By Staff Writer – John Federico (@gadgetboy)

Today Amazon Web Services – the division of Amazon that powers their cloud computing services – announced that their CloudFront CDN now includes global media streaming.

Let’s be clear: when I say includes I mean for no additional cost – all you pay are Amazon’s usual fees for storage and bandwidth.

This is a huge development for any startup whose business model includes digital media distribution. In the past, if you wanted to properly stream media you had to purchase a license for a suitable streaming server or find a hosting provider that would resell use of their license, then pay for storage and bandwidth on top of that – and that may not have included any CDN capabilities whatsoever. (Admittedly, I’m not including some of the open source solutions.)

With Amazon’s offering, media streamers get access to Adobe Flash Media Server and a worldwide CDN with distribution centers in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong and Japan with data transfer costs starting at $.17 per GB (US) and $.22 per GB (Japan) – and volume discounts after that.

That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.

If you don’t require massive amounts of bandwidth or custom CDN support, video services like Blip.TV Pro may be just fine for you. They offer simple, powerful tools and a CDN to back it up. Others in this class include Viddler and Fliqz.

For more information on Amazon CloudFront Streaming visit the AWS CloudFront Web Site.

Disclosure of Material Connection: http://dsclzr.us/0

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Tags: Adobe Flash Media Server , Amazon CloudFront , Amazon Web Services , Amazon Web Services CloudFront , AWS , AWS CloudFront , Flash Media Server , Media Streaming , Online Video , Streaming Media , Video Streaming