Azure Media Sharing Policy Limitations

I am trying to create a time-limited URL for smoothly streaming media stored in Azure Media Services.

I am working against the code given here. Windows Azure Smooth Streaming Sample

I am uploading a video file to a new Asset. I am encoding this video using Azure Media Service encoding with "H264 Adaptive Bitrate MP4 Set 720p" preinstalled. With the resulting encoded asset, I then try to create a streaming URL by creating an access policy and then a locator that I use to generate the URL used for streaming.

Here is the code:

string urlForClientStreaming = "";

IAssetFile manifestFile = (from f in Asset.AssetFiles
                   where f.Name.EndsWith(".ism")
                   select f).FirstOrDefault();

if (manifestFile != null)
{ 
    // Create a 1 hour readonly access policy. 
    IAccessPolicy policy = _mediaContext.AccessPolicies.Create("Streaming policy",   TimeSpan.FromHours(1), AccessPermissions.Read);

    // Create a locator to the streaming content on an origin. 
    ILocator originLocator =     _mediaContext.Locators.CreateLocator(LocatorType.OnDemandOrigin, Asset,    policy, DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(-5));

    urlForClientStreaming = originLocator.Path + manifestFile.Name + "/manifest";

    if (contentType == MediaContentType.HLS)
    urlForClientStreaming = String.Format("{0}{1}", urlForClientStreaming, "(format=m3u8-aapl)");
}

return urlForClientStreaming;

      

        
        
        
      

    

This works great. Up to the 6th time, you execute this code against the same Asset. Then you get this error:

"The server does not support setting more than five sharing policy IDs in one container."

So that's fine. I don't need to create a new AccessPolicy every time, I can reuse the one I created earlier, build a locator using this same policy. However, even after this I get an error about 5 shared access policies in one container.

Here's some new code that creates a locator with the same AccessPolicy as before:

string urlForClientStreaming = "";

IAssetFile manifestFile = (from f in Asset.AssetFiles
                   where f.Name.EndsWith(".ism")
                   select f).FirstOrDefault();

if (manifestFile != null)
{ 
    // Create a 1 hour readonly access policy
    IAccessPolicy accessPolicy = null;
    accessPolicy =
      (from p in _mediaContext.AccessPolicies where p.Name == "myaccesspolicy" select p).FirstOrDefault();

     if (accessPolicy == null)
     {
         accessPolicy = _mediaContext.AccessPolicies.Create("myaccesspolicy", TimeSpan.FromHours(1), AccessPermissions.Read);
     }

    // Create a locator to the streaming content on an origin. 
    ILocator originLocator =     _mediaContext.Locators.CreateLocator(LocatorType.OnDemandOrigin, Asset,    policy, DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(-5));

    urlForClientStreaming = originLocator.Path + manifestFile.Name + "/manifest";

    if (contentType == MediaContentType.HLS)
    urlForClientStreaming = String.Format("{0}{1}", urlForClientStreaming, "(format=m3u8-aapl)");
}

return urlForClientStreaming;

      

        
        
        
      

    

I don't understand why he said that I created 5 Sharing Policies. In the case of the second block of code, I only create one access policy. I can check that there is only one AccessPolicy by looking at the content _mediaContext.AccessPolicies

, there is always only one Access Policy in this list.

At some point this will likely have many users requesting access to the same object. The URL provided to these clients should be time limited according to the requirements of our clients.

Isn't this a suitable way to create a URL for smooth asset streaming?