Setting Your Transcoding Options

All Video Cloud publishers can view their transcode settings in the Video Cloud Studio. The ability to modify your transcode settings in the Video Cloud Studio is available only to Video Cloud Pro and Enterprise publishers. If you are interested in upgrading your Video Cloud account, please contact Brightcove for more information.

Video Cloud gives you fine-grained control over how your videos are transcoded into one or multiple renditions. Using multiple renditions, instead of a single rendition, lets you take advantage of Video Cloud's dynamic bandwidth detection features, so that the Video Cloud player can deliver a rendition of the video that best matches the viewer's window size and available bandwidth. You can also deliver lower-bitrate renditions suitable for mobile devices. For most purposes, you don't need to change the transcoding settings; Video Cloud's default transcoding settings provide a good baseline set of renditions that should meet the needs of most publishers and viewers.

You can view and configure the settings for the multi-bitrate streaming renditions in your account in the Video Cloud  Studio's Account Settings page. This information can be viewed or changed only by users with the Admin role. To view and configure this information:

1. Sign in to the Video Cloud Studio.
2. Click the Account Info link at the top right, in the navigation bar, and select Account Settings. You must have Administrator privileges to access this area of the Studio.
3. On the Account Settings page, click Transcode Settings.

On the Transcode Settings page, you can view and modify the default transcode settings for your account.

• Under Single Rendition, it lists the codec, bitrates, dimensions, and other settings that Video Cloud uses by default for your videos when you specify that you want a single rendition of a video you create.
• Under Multiple Renditions, it lists the settings that apply when you specify that you want multiple renditions of a video you create. By default, you have access to six rendition settings. You can delete renditions, or add renditions up to a maximum of 10.

Editing transcode settings

To edit the transcode settings for a rendition, click the pencil icon in the right column of the rendition's settings. The edit options displayed enable you to select the transcode settings for this rendition.

See Transcode settings for details about what all these settings mean. When you are done, click Save Changes.

Adding or removing renditions

By default, each account has 6 renditions available. You can add more renditions, up to a maximum of 10, or remove renditions. Note that when you add or remove renditions, it only affects videos you upload for transcoding by Video Cloud from that point forward; it does not affect any renditions that have already been created.

To add a rendition on the Transcode Settings page:

1. Click the Add a Rendition button. A new row appears in the Multiple Renditions table.
2. Enter the settings for this rendition, as described in Editing transcode settings.
3. Click Save Changes when you are done.

To remove a rendition, click the X icon at the right end of the rendition's row in the Multiple Renditions table.

Video Cloud's default transcode settings are listed in the Standard Transcode Settings Reference. To restore your transcode settings to the default Video Cloud values, click Restore Defaults at the right end of the heading for the Multiple Renditions table.

Overriding the default options on upload

Regardless of your default transcode settings, when you upload a video, whether with the Media module, FTP batch provisioning, or the Media API, you have the option to have that video transcoded into either H.264 (MP4) or VP6 (FLV). The codec you specify when you upload overrides the codec you specify in your default transcode settings. If your default transcode settings are for H.264 and you specify that a particular video should use VP6, then Video Cloud creates video renditions with the VP6 video codec and the VP6-E codec profile.  If your default transcode settings are for VP6 and you specify that a particular video should use H.264, then Video Cloud creates video renditions with the H.264 video codec and the H.264 Baseline codec profile. In each case, all the other transcode settings are respected.

Transcode settings

The settings on the Transcode Settings page apply by default, no matter what method you use to upload a video (Media module, Media API, or FTP batch provisioning). Note that the maximum bit rate is limited by the quality of the file you upload; the source file's average bit rate must be at least 75% of the requested rendition's bit rate, or the rendition will not be created. See Using multi-bitrate streaming.