# Video Upload and Transcoding for OTT Platforms | Vodlix **Source:** https://vodlix.com/features/video-uploading-transcoding **Summary:** Turn a master file into a stream. Upload or ingest by URL, automatic transcoding into multiple renditions, generated poster frames and a publishing step you control. **Publisher:** Vodlix --- ## Video Uploading & Transcoding Automatically transcode videos for optimal playback on any device. Streamline your video workflow with our platform. - **Feature Plan:** 2 - core-platform - back-end ## From a File to Something People Can Watch A master file is not a stream. Between the two sits encoding, packaging, artwork and storage, and it is the part of running a platform that quietly consumes the most time. Vodlix takes the file and hands back something ready to play on any screen. ### The Least Glamorous Part of the Job Nobody starts a streaming service because they want to think about codecs. They want a catalogue people watch. But between a producer sending a master and a viewer pressing play there is a genuinely awkward stretch of work: the file has to be encoded into several sizes, packaged so that phones and televisions can both read it, given artwork, and put somewhere it can be served from quickly. Do that manually and it costs an engineer a day per batch. Vodlix does it on arrival, so the only decision left is when to publish. #### Get the file in Upload through the admin area, point the platform at a URL and let it fetch, or hand a whole library over for bulk delivery. Large files never have to travel through a browser tab. #### Encoding happens for you One master becomes the set of renditions a real audience needs, so a phone on mobile data and a television on fibre are both served properly without anybody choosing settings per title. #### Artwork without a design pass Poster frames are pulled from the video itself and offered as a choice, so a title has usable artwork the moment processing finishes rather than waiting on a designer. ### Getting Video In There are three ways in, and which one you use depends on where your content already lives. **Straight upload** suits the everyday case of a single title going up. **Fetch from a URL** is the one that scales. Point the platform at a publicly reachable HTTPS address and it collects the file itself, which means an ingest job is a list of links rather than an afternoon of babysitting a browser. It is also how the [API](/features/restful-api) adds video, so a distributor feed or a production workflow can push straight into your catalogue without a person in the loop. **Bulk delivery** covers migrations and back catalogues, where the sensible answer is to move thousands of files over a secure transfer rather than one at a time. Whichever route a file takes, processing state is visible while it runs, so you know what is ready and what is still working rather than refreshing a page and guessing. ### Bulk Delivery Without a Browser For a back catalogue, a browser upload is the wrong tool. Secure FTP gives you a drop point to push thousands of files at, and the platform picks them up from there and processes them, so a migration is a transfer running overnight rather than somebody feeding a form for a week. - mx-auto ### What Comes Out the Other End A single master is turned into the ladder of renditions a mixed audience actually needs, then packaged so it plays on everything from an older Android handset to a new television. That is where this hands over to the rest of the delivery chain: [HLS and MPEG DASH](/features/hls-mpeg-dash) covers the packaging and how quality adapts to a changing connection, the [global CDN](/features/global-cdn) covers getting those files close to the viewer, and [DRM](/features/drm) covers protecting them on the way. Artwork is handled in the same pass. Poster frames are taken from the video and offered as options, so you pick one rather than commissioning one, and the choice can be changed later without touching the file. Subtitles, audio tracks and metadata attach to the same title, which is what makes it findable once it is live. ### The Difference at Three Hundred Titles Any of this is tolerable for one video. The question is what happens when a distributor sends three hundred with a spreadsheet of metadata, or when you are migrating a back catalogue and the old platform is switching off at the end of the month. That is the point where an automated pipeline stops being a convenience. Ingest by URL, drive it from the [API](/features/restful-api), and the same job that handled ten titles handles a thousand without more people. Titles arrive, process, take their artwork and wait, unpublished, until you decide to release them. Nothing goes live by accident, and nobody spends a week on encoding settings. **Q: How do we get video into the platform?** Upload it in the admin area, give the platform a public HTTPS URL and let it fetch the file itself, or arrange bulk delivery for a large library. The URL route is the one most operators end up using, because it scales and it can be driven by the API. **Q: Do we have to choose encoding settings for each title?** No. A master is encoded into the set of renditions a real audience needs without anybody configuring it per video, which is what keeps a large ingest from turning into a week of decisions. **Q: Where does the artwork come from?** Poster frames are generated from the video itself and offered as a choice, so a title has usable artwork as soon as it finishes processing. You can change the selection later, and upload your own key art instead when you have it. **Q: Can we tell when a title has finished processing?** Yes. Each title carries its processing state, so you can see what is ready and what is still working rather than refreshing and hoping. Titles stay unpublished until you release them, so nothing appears on the storefront mid process. **Q: Does a title go live as soon as it is uploaded?** No, and that is deliberate. Ingest and publishing are separate steps, so a batch can be processed, checked and given artwork well before anything is visible to a viewer. **Q: How do we move a large back catalogue across?** Programmatically. Bulk delivery for the files and the API for the metadata turns a migration into a repeatable job that can be run again to catch anything that changed while you were moving, which is what keeps a platform switch to days rather than months. **Q: What formats do viewers actually receive?** Adaptive streams packaged for broad device support, with quality shifting to suit the connection. The HLS and MPEG DASH page covers the packaging in detail, and the global CDN page covers how those files reach the viewer.