Preface

In this digital era, the delivery of media content is undergoing significant transformation. Audiences are no longer confined to traditional television program schedules but expect the freedom to choose and enjoy various entertainment content at their convenience. In this ever-evolving media landscape, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)'s Video on Demand (VOD) service has become an indispensable tool for content providers and media companies.

With the emergence of GCP VOD, traditional on-demand services have been revolutionized. This comprehensive and highly scalable platform brings unlimited possibilities for content providers, allowing them to easily upload, store, transcode, and deliver various media content. Whether it's movies, music, documentaries, or other digital content, GCP VOD provides a stable and reliable infrastructure to ensure audiences can seamlessly enjoy high-quality viewing experiences anytime, anywhere. Moreover, GCP VOD offers a range of powerful media processing features to enhance the viewing experience and content visibility. Through real-time transcoding, automated subtitle generation, content analysis, and video cataloging capabilities, they can optimize content and provide audiences with richer, more engaging content.

In addition to these powerful features, GCP VOD integrates closely with other Google Cloud products and services, bringing added value to content providers. By combining with Google Analytics and Google Ads, they can gain deep insights into audience behavior, quantify the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and increase revenue through precise ad targeting. Meanwhile, the global content delivery network (CDN) ensures that audiences can smoothly access content from anywhere, providing a seamless viewing experience. Next, let's explore the process and architecture of an on-demand video platform on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) through the most common use cases.

Image 1. Architecture of On-Demand Video Platform (Source: https://cloud.google.com)

1. Upload video files to Cloud Storage.
2. Use Cloud Functions to automatically detect newly uploaded videos and create transcoding jobs (Transcoder API).
3. The Transcoder API transcodes the captured video files into the desired output formats and places them in separate Cloud Storage buckets.
4. The Cloud Storage serves as the source for Media CDN.
5. Playback globally via Media CDN.
6. Use Cloud Armor for protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and network protocol attacks caused by massive traffic.
7. Utilize Monitoring for performance, availability, and health status monitoring.

By combining these services, you can easily build a highly available and fully functional on-demand video platform! Of course, this example only covers the basic platform. If you have additional feature requirements such as ad insertion, content annotation, etc., there are corresponding APIs available on GCP, such as Video Stitcher API and Video Intelligence API, that can fulfill those needs.

Now that we are familiar with how to build a video on-demand platform on GCP, let's explore how to build a real-time streaming platform on GCP. Stay tuned for the next article "The Power of Seamless Connectivity to Global Audiences: Exploring GCP Live Streaming API to Create Exciting Real-Time Broadcasting Experiences".