review and optimize the scenario where MediaCMS is serving existing content (without retranscoding) but with the ability to do HLS

[mgogoulos]

Discussed in #1470

^{Originally posted by akulmehta January 2, 2026}
I have a unique situation where I don't want to encode the videos into formats other than the original format. Is there some way in which I can tell MediaCMS to generate the HLS and thumbnail gifs and sprites when only the preview gif profile is set to active and none of the other encoding profiles is active?

I tried deactivating the other profiles, but then had issues generating the GIF and the HLS content. I also tried the "DO_NOT_TRANSCODE_VIDEO_FILES" option but then it doesn't generate HLS or GIF files. Maybe I did something wrong so any guidance or help is appreciated as I am a noob to this.