Amazon Elastic Transcoder | General

Question 1

What is Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 1

Amazon Elastic Transcoder is a highly scalable, easy to use and cost effective way for developers and businesses to convert (or “transcode”) video and audio files from their source format into versions that will playback on devices like smartphones, tablets and PCs.

Question 2

What can I do with Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 2

You can use Amazon Elastic Transcoder to convert video and audio files into supported output formats optimized for playback on desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and televisions. In addition to supporting a wide range of input and output formats, resolutions, bitrates, and frame rates, Amazon Elastic Transcoder also offers features for automatic video bit rate optimization, generation of thumbnails, overlay of visual watermarks, caption support, DRM packaging, progressive downloads, encryption and more. For more details, please visit the Product Details page.

Question 3

Why should I use Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Answer 3

Amazon Elastic Transcoder manages all the complexity of running media transcoding in the AWS cloud. Amazon Elastic Transcoder enables you to focus on your content, such as the devices you want to support and the quality levels you want to provide, rather than managing the infrastructure and software needed for conversion. Amazon Elastic Transcoder scales to handle the largest encoding jobs. As with all Amazon Web Services, there are no up-front investments required, and you pay only for the resources that you use. We offer a free tier that enables you to explore the service and transcode up to up to 20 minutes of SD video or 10 minutes of HD video a month free of charge. To see terms and additional information on the free tier program, please visit the AWS Free Usage Tier page.

Question 4

How do I get started with Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 4

You can sign up for Amazon Elastic Transcoder through the AWS Management Console. You can then use the console to create a pipeline, set up an IAM role, and create your first transcoding job. To help you test Amazon Elastic Transcoder, the first 20 minutes of SD content (or 10 minutes of HD content) transcoded each month is provided free of charge. Once you exceed the number of minutes in this free usage tier, you will be charged at the prevailing rates. We do not watermark the output content or otherwise limit the functionality of the service, so you can use it and truly get a feel for its capabilities. To see terms and additional information on the free tier program, please visit the AWS Free Usage Tier page. If you do not have an AWS account, you can create one by clicking the Sign Up button at the top of this page.

Question 5

How do I use Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 5

To use Amazon Elastic Transcoder you need to have at least one media file in an Amazon S3 bucket. The easiest way to use Amazon Elastic Transcoder is to try it through the console. Create a transcoding pipeline that connects the input Amazon S3 bucket to the output Amazon S3 bucket. Create a transcoding job that will transcode your media file, choose a transcoding preset (a template), and submit the job. Your transcoded file will appear in your output bucket once it has been processed.

Question 6

What tools and libraries work with Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 6

Amazon Elastic Transcoder uses a JSON API, and we provide SDKs for Python, Node.js, Java, .NET, PHP, and Ruby. The new AWS Command Line Interface also supports Amazon Elastic Transcoder. You can see a full list of our SDKs here.

Question 7

Can I use the AWS Management Console with Amazon Elastic Transcoder?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 7

Yes. Amazon Elastic Transcoder has a console that is accessed through the AWS Management Console. You can use our console to create pipelines, jobs, and presets as well as manage and view existing pipelines and jobs.

Question 8

How do I get my media files into Amazon S3?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 8

There are many ways to get content into Amazon S3, from the simple web-based uploader in the AWS Management Console to programmatic approaches through APIs. For very large files, you may wish to use AWS Import/Export, AWS Direct Connect, or file-acceleration solutions available in the AWS Marketplace. For more information please refer to the Amazon S3 documentation and the AWS Digital Media website.

Question 9

How do I retrieve my media files from Amazon S3?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 9

You can retrieve files from Amazon S3 programmatically, using the AWS Management Console or a third party tool. You can also mark Amazon S3 objects as public and download them directly from Amazon S3.

Question 10

Can I use a Content Distribution Network (CDN) to distribute my media files?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 10

Yes. You can easily use CDNs to distribute your content; for example, you can use Amazon CloudFront to distribute your content to end-users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments. You can use an output bucket that contains your transcoded content in Amazon S3 as the origin server for Amazon CloudFront. For more information, please visit the detail page for Amazon CloudFront.

Question 11

How long does it take to transcode a job?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 11

Jobs start processing in the order in which they are received in a pipeline. Once a job is ready to be transcoded, many variables affect the speed of transcoding, for example, the input file size, resolution, and bitrate. For example, if you were to submit a 10 minute video using the iPhone 4 preset, it would take approximately 5 minutes. If a large number of jobs are received they are backlogged (queued). Please note that the transcoding speed may be different between regions.

Question 12

When will my job be ready?

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Answer 12

You can use Amazon SNS notifications to be informed of job status changes. For example, you can be notified when your job starts to transcode and when it has finished transcoding. For more information on Amazon SNS notifications, please see the detail page on Amazon SNS.

Question 13

How many jobs are processed at once?

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Answer 13

Pipelines operate independently from one another. Each pipeline processes jobs in parallel up to a default limit set for that pipeline. Within a job, each individual output also progresses in parallel. For more information on limits and capacity, visit the limits section in the Elastic Transcoder Developer Guide. You can request higher limits by opening a support case.

Question 14

How many jobs can I submit?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 14

Currently, we allow a maximum of 100,000 jobs per pipeline. Once you exceed this limit, you will receive a 429 Rate Limit Exception. If you require this limit to be raised, please contact us here.

Question 15

Can I create multiple outputs per job?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 15

Each transcoding job relates to a single input file and can create one or more output files. For example, you may wish to create audio only, low- and high-resolution renditions of the same input file and could do so as part of a single transcoding job. The number of outputs per job is limited. For more information on Amazon Elastic Transcoder limits, please refer to the documentation.

Multiple outputs are charged individually: each output is charged as a separate transcode.

Question 16

How do I generate clips?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 16

You can create a clip from your source media in your transcoding job. You specify a start time and a duration (both specified as HH:mm:ss.SSS or sssss.SSS.) To cut off the start of a file, you would just specify a start time. You can generate different length clips (or transcode the entire file) for each different output in your transcoding job. You will be charged based on the output duration of your transcode, so if you have a five-minute input file and you create a one-minute output from it, you will only be charged for one minute of transcoding. Please remember that fractional minutes are rounded up, so if you create a clip that is one minute and thirty seconds in duration, you will be charged for two minutes of transcoding.

Question 17

How do I stitch clips?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 17

You can specify two or more input files that need to be stitched to create a single output file in your transcoding job. Input files are stitched in the order they are specified. So if you want to add a bumper to your video, specify the bumper file as the first input and your video file as the second input. For each input, you can specify a Start Time and a Duration, which allows you to stitch together only the parts of each input that you want included in the output. You will be charged for the output duration of your transcode, so if you are stitching two five-minute input files to create a ten-minute output, you will be charged for ten minutes of transcoding.

Question 18

What is a transcoding pipeline, what can I use it for, and how many can I have?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 18

A pipeline is a queue-like structure that manages your transcoding jobs. A pipeline can process multiple jobs simultaneously, and generally starts to process jobs in the order in which you added them to the pipeline. Jobs often finish in a different order based on job specifications. It is up to you how you wish to use pipelines. Some examples include submitting jobs to different pipelines based on the priority or the duration of a transcode, or using different pipelines for your development, test and production environments. The number of pipelines per AWS account is limited. For more information on Amazon Elastic Transcoder limits, please refer to the documentation.

Question 19

What are transcoding presets?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 19

A preset is a template that contains the settings that you want Amazon Elastic Transcoder to apply during the transcoding process, for example, the codec and the resolution that you want in the transcoded file. When you create a job, you specify which preset you want to use. We provide presets that create media files that play on any device and presets that target specific devices. For maximum compatibility, choose a “breadth preset” that creates output that plays on a wide range of devices. For optimum quality and file size, choose an “optimized preset” that creates output for a specific device or class of devices.

Question 20

What do I do if none of your transcoding presets work for me?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 20

You can create your own custom presets based on an existing preset. Once you create your own custom preset, it is available across your AWS account for the Amazon Elastic Transcoder service within a specific region. For more information on presets, please refer to the Amazon Elastic Transcoder Developer Guide. The number of pipelines per AWS account is limited. For more information on Amazon Elastic Transcoder limits, please refer to the documentation.

Question 21

Why do I need to assign a role to a transcoding pipeline?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 21

Amazon Elastic Transcoder uses AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to enable you to securely control access to your media assets. The IAM role sets a policy that defines what permissions you have for accessing Amazon S3 resources. You can assign different roles to different pipelines, and an IAM administrator can create specific roles for use with Amazon Elastic Transcoder. More information about IAM can be found here.

Question 22

How can I configure roles to be more restrictive?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 22

You can use the AWS Management Console to edit and create new IAM roles. IAM roles that are created by Amazon Elastic Transcoder are visible in the AWS Management Console and can also be edited.

Question 23

How do I use notifications?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 23

Amazon Elastic Transcoder uses Amazon SNS to notify you of specific events. You can choose to be notified about jobs that start to process, jobs that complete, warnings, and errors. Each event type is assigned to an SNS topic, and you can use the same topic or different topics for each event. The Amazon Elastic Transcoder console will create an SNS topic for you or you can specify an existing one.

Question 24

Why should I use notifications?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 24

Notifications are a much more efficient way to check transcoding status than polling the API. Notifications provide a way to be notified on specific events that occur in the system. For example, you can be notified on a completed event. This is useful if you want to know when a job has finished transcoding and this is far more efficient than calling the ‘List Jobs By Status’ or ‘Read Job’ API at regular intervals.

Question 25

Why does my job keep failing?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 25

The most common reason for jobs to fail is that the input file is corrupted in some way. If you receive an error about the format not being supported, we are unable to decode your source file and we’d love for you to tell us more about on our Discussion Forum. We need the following information to assist with diagnosis: AWS Account ID, Region and Job ID. For a list of error codes, please refer to the documentation.

Question 26

How can I generate more than one thumbnail per job?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 26

You can specify a thumbnail creation interval in seconds to create one thumbnail every n seconds. To create thumbnails in more than one size, you need to create different jobs.

Question 27

Can I reserve a transcoder for my exclusive use?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 27

Amazon Elastic Transcoder provides a shared transcoding service and does not enable a transcoder to be reserved or allocated to an individual customer.

Question 28

Do I need to pay license fees?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 28

We have licensed relevant intellectual property from the applicable patent pools for transcoding content. Like any other transcoder, customers are responsible for evaluating and, if necessary, securing licenses for distribution of content in various formats.

Question 29

Do you support live encoding?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 29

Amazon Elastic Transcoder is a file-based transcoding service and does not support live transcoding.

Question 30

Are there limits to the service?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 30

The number of transcoding pipelines, transcoding presets and outputs per job have limits. Most of these limits can be adjusted on a customer-by-customer basis. For the current limits, please refer to the documentation.

Question 31

How do I increase service limits?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 31

If you require an increase in the service limits, please contact us here and provide all the information requested on the form. We will then contact you to discuss your requirements.

Question 32

Where is Amazon Elastic Transcoder available?

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Amazon Elastic Transcoder | Media Services

Answer 32

Amazon Elastic Transcoder is available in the following AWS regions: US East (N Virginia), US West (Oregon), US West (N California), EU (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Mumbai).

The service operates standalone in each region, so jobs created in one region may not be transferred to another region.

You can create a transcoding pipeline in one region that would specify Amazon S3 buckets in another region. However, if you choose to do this, you should be aware that you will incur Amazon S3 transfer costs when content is read from or written out to an Amazon S3 bucket in a region other than the one where the transcoding work is taking place.