Microsoft previews Azure Media Services enhancements

Microsoft’s end-to-end media solutions offering, Azure Media Services, is previewing new live streaming and content protection offerings.

Microsoft is now letting all Azure’s global customers preview the same streaming solution that a dozen international broadcasters used to deliver the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2014 FIFA World Cup.

“You can now stream live events of any size with the same level of scalability, uptime, and reliability that was available to the Olympics and World Cup,” said Sudheer Sirivara, director of Azure Media Services.

Azure Media is also introducing faster encoding speeds and more cost-effective billing. The enhanced Azure Media Encoder is designed for premium media encoding and is billed based on output GBs, while Azure is adding faster encoding via its basic, standard, and premium encoding reserved units.

In addition, Azure Media is introducing a new content protection offering that features static and dynamic encryption with first party PlayReady license delivery and an AES 128-bit key delivery service.

Microsoft will exhibit at IBC on stand 13.MS1