Events

While a Source is a continuous stream of video, it may contain within it multiple “Events”. Events on the Source may be created on-the-fly or scheduled in advance, and they are key because AWS MediaConnect resources are only enabled when an Event is active.

An Event may be defined differently between the Distributor and the Subscribers, or between Subscribers. Each Event has a start and end time which identifies the content’s time slot. These Events may be adjacent in time, disconnected or they may even overlap.

For example, a linear News Channel schedule will contain both news coverage and programme slots. Subscribers may create Events with timeslots that cover only the hourly headlines, the entire news hour, or a separate programme within that hour. These could be three or more Events from the same Source timeslot, but without separate booking and routing. In the screenshot below, there are four Events, one for the entire morning, and the others for bulletins or programmes.

Another example is a live sporting event. The Source may cover the entire event with build-up and post-analysis. Subscribers, however, may define the Event as the main action only, and set their Events times accordingly.

An Event may also have multiple Sources, an option to be used for adding resilience where identical streams exist across multiple input routes.

M2A Connect manages the activation and deactivation of Cloud infrastructure according to valid Event requests from a Subscriber.

The next section shows you how to schedule an Event.