CloudTranscode is a distributed media transcoding system that uses AWS Step Functions for orchestration and PHP-based workers to process media files. Workers download input from S3 or HTTP, execute FFmpeg or ImageMagick commands for transcoding (video, image, thumbnails, etc.), and upload results to S3. The architecture features stateless workers running in ECS containers, with AWS Step Functions managing task distribution and retries. A key characteristic is sequential processing: each TranscodeAssetActivity worker handles all outputs in a job one after another, creating a performance bottleneck for multi-output jobs. The system relies on AWS SDK for PHP, JSON Schema validation, and a custom fork of CloudProcessingEngine-SDK for activity lifecycle management. Deployment is via Docker images built from the provided Dockerfile, which bundles PHP 8.2, FFmpeg 4.2, and ImageMagick.