Packaging & Transcoding

CDN77 offers a robust VOD workflow. From standard MP4 delivery, packaging into HLS/DASH/CMAF formats or transcoding videos into multiple qualities. This is an additional feature provided on a case-by-case basis.

Both systems are controlled through our API. The API is not publicly available and is provided to clients through direct communication with our team.

Transcoding

Our primary focus is transcoding your video files into multiple qualities.

Takes any supported file (mostly mp4) and converts it to HLS / DASH / CMAF with adaptive bitrate chunks for streaming with hardware-accelerated transcoding.

Packaging

Takes any supported file (mostly mp4) containing audio/video tracks and makes combined CMAF chunks for DASH and HLS without transcoding.

Transcoding tutorial

Let us begin by setting up a testing environment using the app “Postman”. It's easy to use and understand.

You can download it here - https://www.getpostman.com/downloads/

Or use it as a Chrome extension.

Once you download it, create your first Request manually or import a pre-generated request from this URL. Just fill in the API token that you can find in your CDN account.

Import to Postman

Open Postman, click Import and Import From Link:

https://www.getpostman.com/collections/622bf048234ff98b144c

Here’s an example of a source video that’s on CDN Storage Location:

~/www/videos/bunny.mp4

MP4 Playback link:

https://1768229597.rsc.cdn77.org/videos/bunny.mp4

After you’ve uploaded your video to CDN Storage, you need to send an API request to our server that’ll transcode the video into multiple qualities and convert it into CMAF format (You can also use HLS or DASH only).

You're in full control of the qualities and bitrates that you need.

There are many aspects of the API and what it can do.

For instance:

  • the possibility to generate CMAF chunks,
  • generate MP4 files,
  • use HTTP link as the source,
  • encode videos only partially or
  • automatically create the full path on the Storage that’s in the field “destination”.

Additionally, you can:

  • Check the status of each job,
  • list several jobs at once or
  • cancel them.

You'll learn that and more after you contact us and receive the full API documentation.

When sending API requests, remember to always change the ’source’ and ‘destination’ parameters. Otherwise, you'll overwrite your existing files.

The last folder in “destination” is typically used as a filename because we always generate “cmaf.m3u8” or “cmaf.mpd” as the manifest names.

You can see when we used the path destination path “/www/encoded/bunny”, the contents of the last /bunny folder includes manifests and chunks in sub-folders.

Example of the transcoded HLS & Dash output:

https://1768229597.rsc.cdn77.org/encoded/bunny/cmaf.m3u8

https://1768229597.rsc.cdn77.org/encoded/bunny/cmaf.mpd

You will use a similar playback link in your platform or wherever you’re looking to publish your videos.

Get in touch with our team to receive more information about transcoding and packaging your videos.