What is Elastic Transcoder?

• Elastic Transcoder is an aws service used to convert the media files stored in an S3 bucket into the media files in different formats supported by different devices.
• Elastic Transcoder is a media transcoder in the cloud.
• It is used to convert media files from their original source format into different formats that will play on smartphones, tablets, PC's, etc.
• It provides transcoding presets for popular output formats means that you don't need to guess about which settings work best on particular devices.
• If you use Elastic Transcoder, then you need to pay based on the minutes that you transcode and the resolution at which you transcode.

Components of Elastic Transcoder

Elastic Transcoder consists of four components:

• Jobs
• Pipelines
• Presets
• Notifications

• Jobs
  The main task of the job is to complete the work of transcoding. Each job can convert a file up to 30 formats. For example, if you want to convert a media file into eight different formats, then a single job creates files in eight formats. When you create a job, you need to specify the name of the file that you want to transcode.
• Pipelines
  Pipelines are the queues that consist of your transcoding jobs. When you create a job, then you need to specify which pipeline you want to add your job. If you want a job to create more than one format, Elastic Transcoder creates the files for each format in the order you specify the formats in a job.
  You can create either of the two pipelines, i.e., standard-priority jobs and high-priority jobs. Mainly jobs go into the standard-priority jobs. Sometimes you want to transcode the file immediately; the high-priority pipeline is used.
• Presets
  Presets are the templates that contain the settings for transcoding the media file from one format to another format. Elastic transcoder consists of some default presets for common formats. You can also create your own presets that are not included in the default presets. You need to specify a preset that you want to use when you create a job.
• Notifications
  Notification is an optional field which you can configure with the Elastic Transcoder. Notification Service is a service that keeps you updated with the status of your job: when Elastic Transcoder starts processing your job, when Elastic Transcoder finishes its job, whether the Elastic Transcoder encounters an error condition or not.You can configure Notifications when you create a pipeline.

How A Cloud Uses Elastic Transcoder

Suppose I uploaded the mp4 file in S3 bucket. As soon as uploading is completed, it triggers a Lambda function. Lambda function will then invoke Elastic Transcoder. Elastic Transcoder converts the mp4 file into different formats so that the file can be opened in iphone, Laptop, etc. Once it has completed the transcoding, it stores the transcoded files in S3 bucket.