Welcome to Transcodely
Transcodely is a cloud-based video transcoding API that converts video files between formats, codecs, and resolutions. You send us a video, tell us how you want it encoded, and we handle the rest.
The API is built on Connect-RPC and speaks JSON over HTTP. Every request is a POST, every field is snake_case, and every resource has a prefixed ID you can recognize at a glance (job_, pst_, org_, app_).
Key Concepts
Before you start, it helps to understand how Transcodely is organized:
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Organization | Your billing entity. Every resource belongs to an organization. |
| App | A project or environment within an organization. Separate your staging and production workloads. |
| API Key | Credentials for authenticating API requests. Live keys (ak_live_) for production, test keys (ak_test_) for development. |
| Origin | A storage location (GCS or S3 bucket) where input videos are read from and outputs are written to. |
| Preset | A reusable encoding configuration. Define codec, resolution, and quality settings once, reference them by ID or slug. |
| Job | A transcoding task. Takes an input video and produces one or more output renditions. |
How It Works
A typical integration follows this flow:
- Set up storage — Create an Origin pointing to your GCS or S3 bucket
- Create a preset (optional) — Define reusable encoding settings, or configure outputs inline
- Submit a job — Point to your input video and specify output configurations
- Monitor progress — Poll the job status or use the real-time Watch stream
- Retrieve outputs — Completed files are written to your output Origin
What You Can Build
- Video-on-demand platforms — Transcode uploads into multiple resolutions and formats for adaptive streaming
- Content management systems — Auto-generate preview renditions and optimized delivery formats
- Media pipelines — Batch-process video libraries with consistent quality settings
- Social platforms — Convert user-uploaded video into web-friendly formats
Next Steps
- Quickstart — Get your first transcode running in under 5 minutes
- Authentication — Understand API keys and how to authenticate requests
- SDKs — Install an official SDK for your language