A frequently requested feature is to allow more flexibility when it comes to choosing how different upload files are processed.

At this point our robots are already smart enough to not touch files they don't know how to handle, so a video robot would silently ignore image files. This makes it really easy to use the same assembly for upload forms where the user is free to upload whatever media file he desires.

However, of course there are other conditions than file type that may lead to a different treatment of the file. As of today we're adding the first new condition which allows you to execute a given step based on the name of the form field the file was uploaded with.

Usage is as simple as:

{
  "steps": {
    "encode": {
      "robot": "/video/encode",
      "use": {
        "fields": ["raw_video"]
      }
    },
    "store": {
      "robot": "/s3/store",
      "use": [":original", "encode"]
    }
  }
}

In this assembly, a video would only be encoded if it was uploaded using the field name "raw_video". Otherwise the video is taken as-is and directly uploaded to S3.

Going forward we are planning to add more conditions that will also allow you to make your steps choose their input using the meta data of the incoming file.

--fg

PS: We have also updated the docs.

We are happy to announce our newly baked support for auto rotating iphone video uploads.

By default the iphone always records and saves videos in landscape format. This causes rotation problems if the recorded video was shot in portrait format and the video player (or in our case encoder) is not aware of it.

Of course this is exactly one of the headaches we are trying to solve for our customers. As of today, we have taken care of it, and there is nothing you need to change on your end - everything will just work automatically.

However, there are still cameras out there that don't record the orientation of the video. To deal with those, we have added a new rotate parameter to our /video/encode robot which you can read about in our docs.

As always, we are happy to listen to your feedback - so if you have more ideas or suggestions, please get in touch. Oh, and stay tuned for some significantly cooler features to be announced soon!

--fg

Today we're happy to announce the latest addition to our service, please welcome the /cloudfiles/store robot!

As you can see in the docs, we also handle the retrieval of your container's CDN url automatically, so integrating this robot should simply be a matter of creating a new template.

We are also working on the integration of more storage options, so stay tuned for more announcements.

--fg

PS: If you're wondering, yes, a cute new robot image is on the way.