About

Transcoding converts media files into formats that support playback across different devices and platforms. Transcoding profiles let you define which flavors are created when media is uploaded.

Create a transcoding profile

1. Log into Rich Media CMS and click the settings icon.

   

   The settings page displays.
2. Click the Transcoding tab.

   

   The Transcoding Profiles page displays.
3. Click Add Profile.

   

   The Add Transcoding Profile screen displays.

   

4. Enter a Name and Description for the profile.
5. To apply predefined metadata to entries that use this profile, enter the entry ID in Default Metadata Settings.

This field is optional. The metadata fields from the specified entry are applied to each new entry transcoded with this profile, allowing you to use an existing entry as a metadata template. To learn more about custom metadata, see Create a Custom Metadata. 

6. If Remote Storage is configured for your account and you want to ingest content from it, select Ingest from Remote Storage.
7. Click Save.
   The Flavors tab displays.

   

8. Select the flavors you want to apply to uploaded source media.

Don't use only the Source flavor. Source-only videos don't support adaptive streaming and can cause playback issues. Include at least one additional flavor, such as an SD or HD flavor.



9. Click Save.

Edit a transcoding profile

1. Navigate to the desired profile and click the three-dot menu at the end of the row.
2. Select Edit.

   

   The Metadata page displays.

Edit metadata

1. Make the desired changes. 
2. Click Save.

Edit flavors

1. Click the Flavors tab.
2. Locate the flavor you want to edit and hover over the space at the end of the row. A pencil icon appears.

   

3. Click the pencil icon.
4. The Edit Flavor Settings window displays.

   

5. Make your edits. The following options can be edited for each transcoding flavor selected in a transcoding profile:

• Impact on Entry Readiness – Determines the impact of each specific transcoding flavor on entry readiness for publishing.
  The options are:
  • No Impact – Processing this flavor doesn't affect entry readiness. This is typically used for the Source flavor.
  • Required – The entry doesn't reach the Ready state until this flavor finishes processing. To make entries available sooner, use Required only for a flavor that's necessary for playback in the required environment.
  • Optional – The entry can reach the Ready state before this flavor finishes processing. If no flavor in the profile is set to Required, completing any Optional flavor sets the entry to Ready. Use this setting for most additional flavors to help entries become ready sooner.
• Use Kaltura Transcoding – Determines whether to use the Kaltura transcoding engine for generating each specific transcoding flavor. This option is enabled only when your account is set to support the ingestion of multiple bit-rate transcoding flavors generated by your local transcoder.  If Kaltura performs transcoding of all flavors except the ‘source’ file, this option should be set to Always.

  

The options are:
• Always – Kaltura's transcoding engine generates the flavor.
• Never – Kaltura's transcoding engine doesn't generate the flavor. The Source flavor always uses this setting because the source file is added without additional processing. You can also use this setting when your ingestion workflow uses a local transcoding engine.
• As a Fallback – The system expects the flavor to be provided by a local transcoding engine. If the flavor isn't included in the ingestion request, Kaltura's transcoding engine generates it instead.
• System Name (Optional) – The system name is used to identify the flavor in client-side applications. For example, to mark a specific flavor as suitable for playback on iPad devices, the system name was set to iPad.
• Flavor Generation Policy – You can bypass Kaltura’s transcoding optimization, and force specific flavors to be generated even when though they are detected as redundant by the Kaltura transcoding optimization module.



The options are:
• Use Kaltura’s Optimization - Kaltura’s optimization routine decides whether it is worth-while to create a flavor (For example if the source video is of lesser quality than the flavor, the optimization routine will not create the flavor).
• Force Flavor generation –Select this option to override the Kaltura optimization routine and create a flavor regardless of whether or not it is redundant quality wise (For example, when a publisher has to distribute the video through a broadcast channel that requires specific flavor specifications, the flavor must be created.)

The same flavor may have different settings in a different transcoding profile, which allows for greater publishing flexibility.

Assign a transcoding profile to a bulk upload

You can assign a transcoding profile other than the default profile when performing a bulk upload.

Use the ID of the transcoding profile as the conversionProfileId value:

• For CSV bulk uploads, set conversionProfileId to the ID of the profile on the Transcoding Profiles page.
• For XML bulk uploads, set conversionProfileId to the ID of the profile on the Transcoding Profiles page.