B2 Transcoder Worker

The Backblaze B2 Transcoder Proof-of-Concept comprises this lightweight Flask worker app and a web app implemented with Django with a JavaScript front end. Together, they implement a simple video hosting site.

See the B2 Transcoder Web App for for an explanation of how the two apps interoperate.

Prerequisites

Python 3.9.2 (other Python versions may work) and pip
ffmpeg

Installation

Clone this repository and cd into the local repository directory.
pip install -r requirements

Configuration

Create a .env file or set environment variables with your configuration:

B2_ENDPOINT_URL="<for example: https://s3.us-west-001.backblazeb2.com>"
B2_APPLICATION_KEY_ID="<your B2 application key ID>"
B2_APPLICATION_KEY="<your B2 application key>"
BUCKET_NAME="<your private B2 bucket, for uploaded videos>"

Run the Worker App

flask run to run the app in the Flask development server.

You may change the interface and port to which the worker app binds with the -h/--host and -p/--port options. For example, to listen on the standard HTTP port on all interfaces, you would use:
```
flask run -h 0.0.0.0 -p 80
```

Install, Configure and Run the Web App

Follow the instructions to install and configure the transcoder web app.
Configure the web app with the worker's endpoint URL via the .env file or an environment variable:
```
TRANSCODER_WEBHOOK=http://<worker IP address>:<worker port>/videos
```
Run the web app.

Caveats

Note that this is a proof-of-concept system! To run a similar system in production, you would need to make several changes, including:

Using a message queue such as Apache Kafka or RabbitMQ rather than HTTP POST notifications.
Running the apps from a WSGI server such as Green Unicorn or Apache Web Server with mod_wsgi.

Feel free to fork this repository and submit a pull request if you make an interesting change!