About timecodes and timestamps
MediaLive has timecodes for the input pipeline and the output pipeline. The two timecodes are separate from each other.
Input timecode
MediaLive has features that work only if incoming frames include embedded timecodes. These features include pipeline locking and watermarking. If an input doesn't have an embedded timecode, MediaLive won't implement the feature. For example, with pipeline locking, the pipelines won't get locked in a frame accurate way. (For more information about how the timecode affects pipeline locking, see Implementing pipeline locking.
The input timecode source is not configurable.
Output timecode
MediaLive implements SMPTE timecode, which means that MediaLive assigns a
timecode of the format HH:MM:SS:FF to each outgoing
frame. The timecode rolls over at midnight.
There are three ways to initialize the output timecode in a channel:
-
Embedded (the default): Use the embedded timecode to initialize the output timecode. MediaLive uses the timecode in the first frame that it ingests in the input. If the input does not contain a timecode, MediaLive uses UTC.
-
UTC: Initialize the output timecode to the UTC time at the moment that the first frame enters the output side of the pipeline.
-
Zero-based: Initialize the output timecode to 00:00:00:00.
The output timecode is used in features such as the PDT for an HLS output, and for the timecode for ID3 metadata that you might choose to include. You can also configure output to include the output timecode as metadata and/or to burn the output timecode into the video frame.
You can also configure output video to include the output timecode as metadata, and/or to burn the output timecode into the video frame.
Timestamps
MediaLive attaches a timestamp to all output content. Downstream systems use the timestamp for synchronization. The timestamp is a value such as the number of 90 KHz clock cycles.
Don't conflate timestamps and timecodes. They are different.
