API overview

The Encoding.com API is our most sophisticated integration method available and allows you to seamlessly integrate cloud-based transcoding services directly into your own applications. Common use cases include user generated video sites, premium video portals, content management systems, and desktop applications.

Basic Technical Workflow

A small set of code, commonly known as a “wrapper,” is written in the programming language of your choice. This wrapper communicates encoding requests from your application to our system. Within this wrapper, you send a small XML file via http post to http(s) manage.encoding.com including the details of your encoding request that tells our system:

• 1) Where the source video content is located (FTP, SFTP, S3 or CloudFiles location);
• 2) The details of your desired encoding output — you can have an unlimited number of output files in a single API request (for example: 1 X iPhone, 2 X FLV files with different bitrates and 5 thumbnails of different sizes);
• 3) Where you would like the encoded output sent after is the encoding finished (FTP, SFTP, S3 or CloudFiles location). In addition, you can name the output files anything you like to help automate your media workflow completely.

When Encoding.com receives a request from your system for a new job, we respond immediately with a job ID#. You can track the progress of the job while it is processing through the GetStatus API call, and when the job is complete, we send you a notification via email or XML back to your system containing a bunch of useful information about the job and resulting output.

It’s really that simple. Most of our clients have completed a sophisticated integration with our API in a matter of days and never have to worry about the hardware, software and headaches required to maintain a video transcoding farm again.