AWS for M&E Blog

New guidance and tools: Cloud-native fast-turnaround media workflows on AWS

At NAB 2025 (April 6-9, 2025), HAQM Web Services (AWS) is launching new guidance and tools for cloud-native fast-turnaround media workflows as part of the Cloud-native Agile Production (CNAP) program. The CNAP program is a collaboration project between AWS, the BBC, Sky and AWS Partners.

CNAP is based on BBC Research & Development’s (BBC R&D) Time-addressable Media Store (TAMS) API specification. The aim of the CNAP program is to drive industry adoption of TAMS as a cloud-native, open and interoperable framework for fast-turnaround media workflows in the creation of news, sports and entertainment content.

TAMS is designed around the concept of storing chunks of media in object storage, presented through an open-source API. TAMS solves the challenges of legacy approaches to running fast-turnaround media workflows in the cloud. Using timing and identity as key primitives to describe media in the store allows for the building of workflows that are content-centric. This is a shift away from file-based workflows that lead to duplication of content and are challenging to scale.

BBC R&D’s published whitepaper, Time-Addressable Media, describes the concepts of Time-addressable Media in more detail—how this design is aligned to industry approaches, such as the MovieLabs 2030 Vision.

Announcing dedicated solutions guidance site

Ahead of NAB 2025, AWS has created a dedicated solutions guidance site: Cloud-Native Fast-Turnaround Media Workflows on AWS. This brings together TAMS resources into a single repository. It is designed to assist customers, partners and independent software vendors (ISVs) to build TAMS capabilities into their workflows and products.

A flowchart diagram illustrating a cloud-native fast-turnaround media workflow in the AWS Cloud. Esport Racing Live Video Feeds are ingested via Techex and Matrox live video ingest solutions. Ingested video is stored in the TAMS Store, which consists of HAQM API Gateway and HAQM S3. The TAMS Store connects to multiple components: Web-Based Editing via CuttingRoom. Craft Editing via Drastic.tv and Adobe Premiere Pro. Media Processing using AWS Lambda for Clip Localisation and Automated Highlights. Video Playback via Matrox for MCR and Live Cloud Production. TAMS Tools UI, featuring Omakase Player, for content visualization.

Figure 1: NAB 2025 Live Capture and Fast-Turnaround Edit demo workflow.

The site includes a detailed implementation guide, reference architectures, sample code for use in TAMS workflows, and related content. The implementation guide in particular provides readers with extensive information as to how TAMS is designed and how the technology can be applied. It also answers a number of frequently asked questions in relation to TAMS

The site includes links to the AWS open-source implementation of the TAMS API, which was released in the summer of 2024 and the new ‘TAMS Tools’ repository (details following). The API implementation is regularly maintained and updated in line with recent developments in the BBC R&D TAMS specification.

Available in the guidance site:

  • More tooling for TAMS: An accompanying GitHub repository that can be independently deployed alongside TAMS in order to augment the native capabilities of the store, and provide integrations with common workflows and use cases.
  • TAMS Tools UI: An optional web interface that works with an instance of the AWS open-source implementation of TAMS and allows authenticated users to visualize content in the store. Additionally, the TAMS Tools UI includes Omakase Player, which provides native playback capability for content in the store. (See Figure 2)
  • HLS API: An endpoint which allows customers to take content from TAMS and present this as an HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) manifest. This enables content to be played back in traditional web player components.
  • AWS Elemental MediaLive ingest: A framework to enable an AWS Elemental MediaLive channel to be used to ingest a live feed into TAMS. Paired with AWS Elemental MediaConnect, this allows users to receive a live video stream in the cloud, convert it to the formats required and ingest into TAMS.
  • AWS Elemental MediaConvert file importer: Allows you to upload files to an HAQM Simple Storage Service (HAQM S3) bucket and ingest them directly into TAMS. This is a useful tool for populating a new store with example content.
  • HLS variant manifest importer: Allows you to also trigger an ingest method by supplying the URL (HTTPS or HTTP) or HAQM S3 URI to an HLS manifest, so you can ingest content from an HLS endpoint.
  • Media processing framework: We have released an initial version of a TAMS media processing framework. For NAB 2025 this uses FFmpeg in a serverless mode to create a proxy flow and image thumbnails. It has been designed to provide future extensibility to add more formats and processing engines as required.
A media editing interface displaying a video player and a timeline. The top-left section shows two segmentation entries labeled SEGMENTATION 1 and SEGMENTATION 2, each with IN and OUT timestamps: SEGMENTATION 1: IN 00:05:31:02, OUT 00:07:59:21 SEGMENTATION 2: IN 00:08:58:18, OUT 00:10:57:15 An EXPORT button is available next to the segmentations. The top-right section contains a video player showing a man in a suit driving a vintage car, with a timestamp of 00:03:30:00 displayed. The player has standard playback controls, a volume slider, and fullscreen toggle. The bottom section includes a timeline with multiple tracks: Two segmentation tracks labeled Segmentation 1 and Segmentation 2, marked with blue bars. Several media tracks labeled Meridian 2.0 audio, Meridian 5.1 audio, Meridian 1080p video, and Meridian 720p video, represented with color-coded blocks. A NEW SEGMENTATION button is visible above the timeline. The interface has a dark theme with purple highlights.

Figure 2: Image of Omakase Player in the TAMS Tools UI.

Media organizations seeking to build TAMS capabilities into their workflows can now use these resources to streamline deployment in their own AWS environments. It will enable them to experiment with TAMS and realize the benefits of this interoperable and cloud-native approach.

Continuing to grow the TAMS community

For NAB 2025, AWS will be demonstrating an end-to-end Live Capture and Fast-Turnaround workflow, with TAMS as the ‘single source of truth’ for stored content. This builds on and expands the capabilities of the demo from IBC 2024, which was the first public showing of an end-to-end TAMS workflow.

New collaborators and capabilities for CNAP include Matrox Video, who have integrated their Matrox ORIGIN media framework with TAMS. Matrox ORIGIN provides software-defined media infrastructure running in the cloud for building dynamic live media facilities. This integration provides the capability to take live video signals from the Matrox ORIGIN environment and write these to TAMS for later re-use. Conversely, Matrox ORIGIN also has the ability to read content from TAMS that are written into Matrox ORIGIN’s fabric for further processing, routing, or outputting as live video.

Secondly, Konstrukt LLC’s Omakase Player is the first web player to provide native TAMS support and is now included as an open-source component in the TAMS Tools UI. Omakase Player also enables workflows such as frame-accurate clipping of TAMS content, and Live-to-VOD asset creation without the need to create new media segments.

In order for the TAMS community to continue growing, we will be hosting a series of TAMS Workshop events during the rest of 2025. Located in London and New York, these events will bring together customers, partners and vendors in a collaborative setting in order to understand the concepts of TAMS and to start building as part of this community. Sign up now for the TAMS Workshop in London or New York that’s right for you.

Conclusion

We heard from customers that the ‘lift and shift’ of existing fast-turnaround media workflows into the cloud was presenting them with inflexible solutions that were hard to integrate into their workflows and led to duplication of data.

The CNAP program and the TAMS technology that underpins it present customers with a cloud-native, open and interoperable solution. This allows customers to scale their workflows independently from hardware resources, choose best in class tools from a growing community of ISVs, and accelerate their workflows—all in a part of the industry where speed really matters.

We’d like to thank everyone in the TAMS community for their support in continuing to progress this transformational technology.

We hope to see you at NAB for the Live Capture and Fast-Turnaround Edit demo at the AWS Booth (W1701).

Start today to learn more about the dedicated solutions guidance site: Cloud-Native Fast-Turnaround Media Workflows on AWS, and join a future TAMS Workshop in London or New York.

Check out more AWS Partners or contact an AWS Representative to know how we can help accelerate your business.

Further reading

Chris Swan

Chris Swan

Chris Swan is a Principal Solutions Architect specializing in Content Production at AWS. He is passionate about innovation in post production and is a champion for creatives in the Media and Entertainment industry.

Dan Johns

Dan Johns

Dan Johns is a Solutions Architect Engineer, supporting his customers to build on AWS and deliver on business requirements.

John Biltcliffe

John Biltcliffe

John is an Industry Specialist Solution Architect at HAQM Web Services (AWS). He has worked in the media industry for over 20 years across Post Production, Media Asset Management, Linear Playout and VOD preparation. He now brings that experience to help customers in Europe migrate their media workloads to the cloud.

Robin Figueirado

Robin Figueirado

Robin Figueirado is a Senior Customer Solutions Manager with AWS. He supports global media organisations with the development of innovative media workflows for broadcast and streaming.