[FFmpeg-devel] Looking for a consultant

[Ariel Frailich]

We are a small film distribution company in the process of setting
up our own video streaming site. We moved from using an encoding 
service provider to running ffmpeg in-house. Now we want to set up 
a dedicated machine to speed up the process, but we need guidance
for this.

THE PROCESS

Input: mostly ProRes (10-20Gb), HD to 4K res, 90 mins average length.

Output: a set of .mp4 files at 5 different resolutions, up to 1080. 
These are further processed (primarily bento4) to create multiple/
variable bitrate HLS and DASH streams, with encryption and DRM.

On our office machine (iMac, 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5, 8Gb, macOS 
Sierra), encoding typically takes 6-7 hours per film. Ideally, we 
would like to cut this down to 1-2 hours.

WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW

1. Hardware: what's a good hardware configuration for our needs?

CPUs, cores, RAM, RAM disk, graphics cards, etc. Also, which
version of Linux is recommended (or which to avoid).

2. ffmpeg setup: how should ffmpeg be compiled to best take 
advantage of the particular hardware configuration?

3. Video processing: how should ffmpeg be run to maximize speed
and efficiency, and to produce the most suitable files for our 
needs?

I wrote a script to create the ffmpeg command line, based on bits
and pieces found in various places on the web. No doubt it's far 
from optimal.

CAN YOU HELP?

If you can answer the questions above, we would like to hear from you. 
Please contact me at ariel at websiteatelier dot com.

Best,
Ariel