Video on Demand on AWS

IMPORTANT: These solutions will move to Guidance on March 5th, 2026. Existing deployments through CloudFormation template or cloning GitHub open-source code will continue to run. After this date, new customers will be able to launch these solutions following the instructions in the updated GitHub page and documentation.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides two media solutions to cost-effectively deliver video-on-demand (VOD) content to global audiences using the AWS Cloud. The Video on Demand on AWS solution, and the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution both provision the AWS services required to build scalable, distributed VOD processing and delivery workflows. This page provides guidance to choose the streaming solution that best fits your needs.

This solution is designed to help you start encoding video files with AWS Elemental MediaConvert. It can be easily customized and used as the starting point to create a more complex workflow.

Out of the box, this solution helps you to accomplish the following:

• Automatically transcode videos uploaded to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) into formats suitable for playback on a wide range of devices.

• Customize AWS Elemental MediaConvert job settings by uploading your own file and using different job settings for different inputs.

• Store transcoded files in a destination bucket and use Amazon CloudFront to deliver to end viewers.

• Manage costs, view logs, implement patching, and run automation runbooks for this solution from a central location.

In addition to the transcoded video, the outputs include input file metadata, job settings, and output details. These outputs are stored in a separate JSON file that can be used for further processing.

• Version: 1.3.11

• Released: 9/2025

• Author: AWS

• Est. deployment time: 10 mins

• Estimated cost: See details

This solution extends the Video on Demand on AWS Foundation solution with additional features and several options that can be customized.

This solution provides the following features:

• AWS Step Functions orchestration of the ingest, transcoding (including pre-and post-processing steps), and publishing steps of the workflow.

• Choice of video file or metadata file trigger.

• Delivery of videos to viewers with Amazon CloudFront, formatted for playback on a wide range of devices.

• Input file metadata, job settings, and output details storage in an Amazon DynamoDB table for easy access by downstream consumers.

• Optional automated archive of video inputs to help reduce storage costs.

With this solution, you can also choose to use AWS Elemental MediaPackage for packaging content into different formats and to apply digital rights management (DRM). MediaPackage can reduce storage costs for the outputs; however, there is a trade-off between packaging costs and storage costs.

• Version: 6.1.14

• Released: 9/2025

• Author: AWS

• Est. deployment time: 20 mins

• Estimated cost: See details