Encoding.com pioneered cloud encoding as a service over 6 years ago. In 2008 the transcoding options for high volume media companies were limited; there were transcoding hardware appliances, open source software, or enterprise encoding software. All of these options were expensive, difficult to scale, and required on going maintenance. Over the past few years many of the enterprise hardware and software providers have launched cloud encoding offerings, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, & Telestream, to name a few. At first glance these new offering seem competitive to Encoding.com, they all have cloud in the title and offer video encoding so what's the difference? All of these services lack several important features that make operating them at scale difficult, costly, and inefficient. In the interest of saving many hours of research, testing, and wasted cloud compute hours we have outlined the differences between an encoder running in the cloud and cloud video encoding:
Encoder in the Cloud: Encoding software is made available through a cloud compute provider. For example Elemental, Sorenson, Harmonic, and Telestream are all available via the Amazon Marketplace where you can login to your AWS control panel, start the EC2 instance of your choice with a preconfigured version of the software installed. Your AWS account is then charged a monthly subscription access fee as well as an hourly for the EC2 instance plus an additional hourly fee charged by the software vendor. Prices range from $1.00 $8.00 per hour depending on the vendor and size of the EC2 instance chosen.
Cloud Encoding: The notion of compute and software configuration are completely removed from the equation to users of true cloud encoding vendors. The operator integrates with one of the available cloud vendors integration methods, API, Watch Folder, Desktop App and can send highly variable volume to the provider and be billed only on usage (GBs or minutes).
Feature Encoder in the Cloud True Cloud Encoder
Auto Compute Scale If encoding volume reaches more than the capacity of one of the cloud encoding servers can handle, manual operator intervention is required to login to the AWS interface and start another one. The cloud provider will intelligently scale up compute resources based on demand and some offer SLAs around queue time, or simultaneous job requests.
Auto Compute Scale Down When encoding volume dips below the capacity of the cloud encoding servers currently running manual operator intervention is required to login to the AWS interface and turn off encoding resources. At hourly rates of up to $8.00 scaling down can be just as important as scaling up and thousands of dollars worth of compute are wasted on empty compute hours in a high volume workflow. Since cloud encoding providers charge by the GB or by the minute, being able to spin down compute instances in real-time with changes in workflow is critical to cost savings and efficiency
Intelligent Job Management With a workflow that requires more than one encoder in the cloud these system lack any centralized job management and force the operator to develop an in house encoding queue to distribute job volume evenly to the currently running servers. For example if a job gets stuck or an error occurs no automated facility exists to restart the job or gracefully redistribute other jobs in the queue. Job volume is distributed to compute resources automatically and in processed in parallel. If 30 jobs are sent simultaneously each with 10 outputs, each of the 300 outputs are processed in parallel in the same amount of total job time required to 1 job with 10 outputs.
System Encoding Analytics Since each of the encoders in the cloud operate as separate workers, no central analytics or encoding queue is present to inform the operators of overall encoding volume, queue times, processing times, error reporting, etc. Centralized web based job configuration, encoding queue and analytics are provided to manage a large encoding volume. These realtime tools allows operators complete transparency and visibility into critical system metric over time.
We believe the encoder in the cloud model would be a stretch at best to label as cloud computing and definitely does not qualify as a software as a service. This model would be analogous to salesforce.com requiring you to manually start additional servers (paid by the hour) as your use of their system increased!
Harmonic, Inc. recognized the difference between an encoder in the cloud and a cloud encoder and even though they maintain their ProMedia Carbon in the Amazon Marketplace have partnered with Encoding.com to make ProMedia Carbon available in a true cloud encoding model. Now users can take advantage of the tremendous video quality of the ProMedia Carbon toolset while taking advantage of the elastic capacity and advanced toolset of a true software as a service delivery model.
Most recent headlines
17/12/2025
Investigative journalists across the Western Balkans and T rkiye continue to con...
17/12/2025
Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Inducts 10 Industry Icons During Unforgettable ...
17/12/2025
ESPN to Debut MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, a New AI-Driven NFL Data-AltCastThe series, powered by Adrenaline TruPlay AI, launches Dec. 22 and runs through ...
17/12/2025
Inaugural Optum Golf Channel Games Debut Under the Lights' in Primetime on ...
17/12/2025
The right playlist is essential on New Year's Eve, building the energy as you get ready and keeping it high as you count down to midnight. This year, Spotif...
17/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
17/12/2025
Audiences Watched Over 103 Billion Minutes of TV on Thanksgiving Day
NFL Games ...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
Wednesday 17 December 2025
Heated Rivalry will be coming to Sky and streaming service NOW on 10 JanuaryTurn on cookies to view this content. Go to Privacy opti...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Inside The Unseen World Of Indian Customs: Netflix Reveals The...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix announces PAPARAZZI KING: the docu series coming to Ne...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First Look at Jo Nesbo's Detective Hole Pr...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Welcomes Warner Bros. Discovery Board Recommendation
Business
17 December 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
After Careful Revi...
17/12/2025
RT has announced that Kathy Fox has been appointed Commissioning Editor with re...
17/12/2025
The Hao AI Lab research team at the University of California San Diego - at the forefront of pioneering AI model innovation - recently received an NVIDIA DGX B...
17/12/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
16/12/2025
RT Sport Awards 2025 live on RT One and RT Player at 8:05pm on Saturday 20 December.
On Saturday 20 December live on RT One and RT Player at the earlier t...
16/12/2025
Singer -songwriter Brian Kennedy has been announced as the final celebrity dance...
15/12/2025
Harlem Globetrotters Celebrate 100th Anniversary With New Brand Campaign From Th...
15/12/2025
Top L-R: La Tierra Del Valor (The Home of the Brave), Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawe...
15/12/2025
L3Harris will leverage 15 years of experience supporting the E-4B Nightwatch and...
Encoding.com pioneered cloud encoding as a service over 6 years ago. In 2008 the transcoding options for high volume media companies were limited; there were transcoding hardware appliances, open source software, or enterprise encoding software. All of these options were expensive, difficult to scale, and required on going maintenance. Over the past few years many of the enterprise hardware and software providers have launched cloud encoding offerings, Elemental, Harmonic, Sorenson, & Telestream, to name a few. At first glance these new offering seem competitive to Encoding.com, they all have cloud in the title and offer video encoding so what's the difference? All of these services lack several important features that make operating them at scale difficult, costly, and inefficient. In the interest of saving many hours of research, testing, and wasted cloud compute hours we have outlined the differences between an encoder running in the cloud and cloud video encoding:
