Video conversion, as a service

Every video ready for every screen. On your schedule, with nothing to babysit.

silken converts source videos into the files and streaming renditions your apps and players need. It plugs straight into the way you work today, so your titles go out sooner and your team stops babysitting video.

Send us your hardest files Get an API key

A free test on your own files · or book a meeting

An animated film frame: a red-haired character against a deep blue sky — `ready to deliver`every version, every screen

Your video stays where it issilken reads each file from your own storage.
Choose your profileUse the source formats and output recipes listed in your live job options.
Every screen, on your scheduleEvery version your apps, TVs and players need, in high quality, at the speed you choose.
Delivered, or told whyFiles and ladders land in your storage, or ladders are held for seven days; every job finishes or tells you clearly why not.

HDR, 4K and advanced colour, done right

See the same frame, before and after.

Judge the Sparks, Meridian, Cosmos Laundromat and Sol Levante examples below, then test your own files and target screens. Sharper resizing, tone mapping and encoding settings are under your control. Each pair shows a silken SDR conversion and the title’s published colourist grade. Select a scene, drag the divider, press Z for 1:1.

01 / Quality

Arrow keys choose a scene. Left and right square brackets move the divider. Z zooms to 1:1.

Painted creature, warm daylightTexture · warm highlights

1 / 9

How these frames were made

Each pair shows the same frame: a silken HDR-to-SDR conversion and the title’s published SDR grade at the same size. These examples do not establish quality for other files or devices. Frames are shown as WebP or AVIF.

Sol Levante (2020) © Netflix, Inc., made with Production I.G — CC BY 4.0, modified (tone-mapped, scaled)Meridian (2016) © Netflix, Inc. — Netflix Open Content, CC BY 4.0, modified (tone-mapped, scaled)Cosmos Laundromat (2016), Blender Studio, dir. Mathieu Auvray — via Netflix Open Content, CC BY 4.0, modifiedSparks (2017) © Netflix, Inc. — Netflix Open Content, CC BY 4.0, modified (tone-mapped, scaled)

HDR to SDR in detail Attribution and licences

What changes for your business

Happier viewers, less to run, faster to market.

Your storage, apps and delivery stay as they are. What changes is how fast your video is ready, how it looks, and how little your team has to do to get it there.

02 / Why silken

Happier viewers, titles ready to publish

Every screen you serve, on your schedule.

Titles, uploads and recordings play on every screen you serve, so nothing waits for the video team. Choose Economy for a backlog, Standard by default, or Fast, solo on the node at top priority, when a launch cannot wait; capacity for whole libraries is planned with you before the files arrive.

Formats Files for your players; see Video conversion for formats available to your account
Delivery Several streaming sizes in one job, with packaging and captions where enabled for your account
Speed Economy, Standard or Fast, solo on the node at top priority

Availability follows your account’s live job options and qualified worker capabilities.

Video conversion

Less to run

No video pipeline to babysit.

No in-house video pipeline to maintain, fewer tickets and re-exports, and no input fee. silken reads every master from your storage, writes files and ladders into your storage, or holds ladders for seven days by default, so your catalogue, delivery and players stay where they are.

Your storage S3, Google Cloud Storage, R2 and more
Every job finishes or reports clearly, with retries
Billing per delivered minute, no input fee

How pricing works

Plugs in, takes anything

Leaving MediaConvert? Keep your code.

silken serves the MediaConvert API. Point the AWS SDK at silken with an endpoint override, sign with your silken API key, and keep calling CreateJob, GetJob and ListJobs; a setting silken does not run comes back by field name.

Your code the same SDK, one endpoint changed
Your masters read where they are, nothing to move
Your bill output-only pricing, no input fee

Leaving MediaConvert

transcode.pythe MediaConvert client you already run

import boto3

mc = boto3.client(
    "mediaconvert",
    region_name="us-east-1",
    endpoint_url="https://silken.io",
    aws_access_key_id=SILKEN_KEY,
    aws_secret_access_key=SILKEN_KEY,
)

# the same job template and settings
job = mc.create_job(
    Role=role, JobTemplate="hls-ladder",
    Settings={"Inputs": [{"FileInput": "s3://masters/title.mov"}]},
)
mc.get_job(Id=job["Job"]["Id"])

Solutions

Plugs into the way you work today.

Streaming services, TV operators, broadcasters and archives, post houses, sports and apps where users upload: the same service, set up for how each of them works.

03 / Solutions

Why teams rely on it

Reliable, and a team that answers.

Every job finishes or tells you clearly why not, with automatic retries. Paid Standard and Fast include a 99.5% public SLA; an order form can select 99.9%, and you talk directly to the people who build silken.

Talk to sales Book a meeting Security

Capacity: Whole libraries, launches and migrations are planned with you, and the Fast tier runs one job solo on the node at top priority.
Your media: Masters are read where they are, working files are removed when each job ends, and your media is never used to train models.
Beyond conversion: HLS/DASH packaging, captions and audio controls are described with their current availability on the capabilities page.
Live: Live workflows require a separately agreed scope and pilot; the public API processes files. Live channels and events

Pricing

Pay only for the versions you deliver. No input fee.

Each delivered version is billed per output minute, and every extra is on the rate card. No request fees; jobs with no delivered output are not billed. Three speeds: Fast runs solo on the node at top priority, Standard shares the node, and Economy packs jobs onto spare capacity at lowest priority. Economy is native API only: SDR H.264 + AAC, MP4/HLS through 1080p. HDR conversion, captions, DRM and progressive delivery require Standard or Fast. Pay as you go, committed volume, or an enterprise order form; 1,000 output minutes free each calendar month for standard SDR H.264 outputs up to 30 fps.

The rate card and billing rules Committed volume: talk to sales

SDup to 719p: $0.012per output minute
HD720–1080p: $0.028per output minute
UHD1081–2160p: $0.056per output minute

Free test on your files

Send us your hardest files.
You judge the result.

Send 10-20 files, the difficult ones included. We agree the results date after engineering confirms capacity. You see, next to what you have today: picture quality, speed, failures, playback on your own devices and the full cost at your volume. Free within the standard scope.

Send us your hardest files Book a meeting Get an API key