preload may be selected in various manners, including to provide a specified type of minimum functionality to a client computing system based on the preloaded data groups.

Managing preloading of data on client systems

A number of approaches for transcoding media is described, which allow various users to control one or more aspects of transcoding (e.g. bit rate, resolution) when delivering media content to a client device from a network edge server or other location. The client device is provided with an interface that allows the user to increase or decrease the resolution, bit rate or other settings of the media content. Upon receiving a request from the user, the system transcodes the media content in accordance with the request and dynamically delivers the transcoded media content to the user's device. The system also enables content publishers and network operators to impose restrictions (e.g. minimum and maximum values for various settings) on user control.

Controlling dynamic media transcoding

A transcoding service is described that is capable of transcoding or otherwise processing content, such as video, audio or multimedia content, by utilizing one or more pipelines. A pipeline can enable a user to submit transcoding jobs (or other processing jobs) into an available pipeline, where a transcoding service (or other such service) assigns one or more computing resources to process the jobs received to each pipeline. The transcoding service and the pipelines can be provided by at least one service provider (e.g., a cloud computing provider) or other such entity to a plurality of customers. A service provider can also provide the computing resources (e.g., servers, virtual machines, etc.) used to process the transcoding jobs from the pipelines.

Securing content using pipelines

A system and method is described for enabling a user to add extensions to one or more of the preconfigured workflows for processing media content. The extensions can comprise a custom task that is injected at a specified entry point in the preconfigured workflow, such as after completion of a particular task. The custom task injected into the workflow can perform a variety of processing jobs, such as adding digital rights management (DRM), allowing access to the media content by third parties, injecting advertisements or other content into the media, checking the media content for errors or viruses, and the like. The custom task may also instruct the workflow to delegate access to the media content to external third party services. When the preconfigured workflow reaches the specified entry point, the workflow may be suspended until the custom task is completed, at which point the preconfigured workflow may resume.

Extensible workflows for processing content

A set of techniques is described for enabling a virtual machine based transcoding system. The system enables any transcoding provider to make their transcoding service available to other users over a network. The system can automate the deployment, execution and delivery of the transcoding service on behalf of the transcoding provider and enable other users to use the transcoding services to transcode content. The system receives a virtual machine image, transfers the image to a location where the media content is stored and creates a virtual private network of resources that will perform the transcoding of the media content. The virtual private network may be firewalled or otherwise restricted from opening connections with external clients when transcoding the content in order to prevent malicious use of the media content.

Virtual machine based content processing

A transcoding service is described that is capable of utilizing the excess capacity of the computing resources of a service provider. The customer of the transcoding service can submit a bid price for completing the transcodes. As long as the specified price exceeds the fluctuating price of the unused resource instances, the transcoding service will execute the job on the unused instance(s). If the price of the unused resource instances exceeds the customer's bid, the transcoding process stops. The transcoding service may pause the transcoding when the dynamically fluctuating price of the unused resource exceeds the customer's bid and then resume when the price falls back down. Users can specify constraints for transcoding, such as timeframes during which the transcode must be completed, a total price for completing transcoding or priorities of the media files. The system can automatically optimize the utilization of the resource instances according to the constraints.

Method, system, and computer-readable storage medium for utilizing excess resource capacity for transcoding media

Techniques are described for managing cached data in a network environment. In one example, the techniques include receiving a client request for a data group, determining that a cached copy of the requested data group that is stored in the persistent cache storage is no longer valid relative to a current copy of the data group stored at a remote data source system, obtaining from the remote data source system information about differences between the cached copy and the current copy and instructions associated with the identified differences, modifying, by the configured server computing system, the cached copy to include the identified differences in accordance with the received instructions, and providing, by the configured server computing system, the modified cached copy of the requested data group to the client in response to the client request.

Managing cached data in a network environment

A service is described that is able to analyze and prioritize media transcoding jobs. The determination of priority may be based on a feedback loop in which the system obtains request pattern information that indicates how end user devices consume the media content that has been transcoded. The historical request pattern information can be obtained by the service provider during the serving of the content to the requesting devices. Alternatively, the request pattern information may be obtained by receiving the information from a content publisher or other entities. Based on the request pattern associated with the media content, the system may assign higher priorities to formats that will be most frequently requested at specified time periods. The system may utilize higher number of resources, different types of resources or different configurations of resources to execute the high priority transcoding jobs.

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Jonathan B Corley