Billing of On-Cloud Recording and Recording Delivery
There are two parts to the TRTC recording feature: On-Cloud Recording, which involves recording audio and video streams in a TRTC room in the cloud, and Recording Delivery, which is delivering recording files to the specified storage location.
If you have a contract with TRTC, the billing details in the contract will apply.
On-Cloud Recording
Cost Breakdown
Two types of fees may be charged for using on-cloud recording:
Recording Robot Subscription Fees
To start a recording task for a TRTC room, the system will assign to the room a recording robot, who will act as a virtual audience member and will subscribe to the audio and video streams that need to be recorded. Fees will be charged based on the duration of the audio and video streams received by the robot. For details, see Billing of Audio and Video Duration.
On-Cloud Recording Fees
After the recording robot subscribes to the streams, the recording process starts. Recording fees are charged based on the recording duration, and the price varies with the aggregate video resolution.
Billing Details
Billing method: The usage will first be deducted using the 10,000 free minutes provided by TRTC for each developer account per month. Usage beyond the monthly free minutes will be billed on a daily pay-as-you-go basis, as long as your account is not suspended.
Billing cycle: Billing occurs on a daily basis. On-cloud recording fees incurred each day will be deducted the following day at the time of billing. The detailed billing and invoicing time will be based on the actual Billing Statement.
Within the same cloud-recording task, when generating recording files in multiple formats, separate recording duration fees will be charged for each format.
Billing Formula
On-cloud recording fees = Audio duration x Unit price of audio duration + Video durations of different types x Unit price of the corresponding type
Billing Price
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 | Video Usage Type | Aggregate Resolution Range | Unit Price (USD/1,000 Min) |
Audio recording | - | - | 1.49 |
Video recording | HD | Aggregate resolution ≤ 921,600 (1280 x 720) | 5.99 |
| FHD | 921,600 (1280 x 720) < Aggregate resolution ≤ 2,073,600 (1920 x 1080) | 13.49 |
| 2K | 2,073,600 (1920 x 1080) < Aggregate resolution ≤ 3,686,400 (2560 x 1440) | 23.99 |
| 2K+ | 3,686,400 (2560 x 1440) < Aggregate resolution ≤ 8,847,360 (4096 x 2160) | 53.99 |
Usage Calculation
Note：
Durations are calculated in seconds and then converted to minutes by day (rounded up to the nearest minute).
If only one stream is recorded, and the stream has an audio-only segment followed by a video segment, the audio-only segment will be charged as audio recording, and the video segment will be charged as video recording.
If a segment of a recording duration includes both audio-only streams and video streams, it will only be charged as video recording.
A recording process is a recording task that is started and stopped using APIs.
Recording duration: The time from when a recording process starts to when it stops.
Video recording usage: The total duration of segments where video is recorded in all recording processes in a room.
Audio recording usage: The sum of recording durations of all recording processes in a room minus the video recording duration. If a segment of a recording duration has neither video nor audio recorded, it will still be charged as audio recording usage.
Factors affecting duration calculation
Duration calculation is affected by the number of recording processes. If multiple recording processes are started within a room, the duration of each process needs to be calculated and included in the total recording service usage for that month.
Duration calculation is not affected by the number of audio and video streams recorded. The duration of streams recorded by the same recording process will not be added up. For example, if a recording process simultaneously records two video streams for 5 minutes, the billable recording duration will be 5 minutes, and the fees will be charged based on the aggregate resolution of the two streams.
During the recording process, the recording robot subscribes to the audio and video streams that need to be recorded, which incurs TRTC audio/video duration fees.
Billing Examples
This section describes how TRTC calculates aggregate resolution, recording durations, and recording fees.
Example 1
If a recording process simultaneously records two video streams with a resolution of 960 × 720, the aggregate resolution of this recording process would be 960 × 720 + 960 × 720 = 1,382,400. The recording process would be billed as FHD video recording usage.
Example 2
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.
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+ |
Fee calculation (total fees of the above four recordings)
Billable Item (Recording Type) | Duration (Min) | Fees (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 | - | 1.61652 ≈ 1.62 |
Recording Delivery
Recording delivery is a paid feature of TRTC. It allows you to send recording files generated by TRTC to a storage bucket you specify.
Billing Details
Billing method: Daily pay-as-you-go.
Billing cycle: Billing occurs on a daily basis. Recording delivery fees incurred each day will be deducted the following day. The detailed billing and invoicing time will be based on the actual Billing Statement.
If a cloud-recording task generates multiple recording files, separate delivery fees will be charged for each file.
Note:
Recording delivery is downstream to on-cloud recording. For the billing details of on-cloud recording, refer to On-Cloud Recording.
To ensure data security and reliability, TRTC saves recording files in Tencent Cloud VOD by default. This may incur VOD media storage fees and VOD playback acceleration fees.
If recording is enabled for a room, a recording robot will join the room as an audience member and will subscribe to the audio/video streams that need to be recorded. This will incur audio/video duration fees.
Billing Formula
Recording delivery fees = Recording file duration x Unit price (determined by the target storage and resolution)
Billing Price
The table below lists the unit costs of the recording delivery feature:
Billing Type | Price (USD/1,000 Min) | |
Deliver to Tencent Cloud storage | Audio | 0.02 |
| HD | 0.13 |
| FHD | 0.29 |
| 2K | 0.58 |
| 4K | 1.16 |
Deliver to third-party storage | Audio | 0.13 |
| HD | 0.82 |
| FHD | 1.72 |
| 2K | 3.6 |
| 4K | 7.19 |
Note:
The resolution type is determined by a video's total number of pixels. For example, if a video is 720 x 360 pixels, its resolution type will be HD because its total number of pixels is smaller than 1280 x 720.
As part of a special campaign launched by Tencent RTC together with VOD, if you save recording files generated by TRTC to VOD, we will waive the recording delivery fees. If you save recording files to other storage services, for example, Tencent Cloud COS, recording delivery fees will be incurred.
Usage Calculation
TRTC calculates recording delivery usage by adding up the audio/video duration of each recording file generated by all TRTC applications under your account and charges them based on the resolution type.
Note: Daily durations are calculated in seconds and then converted to minutes (rounded up to the nearest minute).
Video Duration
Video duration is the video duration of a recording file delivered by TRTC.
Resolution type | Output resolution |
HD | ≤ 1280 x 720 (inclusive) |
FHD | 1280 x 720 - 1920 x 1080 (inclusive) |
2K | 1920 x 1080 - 2560 x 1440 (inclusive) |
4K | 2560 x 1440 - 4096 x 2176 (inclusive) |
If a recording file contains both video and audio, only the video duration will be charged.
Durations of different resolution types are charged separately.
Audio Duration
Audio duration is the audio duration of a recording file delivered by TRTC.
Billing Examples
Audio-only Streams
Suppose three users communicated over audio for 10 minutes in a TRTC room. The call was recorded, and the recording file generated was delivered to a third-party storage service.
The room's recording delivery fee would be Unit price for delivering audio recording files to third-party storage x Recording file duration = 0.13 USD/1,000 minutes x (10 minutes ÷ 1,000) = 0.0013 USD.
Audio and Video Streams
Suppose users A, B and C were in a TRTC call for 10 minutes and the entire call was recorded. The output resolution was set to FHD, and the recording file generated was delivered to Tencent Cloud COS. The streams published by the users and their resolutions are as follows:
User | Stream published | Input Resolution | Output Resolution | Billing Type |
A | Audio only | - | FHD (1920 x 1080) | Recording delivery to Tencent Cloud - FHD (Full HD) |
B | Video + Audio | 640 x 360 | | |
C | Video only | 1920 x 1080 | | |
Analysis:
Recording delivery fees are charged based on the duration and resolution of the recording file delivered.
The room's recording delivery fee would be Unit price for delivering FHD recording files to Tencent Cloud x Recording file duration = 0.29 USD/1,000 minutes x (10 minutes ÷ 1,000) = 0.0029 USD.
