Workers create multiple renditions at different resolutions and bitrates, then package media into segments and manifests such as HLS or MPEG-DASH. The player selects a rendition based on available bandwidth, buffer health, and device capability, reducing quality when conditions worsen and increasing it when safe.

Transcoding is compute-intensive and should run asynchronously. Track processing states, retries, per-rendition results, and job versions. A video should not be marked ready until the required outputs and manifests are validated.

Use separate queues for short clips and long high-resolution videos if their resource profiles differ. Keep source files until retention rules allow deletion, and ensure retries do not mix segments from incompatible processing versions.