What is Transcoding?

When a video is uploaded to the KMC, the video is associated with a conversion profile, also known as a Transcoding Profile. A Transcoding Profile may be comprised of a single flavor or multiple flavors. For each upload session, you can select the Transcoding Profile. You can also set a default Transcoding Profile.

A transcode is made from taking an encoded piece of video and then converting it into one or more newly and more compressed streams that can then be played in a player on a computer or mobile device depending on the settings and methods used. 

Kaltura flavors are transcoded versions of an entry that are used to specify resolutions and formats. You can select to generate or add multiple flavors to an entry, including flavors geared towards displaying media on mobile devices (low bandwidth, small screens, and/or HTML5 supporting devices). A flavor is a single output file with its specific file type, bit-rate, GOP size, that may be used for playback, download or editing.

The Kaltura platform supports ingestion of all forms of rich media (including video, images, audio, PDF, SWF files, etc.), and allows you to define different transcoding profiles, depending on your publishing needs.

Additional transcoding flavors can easily be added for publishing across different devices, network bandwidths and screen sizes. Kaltura's transcoding decision layer engine supports more than 60 video and image formats as well as 140 video and audio codecs.

When you upload content you determine what type of flavors you want to associate with your output.

There are three transcoding profiles that are automatically created for new accounts:

  •     Default - the flavors included in the default transcoding profile of the account These flavors appear in the main Transcoding Settings page.
  •     Source Only - uploads the source file, but does not transcode it; the source is the original file uploaded as is. Other flavors will not be created.
  •     All Flavors - transcodes uploaded files into all of the flavors defined in the main Transcoding Settings page.
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