Watch Folder

Our audio only conversion service enables you to strip the audio out of a video file to create a standalone audio file. You can easily do this via our API or customer area: http://www.encoding.com/login

via API:
For this example, we will use the MP3 template. in your POST, call for the following task: http://www.encoding.com/help/article/aac_audio_template

via web UI:
In the task viewer, please add the MP3, Windows Media Audio, or AAC audio template.

For more information:
http://www.encoding.com/features/audio_images

Interested in viewing the templates for API usage or web UI:
http://www.encoding.com/help/article/aac_audio_template
http://www.encoding.com/help/article/windows_media_audio_template
http://www.encoding.com/help/article/mp3_audio_template

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Want control over file names after they finish encoding from your watch folders? It's easy. Follow these simple steps:

 

- Add in what you would like to have displayed after your file name finished encoding.

Example:If your file name is video.ext, and you specify '_big' in the Name Postfix field, your resulting file name will be video_big.ext.

- If you wish to retain the task ID number, and also add more information, use the # sign to allow the task id to pas to your file name.

Example: If your file name is video.ext, and you specify '_big_#' in the Name Postfix field, your resulting file name will be video_big_1234.ext

The default setting for the watch folders will be to leave the watch folder settings as is, and continue augmenting the suffix of the file name with the task ID. 

 

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If you're viewing times in Encoding Queue in our login area, note that the times are displayed in the Central US time zone.

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Sounds like you have lots of encoding to do there!

With Encoding.com's powerful API or snappy watch folders, you can request a maximum of 100 tasks per encode, or folder respectively. 

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Yes! You can select the following choices in our watch folders to create files specifically targeted for playback via Roku. 

Click on any of the links below to expose the templates that we use for each preset:

roku_800
roku_1200
roku_1800
roku_2700
roku_hls

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Well, sounds like you're new to the platform, right?

Your objectives are to encode a video and deliver it someplace.

Here's where to start:

Beginner:

Most folks log into the UI @ http://www.encoding.com and select 'Add Media' from the list of choices on the left in order to test drive the system. Run through this a couple times, as adding media one a time is a great way to get started with the platform. Try adding a few tasks to your source media for multiple outputs.  Make sure to take a peek at the Encoding Queue, as you'll have to manually select files you add via 'Add Media' to process manually. Want to skip this step? Set up a watch folder and automagically content will be pulled from your source location and processed. 

Intermediate:

Setting up a watch folder on Amazon S3, Rackspace or your local FTP site is easy. Log into the UI, select 'Watch Folder' from the list on the left and select 'Add New.' Configure the URLs to hit your source location, deliver to your preferred destination, add a notify, then add a few tasks to the folder. If you have any questions on configuring FTP, S3 or Rackspace URLs, then make sure to check out the following article: http://www.encoding.com/how_can_i_specify_where_my_source_media_is_located

Advanced:

Wanna jump in with both feet and utilize Encoding.com's powerful API to submit your content to our platform?

Find all the resources you need here:

http://www.encoding.com/api/

http://www.encoding.com/api/category/category/complete_api_documentation

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If you are attempting to save a custom dimension in a present in our web UI, you can run into the error: 

Incorrect encoding parameters - Please see detail below:

1. Invalid value size

The way to correct this issue is to remove the spaces in your dimension request.

- 320 x 240 will not pass

- 320x240 will be accepted

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+ Login to the customer area @ http://www.encoding.com/loginhttp://www.encoding.com/login

+ Browse to the Encoding Queue

+ Select the files in which you want to remove from your queue, mark the checkbox to the items you wish to delete.

+ Click delete at the top of the column.

Note that deleting the encodes will remove the source media and encoded files that are stored on Encoding.com's platform. This will be the case if you have not designated a destination location during your initial task request.

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Watch folders are a nifty way to manage all incoming content. In case you want to change the applied settings, here's a guide on how to do just that. You can easily change the destination URL, the notify location and even the watch folder source location.

In the watch folder main view, which lists all of your watched locations, click on the watch folder name you wish to edit. This will take you to the 'Watch Options' page.

Under 'Watch Options' you can reconfigure the location that Encoding.com is polling, change the frequency of the time that Encoding.com polls your directory for new content, and a host of other options. 

To change task settings, select 'Encoding Options.' Here you'll see a list of the applied tasks.

To delete a task, select it from the list below 'With Selected' and hit Delete.

To edit a task, select it from the list below 'With Selected' and reconfigure it on the right side of the screen, under 'Format.' Make sure to hit save after this point, or your changes will be lost. 

To add a new task, simply hit 'Add New' to add tasks to an existing watch folder.

Once you've completed any of these steps, make sure to hit 'Save.' Select 'Close' from the upper right hand corner of the grey box.

If you wish to reprocess the entire watch folder contents, select 'Reset' from the main watch folder view.

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Encoding.com does not use FTP passive mode by default when retrieving or placing files. To use FTP with passive mode turned on, add ?passive=yes to the end of your FTP URL string (either source or destination): ftp://user:pass@ftphost.tld/path/to/your/file.ext?passive=yes

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Presets exist for an unlimited amount of time. You can delete them easily, as well. Just select the preset you wish to delete, and click the small grey X to the right of the selected preset name in the dropdown box, after it's selected. You'll receive a confirmation dialogue box once the operation is complete.

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Want to only process certain files in your watchfolders?  Use our masking controls in the watchfolder UI. Good stuff!

+ Select 'Watchfolder' --> 'Add New' in the UI

+ Under the 'File Name Control' field, add in the type of content you WANT to process. For example, if you want to process only .mp4 content, then the masking field would contain, '*.mp4.' Add in multiple files types if you like!

+ Please note this functionality is only for file types, and not file names.

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You've read all the help articles, you've done your homework, and S3 is still giving you grief.  

Check this one simple thing, and it should help you with your final issues.

Does your source or destination URL look like this:

http://[your_accesskey_code]:[your_secretkey_code]@CLIVETHEGOAT.s3.amazonaws.com/path

Amazon AWS does not recognize capital letters of bucketnames (the part after the @). Change that puppy to this:

http://[your_accesskey_code]:[your_secretkey_code]@clivethegoat.s3.amazonaws.com/path

If all is still not well, drop us a line at helpdesk@encoding.com and we'll help you solve your issue with this.

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Want to save your presets in our UI? No problem!

Just log into http://www.encoding.com/login and configure your workflow as usual. At the bottom of the Task editor, look for the 'Save Custom Preset' button

Give your custom preset a unique name, as indicated in the dialogue box. The next time you select an item from the list, you will see your preset under Custom.

 

 

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An encoding task includes the act of choosing an encoding format and parameters (size, bitrate, etc.), and optionally a destination URL for the encoded result. You can designate one watchfolder to perform multiple tasks through our web user interface. <-- Hide

A watch folder is a directory that's specified to be polled periodically by an encoding platform for new content. When new content arrives, the system will pull the file and convert it to the flavor of video you have requested. Our popular watch folder is a great alternative to integrating with our XML API and requires nothing more than a FTP/S3/Rackspace location to use. Simply login to our client interface, click Watch Folder and specify four things.

1) A FTP folder for our system to "watch" for new video files
2) The encoding profile of your choice: (FLV, MP4, iPod, iPhone, etc)
3) A frequency anywhere from every 5 minutes to once a 1 day 4)A destination FTP location where you would like us to send the encoded files.

In turn, you can also specify the usage of local watch folders via our Desktop Application, if you wish. Thats it! You can be up and running encoding video files with encoding.com in less than 5 minutes.

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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.

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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

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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. 

 

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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.

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