4 min
Media & OTT Streaming on AWS (2026): Live vs VOD Architecture, Egress Math, and When IVS Beats Elemental
On a composite mid-market OTT platform (~180k concurrent live peak, ~12 TB/month VOD catalog), routing Saturday-night live through MediaConvert batch queues added ~$4,200/mo in idle transcode capacity before switching live to IVS and keeping MediaConvert for catalog only. CloudFront egress still dominates steady-state, so model it before you buy encoders.
Palaniappan P