Production quality server for transcoding of streaming video? [closed]

Question

I have a few dozen MPEG2 streams that I would like to convert to h264 for redistribution and I'm looking for a software solution to do it. Something that will allow me to direct a number of transcoding worker nodes to attach to a MPEG2 multicast, transcode it and re-multicast the output in h264.

I've tested a number of appliance type solutions from the big vendors. These devices work great but, I'm not happy with with pricing that boils down to anywhere from $6K to $13K per HD stream transcoded.

These appliances are generally nothing more than commodity hardware running the vendor's own transcoding suite in a pretty package. I'd much rather purchase my own hardware and deal with a software package than be held to the rigid and pricey tiers of the vendor products.

I've been evaluating Elecard's CodecWorks and I've been very happy with the results but, I wonder if there's anything else available? In a perfect world, I would be able to accomplish this with a collection well-established OSS.

Answer 1

VLC is not only a good player, but also acts as a pretty effective transcoder/streamer. It is a well respected and OSS project as part of the VideoLan organization.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html

For a hiDef transcode, I'd reccomend at least looking into x264

http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html

Answer 2

VLC does transcoding, and the input and output can be multicast streams. Here is some documentation and examples.