When configuring an encoding, and specifying how to access the input file, there are 2 mechanisms available to you:

• Supplying the information directly in the Stream payload.
• Or creating an IngestInputStream and providing its identifier in the Stream

The 2 mechanisms are functionally equivalent, and require the same type of information:

• inputId, the identifier of the Input storage
• inputPath, with the full path to the input file on that storage
• selectionMode and position, to define what stream to use in the input file.

The difference between the 2 mechanisms is historical. Specifying the information directly on the Stream was sufficient for most use cases, until we added support for more complex workflows where more than one input file is involved, such as trimming and concatenation, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, etc.
For those, we had to create a more flexible and more consistent way to specify files (and transformations on files), with multiple subtypes of InputStream objects, the primary one for specifying video and audio input files being the IngestInputStream.

So, whilst for simple use cases the 2 methods are equivalent, we strongly recommend, if only for consistency, to use the second one. In the future any new input functionality will be provided through InputStreams.

Conversion

To convert your existing code to use the IngestInputStream is very simple. Here is an example for Java:

Before

private static Stream createStream(
      Encoding encoding, Input input, String inputPath, CodecConfiguration codecConfiguration)
      throws BitmovinException {
    StreamInput streamInput = new StreamInput();
    streamInput.setInputId(input.getId());
    streamInput.setInputPath(inputPath);
    streamInput.setSelectionMode(StreamSelectionMode.AUTO);
    
    Stream stream = new Stream();
    stream.addInputStreamsItem(streamInput);
    stream.setCodecConfigId(codecConfiguration.getId());
    
    return bitmovinApi.encoding.encodings.streams.create(encoding.getId(), stream);
}

After

  private static Stream createStream(
      Encoding encoding, Input input, String inputPath, CodecConfiguration codecConfiguration)
      throws BitmovinException {
    IngestInputStream ingestInputStream = new IngestInputStream();
    ingestInputStream.setInputId(input.getId());
    ingestInputStream.setInputPath(inputPath);
    ingestInputStream.setSelectionMode(StreamSelectionMode.AUTO);
    ingestInputStream = bitmovinApi.encoding.encodings.inputStreams.ingest.create(encoding.getId(), ingestInputStream);
    
    StreamInput streamInput = new StreamInput();
    streamInput.setInputStreamId(ingestInputStream.getId());
    
    Stream stream = new Stream();
    stream.addInputStreamsItem(streamInput);
    stream.setCodecConfigId(codecConfiguration.getId());
    
    return bitmovinApi.encoding.encodings.streams.create(encoding.getId(), stream);
  }

Note that unlike StreamInput, which is an abstraction internal to the SDKs used in the construction of the Stream, IngestInputStream is an API endpoint in its own right, and you therefore need to call it (as shown on line 8 above), before you can use it in the definition of the Stream.