Everything you need to know about music video encoding, delivery

Are you a content owner (provider) with a direct contract with Apple, but don’t have time to encode, package, and deliver your own music video content? If so, you can get an encoding house to do the work for you! In this post, Symphonic Blog’s Video Distribution & Encoding Manager, Vanessa Schiano, is here to break it down.

A guest post by Vanessa Schiano of Symphonic Blog

Before we dive in… What is an encoding house?

An encoding house provides capture, delivery, and metadata preparation services for music video packages as ordered by a provider. Encoding houses are chosen by the provider and deliver all content on the provider’s behalf directly to Apple on their behalf.

What is the difference between a provider and an encoding house?

A provider is the content owner in direct contract with Apple. A provider can be a record label, music aggregator, or even an artist.

An encoding house is contracted by these providers to create metadata, encode content, and deliver content directly to Apple on their behalf. Encoding houses also do not have a contractual relationship with Apple.

How do I pick an encoding house?

That’s where Indigo Jones comes in!

Indigo Jones is an encoding house owned and operated by Symphonic. Over the years, we’ve been able to deliver content from thousands of record labels, music aggregators, and artists all over the world to Apple.

Indigo Jones’ prices are simple and outlined on our main landing page, right there for content owners to find. Indigo Jones also offers the option to encode only, meaning we encode the video to Apple’s precise specs and send it back to the provider, who then delivers it themselves to Apple. Or, the provider can opt-in to having both encoding AND delivery to Apple.

Other than the up front fee, the provider retains all rights and 100% royalties for the video. We just deliver the music video to Apple → 1-2-3-done!

*Pricing is as follows:

• $40 for encoding + delivery (per HD video)
• $75 for encoding + delivery (per 4K video)
• $30 for encoding only (per HD video)
• $65 for encoding only (per 4K video)

*The price difference between HD and 4K video encoding and delivery are to cover the bandwidth we require to process large video files.

Since Indigo Jones is owned by Symphonic, we can also work out distribution deals with providers for our other video platform offerings, including TIDAL, Vevo, and Facebook Premium Music Videos.

How do I apply for Indigo Jones’ services?

You can fill out the “work with us” form on our website and we’ll take it from there!

• You can read more about Indigo Jones’ encoding and delivery services here.
• Read more about Symphonic Video Distribution services here.

Good luck!