Use different encoding tiers

Introducing encoding tiers

Mux Video supports ingesting content with different encoding tiers. The encoding tier informs the cost, quality, and available platform features for the asset.

Smart encoding

The default is encoding tier is smart, which offers both a high visual quality and comprehensive scalability, and is optimized for video-centric applications.

Baseline encoding

Baseline assets are a cost-effective option for video applications that have simpler quality needs. You can learn more about the baseline encoding tier in the annoucement blog.

Set an encoding tier when creating an asset

The encoding tier of an asset is controlled by setting the encoding_tier attribute on your create-asset API callAPI, so to ingest an asset with the baseline encoding tier, you should set "encoding_tier": "baseline" as shown below.

// POST /video/v1/assets
{
	"input": "https://storage.googleapis.com/muxdemofiles/mux.mp4",
	"playback_policy": [
		"public"
	],
	"encoding_tier": "baseline"
}

And of course you can also select the encoding_tier within Direct Uploads, too; you just need to set the same "encoding_tier": "baseline" field in the new_asset_settings of your create-direct-upload API callAPI.

// POST /video/v1/uploads
{
  "new_asset_settings": {
    "playback_policy": [
      "public"
    ],
    "encoding_tier": "baseline"
  },
  "cors_origin": "*"
}

Feature availiability within encoding tiers

Assets in different encoding tiers have different features or limits available to them. Refer to the below table for more details: