Transload.it - XSS as a Cloud Service
Posted on 27/8/09 by Felix Geisendörfer
Today we are very happy to announce our new startup transload.it.
Transload.it is a video uploading & encoding service that is designed to make developers happy.
You might have had a client before that said something like: "Oh, and it would be cool if you could upload videos in the application.". And he is right, it would be cool - regardless whether it is a client project or something you were working on yourself.
However - implementing a feature like this means work. Hard, tedious, frustrating trial & error kind of work to be exact. I'll spare you the details, but just trust me when I say your average client could not repay you for the suffering.
Meet transload.it - the cure for all video upload suffering out there. Our idea is simple: Create an account --> Include our jQuery plugin --> Done.
But jQuery can't encode videos you might say. This is where the XSS part comes in. Whenever somebody uploads a file on a transload.it-enabled form, the plugin actually takes this file and sends it to our cloud service. Even better, it also shows your users a nice upload progress bar - no flash involved! Try it out.
The uploaded files are encoded in FLV, iPhone, iPod or PSP format (you can configure that) and finally stored in Amazon S3. We will add an option for you to use your own S3 buckets as well as your own FTP, SFTP or CDN servers as the final storage targets.
Anyway, enough good stuff. Let's talk about a few sad things. This is an alpha version. We have only a single server online right now, so as people will simultaneously upload their adult video collections (not you of course) things might really fall apart.
We will bring more boxes online over the next week, promised. However to be able to diagnose & debug issues as fast as possible, we opted for a single-box launch.
Now it is your turn to go out there & break things, mention competitors who already launched a product like this 2 years ago or contact us about investment opportunities.
-- Felix Geisendörfer aka the_undefined
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Great work!!!
Nice work guys, good to see this live and launched!
Good work ;) !
ps : what about Ogg Theora encoding?
Great stuff guys, been looking forward to seeing this in action!
It needs a list of compatible formats.
Also, errors are not human readable and clear. (try uploading qicktime video for instance).
A cancel button wouldn't hurt also..
otherwise fantastic idea..
Olivier: Could be easily added, just let us know if you need it: http://help.transload.it/
tomo: Quicktime should be supported, but yes - we will work on a support matrix. If you send me the flow_id for an upload that failed for you I can see what is going on with your video.
Cancel button is coming *g* : )
This is all I see:
http://origami.hr/tmp/transloadit-error.png
I tried to upload this file (a "checkout" app screencat):
http://origami.hr/tmp/Exporting_reports_36sec.mov
Shit that's hot!
Make sure you don't end up here :)
Best of luck with your new venture!
The software architecture sounds exciting, too.
ah ! this seems hot ! ... best of luck guys.
@tomo: Ok, this will be fixed in the upcoming 0.1.1 release (Monday). All Quicktime FAAD files should now be supported.
@Aeron: We should be using ffmpeg in compliance with the GPL/LPGL license it comes with (see http://bit.ly/3ovP0r). If you have reason to believe we are not, please contact me at felix@transload.it.
Q: Is it perfectly alright to incorporate the whole FFmpeg core into my own commercial product?
A: You might have a problem here. There have been cases where companies have used FFmpeg in their products. These companies found out that once you start trying to make money from patented technologies, the owners of the patents will come after their licensing fees. Notably, MPEG LA is vigilant and diligent about collecting for MPEG-related technologies.
@FFmpeg: Yes, we are aware of that - but that is a separate issue from complying with FFMPEG's license itself.
About the licensing: There is a difference between providing a commercial service such as Transload.it and redistributing the software and libraries as a commercial product to perform the same function. In the later you run into far more licensing and patent issues. I doubt Transload.it is in any danger since they are going to sell a service and not software. Even in the worst most unlikely case they would only need to have licenses for their servers.
@tomo The new release is live, including the bug fix mentioned above. See: http://docs.transload.it/changelog.html
@Anthony Byram Thanks for the comment. Yes, we pretty much think the situation is exactly like you describe it as well - so hopefully we won't be subject to patent issues.
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Congratulations Tim & Felix!
Very cool to see Transload finally being launched, and I have already sent a few potential clients your way. I hope this is the beginning of a successful venture for the both of you.