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Building a Video Transcoding Pipeline Using Elastic Transcoder

**Thank you for your interest in this content. Unfortunately, this content is no longer being updated and some of it may be out-of-date.** In this hands-on lab, we are going to create a video transcoding pipeline using the Elastic Transcoder service. Elastic Transcoder is a media service designed to be a highly scalable, easy-to-use, and cost-effective way to convert (or "transcode") media files from their source format into various formats and qualities. The Elastic Transcoder service also operates in a serverless fashion, meaning you're not responsible for allocating the underlying infrastructure that is used to transcode these files. In this lab, we will upload a sample video file to an Amazon S3 bucket and configure our Elastic Transcoder pipeline to transcode our video to 720p quality. (We've provided sample video files for you to use as your source media files.)

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Beginner
Last updated
Jul 19, 2025
Duration
30m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Upload the Source Video for Transcoding
    1. Download one of the sample videos here.
    2. In the AWS Management Console, navigate to S3.
    3. Select the existing bucket with source in the name.
    4. Select Upload.
    5. Select Add files.
    6. Upload a sample video file.
    7. Verify the bucket contains your sample video file.
  2. Challenge

    Create a Pipeline Using Elastic Transcoder
    1. In the AWS Management Console, navigate to Elastic Transcoder.
    2. Under Pipelines, select Create a new Pipeline.
    3. Pipeline Name: Enter any name you would like to use.
    4. Input Bucket: Select the existing bucket with source in the name.
    5. Allow the IAM role to be created automatically.
    6. Transcoded Files: Select the existing bucket with transcoded in the name.
    7. Storage Class: Choose either Standard or Reduced Redundancy.
    8. Thumbnails: Select the existing bucket with thumbnails in the name.
    9. Storage Class: Choose either Standard or Reduced Redundancy.
    10. Click Create Pipeline.
  3. Challenge

    Create a Job
    1. Pipeline: Select the previously created pipeline.
    2. Output Key Prefix: Leave blank.
    3. Input Key: Select the sample video file.
    4. Under Output Details, select System preset: Generic 720p.
    5. Output Key: Provide a name for your output file (for example, "transcodedvideo.mp4").
    6. Create Thumbnails: Set to Yes.
    7. Thumbnail Filename Pattern: Provide a naming scheme for your thumbnails (for example, "LakeThumbnail{count}").
    8. Click Create New Job.
  4. Challenge

    Verify Transcoded Files Exist
    1. In the AWS Management Console, navigate to S3.
    2. Navigate to the bucket with the name containing "transcoded".
    3. Verify transcoded video files exist in the "transcoded" bucket.
    4. Navigate to the bucket with the name containing "thumbnails".
    5. Verify thumbnail files exist in the "thumbnails" bucket.
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