Billing of On-Cloud Recording
Last updated: 2023-09-19 11:11:49Download PDF
If you have a contract with TRTC, the billing details in the contract will apply.
Billable Items
TRTC calculates the total audio and video recording durations of all projects under your account at the end of each month. Note that video recording durations are classified into four categories based on resolution and are priced differently. TRTC offers each account a 10,000-minute free package per month, which will be deducted from your total monthly duration. The remaining recording durations multiplied by their unit prices are your total monthly cost.
Cost formula:
Monthly cost = Audio duration x Unit price of audio duration + Video durations of different categories x Unit price of the corresponding category
Note:
A room whose streams are recorded will have a recording robot that subscribes to the recorded streams. This will incur audio/video duration fees.
If you record the streams of a TRTC room to Tencent Cloud VOD, we will waive the robot's audio/video duration fees.
Duration
Usage of the TRTC on-cloud recording service is calculated from the start of recording to the end of recording. If both audio and video streams are recorded, only video fees will be charged.
The video recording duration of a room is the sum of each recording process's video duration in the room.
The audio recording duration of a room is the total duration of all recording processes in the room minus the room's video recording duration. A duration when video is not recorded will be calculated as audio recording duration regardless of whether audio is recorded.
Duration calculation is not related to the number of audio/video streams that are recorded. For example, if a recording process simultaneously records the video streams of anchors A and B for five minutes, the duration billed will be five minutes, and fees will be charged based on the aggregate resolution of the two anchors.
Duration calculation is related to the number of recording processes. If multiple recording processes are started in a room, the duration of each process is calculated and included in the total usage of the month.
A recording process is a recording task that can be started and stopped by APIs.
Please note that during recording, a recording robot will subscribe to streams that need to be recorded in the room. This will incur audio/video duration fees.
Unit price
The unit prices of TRTC on-cloud recording are as follows:
Type | Video Resolution | Price (USD/1,000 Min) |
Audio recording | - | 1.49 |
Video recording | HD | 5.99 |
| FHD | 13.49 |
| 2K | 23.99 |
| 2K+ | 53.99 |
Video recording usage is categorized into the following four types according to the aggregate resolution of each recording process. The fees for each type are calculated separately:
Category | Aggregate Resolution Range |
HD | Aggregate resolution ≤ 921,600 (1280 x 720) |
FHD | 921,600 (1280 x 720) ＜ Aggregate resolution ≤ 2,073,600 (1920 x 1080) |
2K | 2,073,600 (1920 x 1080) < Aggregate resolution ≤ 3,686,400 (2560 x 1440) |
2K+ | 3,686,400 (2560 x 1440) < Aggregate resolution ≤ 8,847,360 (4096 x 2160) |
For example, if a recording process simultaneously records two video streams with a resolution of 960 x 720 each, the aggregate resolution will be 960 x 720 + 960 x 720 = 1,382,400, and the unit price for FHD will be applied.
Billing Examples
This section describes how TRTC calculates aggregate resolution, recording durations, and recording fees.
Suppose you have a project named testRTC under your Tencent Cloud account. In addition to using audio/video services, the project also records and saves audio/video interactions through on-cloud recording. The usage is as follows:
Recording 1
On February 11, 2022, four users had a video call that lasted for 5,000 seconds. One on-cloud recording process was started to record four audio streams.
Usage: 5,000 seconds of audio recording duration in total.
Recording 2
On February 12, 2022, four users had a video call that lasted for 5,000 seconds. Two on-cloud recording processes were started. One was single-stream recording and the other mixed-stream recording. Four audio streams were recorded in each process.
Usage: 5,000 + 5,000 = 10,000 seconds of audio recording duration in total.
Recording 3
On February 13, 2022, four users had a video call that lasted for 3,500 seconds. One on-cloud recording process was started to record four audio and video streams. Each video stream had a resolution of 640 x 360.
Usage: 3,500 seconds of HD video recording duration in total.
Streams Received | Resolution Calculation | Aggregate Resolution | Recording Duration Type |
Audio/Video streams of 4 anchors | 640 x 360 x 4 | 921,600 | HD |
Recording 4
On February 14, 2022, three users interacted over video for 1,800 seconds, and their video resolutions were 640 x 360, 1280 x 720, and 960 x 720 respectively. After 1,800 seconds, a fourth user entered the room and interacted for 540 seconds, and the user's video resolution was 1920 x 1080. One on-cloud recording process was started to record the audio and video streams of all users throughout the process.
Usage: 1,800 seconds of FHD video recording duration and 540 seconds of 2K+ video recording duration.
Streams Received | Resolution Calculation | Aggregate Resolution | Recording Duration Type |
Audio/Video streams of 3 anchors | 640 x 360 + 1280 x 720 + 960 x 720 | 1,843,200 | FHD |
Audio/Video streams of 4 anchors | 640 x 360 + 1280 x 720 + 960 x 720 + 1920 x 1080 | 3,916,800 | 2K+ |
Fees calculation
Billable Item (Recording Duration Type) | Duration (Min) | Fee (USD) |
Audio | 250 | (250/1000) x 1.49 = 0.3725 |
HD | 59 | (59/1000) x 5.99 = 0.35341 |
FHD | 30 | (30/1000) x 13.49 = 0.4047 |
2K+ | 9 | (9/1000) x 53.99 = 0.48591 |
Total recording fee for the month | - | 1.61652 ≈ 1.62 |
Must-Knows
Accuracy of durations
TRTC calculates durations in seconds and converts monthly cumulative seconds to minutes for billing. Specifically, it adds up the audio and video durations (in seconds) for a month and divides them by 60. The results are rounded up to the nearest whole number. For example, if your account generated 59 seconds of audio duration and 61 seconds of video duration a month, you would be billed for 1 minute of audio duration and 2 minutes of video duration. The margin of error for monthly durations is smaller than 1 minute.