In my previous article, I explained how to set-up the Amazon Web Services (AWS), Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets required by a video transcoding job. Let’s convert a movie now that we have the storage buckets in place.
Upload one or more videos to your source bucket. Log in to the AWS console and open the Amazon S3 dashboard. Click on the source bucket. After clicking on the source bucket, you will be taken directly to the dashboard view. Follow the prompts to upload your video file. Although there are many options available in the upload wizard, most people will be able to choose the default.
This brings us to an important point. Uploading video files to S3 buckets can be difficult. Uploads can sometimes fail without warning. There are a few things you can do if you experience this problem. Check your computer to ensure it is showing the correct time. Uploads will fail if the clock on your computer is different than AWS’s. You can also upload a non-video file. Uploading a document or similar file will help you verify that the bucket is functioning.
If video files fail to upload but other file types upload well, it could be that the file is missing one or two frames. Some people have had success rewriting the video before uploading it.
After you have uploaded your video, you should see it listed in the bucket as shown in Figure 1.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] Figure 1: The bucket displays the video file. Go to the AWS services section and select the Elastic Transcoder option. It is located in the Application Services section. You will be taken to Figure 2.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] Figure 2: This is the place where you can transcode a video. To transcode a video, the first step is to create a pipeline. Click on the Create New Pipeline button shown in Figure 2. This will take to the Create New Pipeline screen.
Although the screen requires a lot of information, filling in the required fields is easy. First, name the pipeline. Next, select your input bucket. Next, select the output bucket and storage class. Next, select a bucket and storage category for video thumbnails. There are two optional configuration items at bottom of screen. However, you don’t need to use them unless encryption or notifications are desired. Figure 3 shows how the configuration looks.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] Figure 3: This shows how to create a pipeline. Click on the Create Pipeline button to be taken to a screen showing the pipeline. To start a transcoding job, click the Create New Job button. This screen has many options, but only a few must be used. You will need to choose the pipeline you want, the name of your file to transcode, as well as the output preset you wish to use. An output key is a file name that ends in.MP4.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] Figure 4: Choose the pipeline, file name, and output preset. Once you’re done, click on the Create New Job button.
The job will now be running. AWS will display the job in the Jobs screen. However, this screen does not update in real-time. To check the status of your job, you will need to click the Refresh button periodically. The job will eventually show a status of complete, as shown in Figure 5.
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