From stream to podcast draft in one step
7cubit Team
More in Engineering
End a recorded Web Studio session and a draft can appear in Podcast Studio without downloading the file and uploading it again. The bridge listens for the completed recording event, creates the episode structure, and points the new media rows at storage that already exists.
That shortcut has boundaries: the source must be a Web Studio recording, the account must be on Hobby or above, and the bridge must never be allowed to damage the recording if the podcast side fails.
The event that starts the bridge
After a Studio recording finishes stitching and uploading, ApexStream emits recording.saved with the stream key, session ID, storage provider, storage keys, and duration. The bridge handles the event inside its own failure boundary. It logs and records a bridge failure instead of throwing back into the recording pipeline.
That separation matters because the recording is the primary deliverable. A podcast draft is useful follow-up work; it should not be able to make a good VOD disappear.
Why the source must be Web Studio
The bridge checks the station type through the session's StreamLog. A classic RTMP/OBS recording does not auto-scaffold, even though you can still bring it into Podcast Studio later with Library Import.
Web Studio recordings have a known structure: a composited program and, on the right tier, separate ISO guest tracks. The bridge can create editable media rows for the assets the session actually produced. It does not pretend that an encoder landing contains ISO tracks when it does not.
ISO guest tracks are available on Scale and Enterprise. Hobby and Creator can still bridge the composite Studio recording into a usable draft.
The Hobby+ gate
This is why the bridge does not promise that every recording will open with the same track layout. A composite recording produces one usable program asset. A Scale or Enterprise Studio session can add the separate participant sources that make later repair and mix decisions possible.
Podcast Studio begins on Hobby. Before creating the draft, the bridge checks the active subscription tier: Hobby, Creator, Scale, or Enterprise passes. Free does not receive an automatic Podcast Studio draft, even if a Studio artifact happens to exist.
What zero-copy means here
- The service finds or creates a show for the episode.
- It creates a
PodcastEpisodein Draft status. - It creates
MediaAssetrows pointing to the existing R2 keys. - It dispatches proxy generation for a lighter waveform and preview path.
- It notifies the client over the existing WebSocket channel and records an audit entry.
No second upload happens just because the asset is now being used by a podcast. The draft references the capture. A later export creates the master that the published episode will use.
Proxy generation is also separate from the final export. The editor can prepare a waveform or preview without changing the source media, while the mastering worker later creates the delivery master from the EDL and mix choices.
What the bridge does not do
Open Episodes, choose the new draft, and continue with the normal editor. Transcript edits, Magic tools, chapters, and export are still your decisions. The bridge does not auto-publish, distribute to Spotify, or write show notes on your behalf.
If a recording does not bridge because it came from an encoder, the account is Free, or the event hit a transient problem, Library Import remains the manual path. You choose the library asset explicitly.
Why retries do not create duplicate drafts
If you do not see a draft, check the source type and plan before assuming the bridge lost the recording. The manual Library Import path is still available for encoder captures and for a bridge event that needs to be retried.
The bridge is designed to be idempotent about already-bridged recordings. If a save event is delivered more than once or an operator retries the path, the service checks whether the recording already has a bridge before creating another episode.
From the creator's chair: end the show, open Podcast Studio, and edit. Underneath, it is one completed event, three gates, and media rows pointing at bytes that were already uploaded.
The bridge solves the handoff, not the editorial work. That is enough to remove the transfer ritual while keeping the recording pipeline independent.
Frequently asked questions
Which recording creates a podcast draft automatically?
A completed Web Studio recording on Hobby and above can bridge into Podcast Studio. External encoder recordings use Library Import instead.
Why is the draft not visible yet?
The recording must finish stitching, encoding, and upload before the episode draft can be created. Check the recording status before creating a duplicate show.