Source Video Locations

Before you proceed with any of the steps below, download our Uploader Tool here.

Step 1: Authenticate!

- Login to the High Speed Desktop Uploader with your Encoding.com API Key and User ID. These credentials can be found on the My Account Tab within your client interface.

Step 2: Drag and Drop!

- Click on the Encoding.com icon in your system tray (Windows) or toolbar (OSX). Drag and Drop up to 10 files onto the Encoding.com icon

Step 3: High Speed Upload!

For Max customers and above take advantage of our high speed Aspera based upload. With speeds up to 100x FTP speed. For all other customers utlize the convienience of the desktop uploader with FTP transport speed.

Step 4: Add output tasks in web interface!

Once the upload is complete a mediaID is assigned and a link is available to view the uploaded source content in the Enocding.com web interface. Click on the link and login with the Encoding.com userid and password you chose during the signup process. The link will take you to the web interface section where you can add an unlimited number of output renedtions. Either chose from over 45 presets or chose to customize your own encoding parameters.

For complete information on the  uploader tool: http://www.encoding.com/desktop

Use Dropbox with Encoding.com or Vid.ly to pass source files with ease! Once you have your public URL for your file, you can easily use that as the source link to encode files with Encoding.com.  

Two easy steps to remember:

1. Make sure the file is in a shared location.

2. You must add ?dl=1 to the end of your source URL, this will force the download to begin. Otherwise, the job will fail.

Example: https://www.dropbox.com/[dropbox_URL]?dl=1

Now you can easily use this in your API integration with AddMedia and AddMediaBenchmark. Please note that Dropbox is not available for usage with the watch folder service at this time.

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Here's how to locate the public URL for your Dropbox file:

- Right-clicking on the file.

- Select Dropbox under the menu choice.

- Select Get Link 

Encoding.com XML Example: http://www.encoding.com/api/category/category/complete_api_documentation#addmedia_action

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<query> 
<!-- Main fields --> 
    <userid>[UserID]</userid> 
    <userkey>[UserKey]</userkey> 
    <action>[Action]</action> 
    <mediaid>[MediaID]</mediaid> 
    <source>https://www.dropbox.com/[dropbox_URL]?dl=1</source> 
    <source>[SourceFile1]</source> <!-- if multiple SourceFile added, they will be concatenated -->  
    ...  
    <source>[SourceFileN]</source> 
    <region>[us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|ap-southeast-1|ap-northeast-1|sa-east-1]</region>  
    <notify>[NotifyURL]</notify> 
    <notify_encoding_errors>[NotifyEncodingErrorURL]</notify_encoding_errors> 
    <format> 
        <!-- Format fields --> 
    </format>  
</query>

Vid.ly XML Example: http://api.vid.ly/#AddMedia

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Query>
    <Action>AddMedia</Action>
    <UserID>[User ID]</UserID>
    <UserKey>[User key]</UserKey>
    <Notify>[Notify URL]</Notify>
    <Source>
        <SourceFile>https://www.dropbox.com/[dropbox_URL]?dl=1</SourceFile>
        <CDN>[CDNType]</CDN>
        <HD>[HD]</HD>
        <Protect>
            <StartDate>2012-04-01 00:00:00</StartDate>
            <ExpirationDate>2012-05-01 00:00:00</ExpirationDate>
            <IpAddress>89.100.11.*,89.100.12.1-20,89.100.13.50</IpAddress>
            <Token/>
        </Protect>
    </Source>
</Query>

Aspera's fasp™ technology dramatically speeds transfer time over public networks making it a perfect compliment for cloud based video encoding. Transferring your video to and from an Aspera Enterprise Server or Aspera Connect Server to Encoding.com over fasp™ will provide accelerated and encrypted file transfer as well as support for extremely large source videos.  

For soure files, format your URL for AddMedia and AddMediabenchmark requests from an Aspera Enterprise Server or Aspera Connect Server™

fasp://[user[:password]@]hostname/[path]/[filename]

For destination files format as follows for deliver to an Aspera Enterprise Server or Aspera Connect Server™

fasp://[user[:password]@]hostname/[path]/[filename]

Take control of where your processing occurs!  By housing Encoding.com's platfrom on both Amazon's EC2 and the Encoding.com Private Cloud, we have access to data centers on around the globe. No matter where you decide to host your videos, there's a data center nearby to handle your encoding tasks and return your content back to you in the most efficient manner. Check out the complete list of datacenters that we support here:

Encoding.com Private Cloud (Oakland, CA): 'oak-private-clive'

US (Nothern Virginia): 'us-east-1'
US (Nothern California): 'us-west-1'
US (Oregon): 'us-west-2'  
EU (Ireland): 'eu-west-1'
Asia Pacific (Singapore): 'ap-southeast-1'
Asia Pacific (Tokyo): 'ap-northeast-1'
Asia Pacific (Sydney): 'ap-southeast-2'
South America (Sao Paulo): 'sa-east-1'

Via API: 

    <format>
    <!-- Format fields -->
     <region>[us-east-1|us-west-1|us-west-2|eu-west-1|ap-southeast-1|ap-southeast-2|oak-private-clive|ap-northeast-1|sa-east-1]</region>
      ...</format>

If you would like to user Microsoft Azure Blob storage as a source or destination, please follow these simple steps:

- Use a standard URL to access a source or destination locatlon: http(s)://[access_key]@[account].blob.core.windows.net/[container]/path
- Ensure to URL encode any special characters within the access_key 

Here is one example of a properly constructed URL:
http://P9DM47UTCF%2BQJZXl0uWy28J4jBdgnYv0SJPh%2FR%2AWCFOLPTBHuyeXtMfDOU75Wd0Yl2xm67vVTYGVAWSEDRdcw%3D%3D@[account].blob.core.windows.net/encoding/file.ext

Special notes for Azure Blob Storage:

- Your container name must consist of 3-63 characters, digits or sign "-". Please make sure to not have a "-" at the beginning or end of your container name.  
- If you do not include the access_key within your URL, they will be interpreted like casual urls. files in such urls should be public readable.

Thinking of using FTPS as your source locations? No problemo.

All you need to do is specify the port in which we access your file at. Connections via FTPS will use port 22 by default. If you'd like to specify a different port, add it to then end of your URL.

Example:

FTPS://www.xyz.com:[port]/files/input.mov

Thinking of using HTTPS as your source locations? No problemo.

All you need to do is specify the port in which we access your file at. Connections via HTTPS will use port 443 by default. If you'd like to specify a different port, add it to then end of your URL.

Example:

HTTPS://www.xyz.com:[port]/files/input.mov

Save some time with your encodes with this simple step, if you are sourcing from S3, try this URL formatting:

http://[AWS_KEY:AWS_SECRET@][bucket].s3.amazonaws.com/[filename]?nocopy

if 'nocopy' is specified at the end of your URL, the source file will be downloaded directly from your bucket, thus saving time. Please use this only if your buckets are located in the US. If ?nocopy is not specified at the end of your URL, the source will be copied to Encoding.com bucket first. This workflow saves you traffic in the case of non-US buckets and more than one encoding task per source.

Using Amazon S3 is a snap. Follow these directions to get you started

1) Manually set the Amazon S3 object to have READ permission for the AWS user fastencoding: 1a85ad8fea02b4d948b962948f69972a72da6bed800a7e9ca7d0b43dc61d5869.

This is a requirement for encoding.com to read the file(s).  To do this, log into your AWS console, right click on the bucket and select 'Properties' Add the string and wait for a moment, as it resolves to 'fastencoding'. Give this user upload/delete permissions.

2) Use the following format for the source url: http://[bucket].s3.amazonaws.com/[filename] Amazon provides some excellent documentation about ACL permissions, visit this link for details:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/

Important notes: 

**Do not use capitalization in your bucket names. You will receive a 403 error. Please only use lowercase letters.

The most common error is specifying incorrect SFTP URLs for files located in your home directory. You must specify full directory path in your URL: sftp://user:password@your-host.com/home/user/video/file.ext Another common issue is missing files! Check the file is there, and the path for encoding.com is correct. If you continue to experience issues, don't hesitate to email helpdesk@encoding.com.

Encoding.com offers three different ways to encode your video. Chose the integration method that is most appropriate for your technical skills and needs. At a minimum you will need a video library hosted on a publicly available FTP / Rackspace or Amazon S3 storage account and a basic understanding of URL protocol.

Web Interface - Within our client interface we have tab called Media List. This tool will allow you to quickly and easily encode individual videos through your browser and it's a great way to test our system. Just follow the step by step instructions at the top of the Media List page.

Watch Folder - Also within our client interface, the Watch Folder allows you to specify an FTP / Rackspace or Amazon S3 directory for encoding.com to "watch" at any frequency for new videos. After each watch interval all new videos added to this folder will be processed using the encoding setting you selected. You can have as many watch folders as you like, making it possible to encode a large video library with little or no setup or integration work. Please see our collection of articles about the Watch Folder for more details.

XML API - Our most flexible and sophisticated integration method, the encoding.com XML API allows you to completely automate your encoding workflow and integrate our system seamlessly into your own video application using any common programming language. Custom file naming, multiple output formats and real time encoding status updates are just a few of the powerful features available via our API. Please see our API documentation for complete details.

Once you have logged into encoding.com's web interface, click on the 'Watch Folder' tab on the left side of the screen.

1) In the Folder URL field enter a valid FTP, S3 or Rackspace location folder in the dialogue box. Replace the contents there. They are for suggestion only! Please note if you are using Rackspace or S3 as source or destination locations, there are specifics to the formatting of the URLs that must be followed in order for the URLs to be valid. Please refer to the two following articles explaining the proper syntax.

Rackspace: http://www.encoding.com/how_do_i_use_rackspace_cloud_files_as_the_source_or_destination_location

Amazon S3: http://www.encoding.com/how_can_i_use_a_amazon_s3_file_as_a_source

2) Add an email address in the Notify URL field form "email@yourdomain.com."  Alternatively you can enter a http URL of the script the result would be posted to

3) Select a time frequency you would like our system to check your folder for new video files. If you have large files, set a higher poll time.

4) Enter one or more destination URLs in the format: http://myusername:password@myftpserver.com/video_out. FTP is also valid here, if you're using that type of location.

6) Click Save and enter a encoding profile for this watch folder.

The wikipedia article linked here provides an excellent resource to check against for purposes of this article here.  When using encoding.com with your hosted (ftp, http, etc) source files, often times passwords, usernames, or even filenames will have what is known as a 'reserved character'. Most common for many users is the; @ characters, ! characters, or - characters. These characters need to be URL Escaped or Percent-encoded in order to pass through the system in your string. When sending a path to encoding.com, it may look something like this: ftp://user%40domain.tld:password@ftpserver.tld/path/file You replace the @ character with %40 in the username just like shown. That reserved character, once properly escaped, will let our system know how to hand off the proper credentials to the hosting service in question.

Common special characters and their percent encoded equivalent:

@ = %40

& = %26

+ = %2b

/ = %2f

The Rackspace Cloud Files platform does not offer the FTP method to send files to their service. Encoding.com added support for our customers to send encoded videos directly to their platform.To specify the source file or output file(s) to be put in a Rackspace Cloud Files folder, you can specify your source or destination URL in a few different ways different ways:

1) Virtual URL: http://RS_USER:RS_KEY@storage.cloudfiles.com/actual_container_name/file.ext - Please note the usage of the word 'Virtual' as this formatting is not going to be visible as your browse your Rackspace account. You must create this formatting by following the steps below:

a) Browse to 'Your Account' on your Rackspace control panel and select 'API access'

b) Pull your username and API key and use them to format your URL as listed below.

For example's sake, lets use Encoding123 for the user name and XYZ as the shortened version of what the API key would be.

http://Encoding123:XYZ@storage.cloudfiles.com/actual_container_name/file.ext

Please make sure to fully swap out the information if your URL looks like this: http://c44729.r29.cf2.rackcdn.com/Test.mov Change it to: http://Encoding123:XYZ@storage.cloudfiles.com/Source/Test.mov

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2) If you select 'Publish to CDN' on the container that you have the source files stored in, Rackspace will generate a unique URL, like http://c12345.r01.cf2.rackcdn.com/test.mov. This URL is now available to the public via this link, and is also simultaneously published to Akamai's CDN. 

As a source media you must specify an URL that could be of three types:
1) http://[user]:[password]@[server]/[path]/[filename] or
2) ftp://[user]:[password]@[server]/[path]/[filename] or
3) http://[your_bucket].s3.amazonaws.com/[path]/[filename]
You can omit [user]:[password]@ in case of public (not password protected) resources. In last case, the bucket must have READ permission for AWS user 1a85ad8fea02b4d948b962948f69972a72da6bed800a7e9ca7d0b43dc61d5869.

Encoding.com was developed to work seamlessly with the Amazon S3 storage service as either the source location of your video library or the destination location where we send videos after encoding is complete. A basic understanding of Amazons ACL permissions is recommended and we would highly recommend reading through our articles on integrating Amazon S3 with Encoding.com.

AWS watch folders are a beautiful thing. Let's lay out a couple ground rules before we begin, shall we?

+ Make sure your destination is NOT a source location subfolder. You should NOT use /some_path/videos as a source and /some_path/videos/encoded as a destination unless you want an infinite loop.

+ The destination should be in a separate bucket or folder, ideally.

+ Do not use capital letters in your bucket names.

1) Specify the URL

You source and destination URLs would be:
http://encode.video.s3.amazonaws.com/v/source/
http://encode.video.s3.amazonaws.com/v/encoded. Ensure to add on your secret keys to the URL for the watchfolder, unless your buckets are public. In that case, it would look like this:

http://your_accesskey_code:your_secretkey_code@encode.video.s3.amazonaws.com/v/source/


2) Set the bucket ACLs

To let Encoding.com read bucket contents and save the results, add UPLOAD and DELETE permission for the AWS user fastencoding (1a85ad8fea02b4d948b962948f69972a72da6bed800a7e9ca7d0b43dc61d5869). Please no not use 'fastencoding' as is, use the long string, as it will resolve to the user fastencoding. 
If you use separate buckets for source and destination, note that you destination bucket MUST have READ permission as well as WRITE (upload/delete), in order for Encoding.com to verify the results of the file delivery.

3) Specify output file permissions

By default, results saved by Encoding.com have READ permission for all authenticated AWS users. What if we need to share results with the other users, or make the file visible to the web? To make Encoding.com set READ permission for ALL users, just add ?acl=public-read to the end of your destination URL:


http://encode.video.s3.amazonaws.com/v/encoded/?acl=public-read


Now your files are accessible though HTTP for browser viewing. You can now use the URL of the file to view the video and share with other users. 

4) Specifying your AWS credentials.

Sometimes you may need the result files saved to your bucket by Encoding.com to have permissions for a specific user, such as yourself. In this case you can specify your AWS Access Key and Secret Access Key in the URL. You won't need to add any permissions to the bucket in this scenario:

Say the Access Key and the Secret Access Key are:
1ZG3YAKJ8W0VOA9L7WT6
lQT5MsQLirc8owb:SxX/9EhU4MQarasFelQ0v2M. First, we must percent-encode the Secret Access Key, as it contains the special URL characters: ':' and '/'. The percent-encoded Secret Access Key is:
 lQT5MsQLirc8owb%3ASxX%2F9EhU4MQarasFelQ0v2M


Once the Secret Access Key is properly percent-encoded, it can be added to the address string, the destination URL would look like this:
http://1ZG3YAKJ8W0VOA9L7WT6:lQT5MsQLirc8owb%3ASxX%2F9EhU4MQarasFelQ0v2M@encode.video.s3.amazonaws.com/v/encoded/

Please contact Support if you are experiencing any issues building your S3 workflow.