FASTPIX VIDEO ENCODING API
Video encoding,
in one API call
Upload a video or a video URL. The FastPix encoder handles the resolutions, the bitrates and the codecs, then packages it to stream anywhere you want.
$25 in credits. No card. Encoding is free on Standard quality.
TRUSTED BY PRODUCT TEAMS SHIPPING VIDEO AT SCALE
What video encoding API does?
Also known as a cloud video encoding service.
A video encoding API turns your source file into streaming-ready renditions with one HTTP request.
You send a URL. FastPix compresses the video, builds a bitrate ladder tuned to that file (the set of quality levels a player switches between), packages it as CMAF and hands back a playback URL that works on every screen. Nothing runs on your infrastructure and there is no encoder to keep alive.
WHY TEAMS SWITCH TO A VIDEO ENCODING SERVICE
What cloud video encoding handles for you
One ladder per video, not one per catalog.
FastPix builds the ladder from the file itself, then keeps tuning it. Viewer Experience monitoring watches rebuffering, startup time and quality across millions of streams a day, and we feed that back into how your next upload gets encoded.
Playback starts before the encode finishes.
FastPix serves the first rungs while the rest are still encoding, so nobody waits for the whole ladder. Twenty-one minutes of 1080p finishes in 10.7 seconds.
The ladder does not multiply your bill.
You pay for the source minute once, whatever we do with it. Rung count, codec and encoding passes do not change the rate.
THE SHORT VERSION
What happens when you encode a video
FastPix cloud video encoder profiles the source and builds the ladder to fit it, and you get back a playback URL that works on every screen.
interview_ep41.mov
Your source file
Camera master, screen recording or export
Motion & detail
How much changes from frame to frame
Scene complexity
A flat interview or a fast chase
Build the bitrate ladder
Each resolution and bitrate is a rung
Short segments
Each rendition, cut into short pieces
The manifest
So a player can ask piece by piece
Adaptive playback
Moves up and down the ladder as the connection changes
Source
A file arrives
Analyse
The encoder reads it
Ladder
Renditions get built
Package
Segments get wrapped
Play
The player picks a rung
Where most of the difficulty lives
Where most of the difficulty lives: step 2 and step 3. Choose the ladder badly and you either send more bits than the picture needs, which costs money and stalls viewers on weak connections, or too few, which makes the picture soft. Everything else is plumbing.
FASTPIX ENCODING MECHANISMS
Video encoding models and strategies
How FastPix encodes your video
Send us the file and we work out the rest. The FastPix video encoding API reads your source before it encodes it, because a talking-head interview and a fast-cut trailer are different problems and deserve different rendition ladders.
You do not pick resolutions, tune bitrates or maintain preset files. One call in, a playback URL back.
- Any source. H.264, HEVC, AV1 and VP9 in, up to 4K with HDR.
- Any origin. Direct upload, pull from a URL, or resumable upload from mobile.
- CMAF out. One packaging format that every modern player understands.
Content-adaptive encoding, tuned by real playback data
We keep tuning your ladder after it ships, using the people actually watching. Most video encoding APIs guess from the source file and stop there.
Viewer Experience monitoring tracks errors, rebuffering, startup time and picture quality across millions of streams a day. Machine learning feeds those signals back into how ladders get built, so the encoder that runs your next upload is not the one that ran your last one.
- Real sessions, not lab conditions. Signals come from production playback on real devices and real networks.
- Both failure modes. A ladder that is too fat stalls on weak connections. Too thin and the picture goes soft. Matched beats smaller.
- Nothing to wire up. Video Data is part of the platform, not a second vendor bolted on.
Per-title encoding: one ladder per file, not one per library
We build a ladder per file, because a single ladder applied to a whole catalog is wrong for almost every video in it. Netflix introduced per-title encoding in 2015 for exactly that reason.
FastPix profiles each source, builds the ladder that fits it, and scores the result with VMAF rather than aiming at a fixed bitrate.
- Measured, not assumed. Quality is scored with VMAF at every rung.
- 35% fewer bytes at matched quality, against open-source H.264, HEVC and AV1 baselines.
Just-in-time encoding, so playback starts before the encode ends
We hand back a playback URL before the encode is done, where a traditional pipeline bakes every rendition first and makes you wait on renditions nobody has asked for yet.
FastPix opens playback as soon as the first rungs are ready, so a thirty-second clip and a two-hour premiere both start in seconds.
- Time to first viewer, not time to full ladder. The upload finishes and playback begins.
- Two things share the name. Just-in-time transcoding produces renditions on demand. Just-in-time packaging rewraps renditions that already exist. FastPix packages CMAF on the way out.
- Nothing to configure. There is no pre-warm step and no separate packager to run.
MULTI-CODEC SUPPORT
Video encoding specs: codecs, containers and limits
What FastPix accepts, what it emits, and when each one gets used. Codec choice does not change your rate.
Containers
Resolutions
Quality metric
Ingest
Time to ready
Encoding mode
Quality tiers
TERMINOLOGY
Video encoding vs transcoding vs transmuxing
These three get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Here is where each one happens in the pipeline.
ENCODING
Compressing raw video into a codec
TRANSCODING
Decoding, then re-encoding
TRANSMUXING
Repackaging without re-encoding
LIVE ENCODING
Live encoding, with the same ladder discipline
One ingest URL
Live ladder
Transcode · package · deliver
Your encoder
Backup stream key included
1080p
Rendition [01]
4.5 Mb/s720p
Rendition [02]
2.5 Mb/s480p
Rendition [03]
1.2 Mb/s360p
Rendition [04]
0.6 Mb/slive · output
Live playback
1080p
480p
1080p
Adaptive bitrate holds playback when a viewer's connection drops.
Live-to-VOD
Replay archived automatically
Point any standard encoder at one ingest URL and FastPix takes it from there. We transcode, package and deliver low-latency LL-HLS over a multi-CDN, and adaptive bitrate keeps playback stable when a viewer's connection is not.
Live encoding bills at one flat rate across 720p, 1080p, 2K and 4K, and the replay is archived automatically.
Ingest.
Output.
Replay.
STACK CONSOLIDATION
What you are replacing
Per-title encoding runs on NVIDIA GPUs through the FastPix pipeline (NVIDIA Inception Partner). Everything below it comes with the same API key, sits alongside the rest of the platform features, and the same encoder runs behind Video on Demand and Live Streaming.
VERIFIED PERFORMANCE
Video encoding speed, measured on real files
The benchmark is open source and it reports the runs FastPix does not win as well as the ones it does. Every number here links to the file it came from and how it was measured.
PRICING
Per minute encoded, delivered, and stored
No platform fee, no per-seat charge, no separate invoice for each surface. See full pricing.
Encoding
Pay per minute encoded
$0.0267 /min 1080p
Per-title ABR encoding across H.264
Pro
Streaming
Pay per minute streamed
$0.00067 /min 1080p
Multi-CDN delivery from 300+ POPs.
Pro
Storage
Pay per minute stored
$0.00268 /min 1080p
Assets stored and CDN caching, lifecycle handled.
Pro
FAQ
Video API questions developers ask before they start
What happens when you encode a video?
Every video you deliver over the internet has to be encoded first. Video encoding is the process of taking your source file and compressing it with a codec that can be streamed. Normally that is where the settings land on you: how hard to squeeze the file and how much picture detail to give up (the bitrate), which resolutions to produce, and which encoder feature set to use (the codec profile). Then you do it again at several quality levels, because the player has to switch between them as a connection changes. That set of levels is the ladder.
What is video encoding?
Video encoding is compressing a source video with a codec so it can be streamed over the internet. The encoder decides how much picture detail to give up (the bitrate), which resolutions to produce, and which encoder feature set to use (the codec profile) so the file plays on the devices your viewers own. For streaming it does this several times at different quality levels, and that set of levels is the bitrate ladder. On FastPix none of those choices are yours to make. You send a file, FastPix profiles it and builds a ladder for that one video, and you get back a playback URL that plays everywhere.
What is a video encoding API?
A video encoding API turns a source file or a live stream into adaptive-bitrate renditions ready for playback. You send one HTTP request containing a source URL. The service handles compression, builds the bitrate ladder, packages the segments and returns a playback URL you can drop into any player. Nothing runs on your infrastructure and there is no encoder to keep alive. The FastPix API profiles each source, builds a ladder that fits it, and emits AV1, HEVC and H.264 packaged in CMAF. It is a server-side API — not the browser VideoEncoder in WebCodecs, which encodes frames inside a single user's tab. See the five-minute quick-start.What is a cloud video encoding service?
A cloud video encoding service takes your source files and returns streaming-ready renditions, without you running encoders. You send a file or a URL over an API. The service handles compression, the bitrate ladder, packaging and delivery, and hands back a playback URL. There is no encoder fleet to patch, scale or get paged about. FastPix is a video encoding service built for developers rather than an application you log into. Encoding is free on Standard quality, and you are billed per source minute.
KEEP READING
The longer arguments behind this page
What is video encoding?
A video encoding API turns your source file into streaming-ready renditions with one HTTP request.
GuideWhat is encoding ladder?
It serves as the backbone for Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR).
GuideContext-aware encoding explained
Context-aware encoding dynamically formats or processes data based on the specific environment, destination, or playback conditions.
BlogAV1 vs H.264 vs H.265
Video compression standards (codecs) that dictate how video files are encoded for storage and decoded for playback.
BlogWhy AWS bills 629 minutes for 40
A line-by-line look at how normalized-minute billing multiplies a single upload.
BlogHardware vs software encoding
Where GPU encoding wins, where CPU encoding still matters, and how FastPix uses both.
Blog