Transcoding and playback

The Video module "transcodes" nearly any video format to H.246, Theora, VP8 (and many others) using either Zencoder cloud transcoding service or the open source FFMPEG project on your server. Site builders upload videos to nodes via a video field (which is part of the Video module) much like they would with the file field. When videos have finished transcoding, the Video module automatically creates thumbnails and will embed a video player into the theme layer. The Video module is highly configurable, and can integrate with AWS S3 cloud storage services.

NOTE: You must select to use either FFMPEG or Zencoder as your transcoding solution. You cannot use both.

Using FFMPEG for Transcoding

FFMPEG must be installed on your server and can be difficult to setup. Once setup, FFMPEG costs nothing to use. However, video transcoding is a CPU-intensive operation, so FFMPEG is probably not a good solution for high traffic, single server websites. FFMPEG should probably not be used on sites that will receive videos uploads with a large file size nor for sites which receive a high volume of video uploads. FFMPEG is an ideal solution when:

1. You upload short videos infrequently
2. You have time (but no money) to experiment with installing and compiling FFMPEG
3. You have a lot of extra CPU ("compute") capacity on your server
4. You have low traffic to your site

Using Zencoder for Transcoding

Zencoder is a fast cloud transcoding service. It can accept very large and very frequent video uploads without significantly slowing down your server. While Zencoder is a commercial service, it offers free trial accounts which the Video module can create for you effortlessly. The two drawbacks to using Zencoder are that you will have to pay for use of the service, and that it's currently difficult to test Zencoder without a public IP address. For example, it's hard to test if developing on localhost. Consider using Zencoder when:

1. You have money but not enough time to figure out FFMPEG
2. Your server has a high volume of traffic
3. You plan to allow site visitors to upload videos to the site
4. You want to allow large videos to be uploaded
5. You want the option to store unlimited numbers of videos in cloud someday