zencoder notifications json - php

Question

I'm working with some videos on PHP, using zencoder to encode the videos, save them on s3 and then notify my site back when it's all done.
Everything is working until I have to process the notifications returned as json and pull out the new url to the saved video.
this:
$notification = $zencoder->notifications->parseIncoming();
if($notification->job->state == "finished")
{
$encode_id=$notification->job->id;
}
works fine. I just need some pointers on accessing the url.
The notification is sent as:
{
"output": {
"frame_rate": 30.0,
"label": "video_id_",
"total_bitrate_in_kbps": 3115,
"md5_checksum": null,
"channels": "2",
"audio_codec": "aac",
"duration_in_ms": 4225,
"video_codec": "h264",
"url": "http://my_url/597bd3592bf4a9d70f04dc676c44de6d.mp4",
"thumbnails": [{
"label": null,
"images": [{
"url": "http://my_url/_key__0000.png",
"format": "PNG",
"dimensions": "640x360",
"file_size_bytes": 482422
}]
}],
"video_bitrate_in_kbps": 3052,
"width": 640,
"format": "mpeg4",
"height": 360,
"audio_sample_rate": 44100,
"state": "finished",
"audio_bitrate_in_kbps": 63,
"id": 41424918,
"file_size_in_bytes": 1625847
},
"input": {
"frame_rate": 30.0,
"total_bitrate_in_kbps": 3867,
"md5_checksum": null,
"channels": "2",
"audio_codec": "aac",
"duration_in_ms": 4167,
"video_codec": "h264",
"video_bitrate_in_kbps": 3764,
"width": 640,
"format": "mpeg4",
"height": 360,
"audio_sample_rate": 44100,
"state": "finished",
"audio_bitrate_in_kbps": 103,
"id": 22371764,
"file_size_in_bytes": 2028809
},
"job": {
"created_at": "2012-07-14T22:25:08Z",
"test": true,
"updated_at": "2012-07-14T22:25:47Z",
"submitted_at": "2012-07-14T22:25:08Z",
"pass_through": null,
"state": "finished",
"id": 22377083
}
}
but something like: $video_file=$notification->output->url; doesn't.
What am I missing?

Answer 1

If you don't want to use the parseIncoming method...
Use:
$notification = json_decode(trim(file_get_contents('php://input')), true);
as apposed to:
$notification = $zencoder->notifications->parseIncoming();
The second paramater of 'true' will format the results as an array as apposed to an object. From there, you can access all the values like:
$notification['output']['file_size_in_bytes'];
The parseIncoming method will return a stdClass, so referencing values within it is done with:
$notification->key