TRNSCODE_
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Issue Nº.001 — Spring 2026
Cloud Transcoding Quarterly
Vol. 1 / Distributed Encode
One file. Every machine.

Distributed video
transcoding for the
hardware you
already own.

Start a job →See how it worksSelf-hosted · runs on hardware you own · nothing leaves your network
Illustration: the TRNSCODE master console with six jobs encoding across an eleven-worker fleet — demo data, not live telemetry.
trnscode · master console — demo fleetlive
● Now encoding
06
jobs running · 11 workers · 47 queued
Throughput
1,284fps
Avg chunk
47sec
Drift
0.00%
Fleet chunk map · 420 chunks
Active jobs
Cyber Monday.mp4
youtube-4k-h264 · 184 fps
78%
Trailer_v07.mp4
broadcast-h264-1080i · 172 fps
42%
Sundae cut.mov
archival-prores-4444 · 162 fps
96%
Promo_30s.mxf
dnxhr-hqx · 84 fps
12%
Throughput · 60s
— The thesis

A distributed encoder built for fleets of machines, not a single box. Master coordinates, workers run, output ships.

— Quick read

TRNSCODE turns a LAN of idle hardware into a transcode farm. Scene-aware chunks, codec parity, sub-minute jobs at fleet scale.

— Begin
Get started →
— Use cases

Speed was
a budget line.

Everyone needs accelerated encoding — and only the biggest studios could afford the fastest solutions. TRNSCODE changes that: the fastest solution is the hardware you already own, working the hours it currently wastes.

A — Post facilityIdle-burst · live throttle

The building
works nights.

Twenty edit bays and artist workstations sit busy half the day and dark the other half. A worker on each machine turns the idle half into encode capacity: idle-burst runs gently while someone is at the desk and opens up the moment they step away, and an admin can pause or throttle any machine live. The fleet you already paid for drains the queue before morning.

9:14 PM · the same machines
edit-bay-07artist gone · full tilt
overnight queuedrained by morning
B — VFX studioFrame-range chunking

The farm that
couldn't
ingest.

The render blades burn all night on frames while ingest crawls through one or two dedicated servers — plates wait days to become masters, dailies and reference copies. Put workers on the blades the renderer already uses: every blade becomes an encode node, EXR sequences chunk by frame range, and the backlog that queued for the weekend lands before dailies.

Ingest capacity
before2 ingest servers · days
with workers on bladesthe whole rack · hours
C — Editors & creatorsSolo free · Team from $29

Cut while
it encodes.

A deadline export doesn't have to own your workstation. Two spare desktops and a laptop make a fleet: submit the export, keep cutting, and let the verification pass prove the file before it ships. Start free on one worker — add seats when the room grows.

Deadline night
workstationstill editing
spare desktopsencoding · verified on landing
— Beyond the encode

More than
a transcoder.

The encode is the middle of the job, not the end. Review, localization, studio ingest, relink and proof ship in the same box — on the same fleet.

01 — VerifyPSNR / SSIM / VMAF

Proof,
per frame.

Eleven verifiers score every finished job — quality metrics, timing audit, audio truth, fixity. The evidence lives on the job, ready to hand to QC.

Forensics · 11 verifiers
metricsPSNR 53.06 · VMAF 97.2
pts_audit900 packets · 0 drift
fixitysha256 pinned
02 — ReviewHLS preview

Approve
before it
ships.

Deliverables that need sign-off park in a review queue. A reviewer scrubs the preview and approves or rejects with a comment — a gate, not a vibe.

Review queue
promo_v3.movApproved
spot_cutdown.movPending
03 — LocalizationTerritory matrix

One encode.
Every
territory.

Declare dubs and subtitles per market, encode the picture once, and mux every territory from it — with per-territory conformance evidence after the run.

12 territories · 1 picture encode
EN-USFR-FRDE-DEJA-JPES-419+7
04 — IngestEXR · OCIO · ACES

Shots in,
dailies out.

Plate sequences ingest through per-project profiles — handles, colour, codec, slates. One shot becomes its master, dailies and references, versioned automatically.

Ingest · one shot request
plate.####.exr→ working master
+ dailiesRec.709 · burn-ins
+ referencesProRes · slated
05 — NLEResolve · Premiere · FCP

Cut,
encode,
relink.

Editorial proxies matched to the NLE, reattach manifests beside every output, and timelines that explode into jobs — the round-trip speaks every interchange dialect.

Round-trip formats
ResolvePremiereFCPOTIOEDLAAF
06 — OperateWatch folders · PWA

Runs while
you're
away.

Watch folders auto-submit whatever lands in them. The console installs to your phone, pushes when a job finishes or a worker drops, and throttles a machine live.

Push · job.completed
promo_final.movDONE · phone notified
watch/incoming2 queued on arrival

— What it's notTRNSCODE is not a cloud transcoding API, not a live-streaming server, and not a replacement for your NLE. It is a distributed encode farm for hardware you already own.

— Sovereignty

Nothing leaves
the building.

Sources, encodes, evidence — all of it stays on hardware you own. The only network your footage crosses is your own.

No uploadsNo egress feesNo per-minute meterNo cloud account
— The receipt

Every job ships
with its evidence.

A finished encode is a claim. TRNSCODE attaches the proof — eleven verifiers, measured values, per-chunk lineage — to every job, ready to hand to a client or a QC department.

metricsPSNR 53.06 · SSIM 0.9998 · VMAF 97.2
pts_audit900 packets · timeline clean
audio_concat1,323,000 samples · 0 dropped
audio_contentbit-identical · level floor met
color_consistency1 signature across chunks
codec_conformancematches the delivery spec
fixitysource sha256 pinned
reproducibilitybit-exact re-encode
determinismargv audited per chunk
captions_survivaltracks carried through
loudnessLUFS + true-peak vs. profile
lineagesource → chunk → master
Forensics · job 7a2bc082 · 11 verifiers passedReport, not a guess — values recorded per job
— Submit from anywhere

Four ways in.

The web console, the REST API, a watch folder, or the console installed on your phone. Every path lands in the same queue, on the same fleet.

POST /jobs
$ curl -X POST https://master.studio.local:7443/jobs \
    -d '{"source_uri": "/vol/clip.mov",
        "preset_id": "youtube-4k-h264"}'
→ 201 created · 235 chunks planned
— Start free

Free for one
machine. Forever.

The Solo tier is provisioned the moment you create an account — full codec entitlements, one worker seat, no payment details asked. When the fleet grows, paid tiers add seats from five to a hundred.

Activate the master with your account, and it runs on your network from then on — revalidating quietly in the background.

Create a free account →See pricing →How licensing works
— Production-ready?

Built for the
deliverable.

The questions a facility asks before pointing a pipeline at new software — answered straight, no hedging.

Is this production-grade or a hobbyist tool?

Every finished job is scored by eleven verifiers — quality metrics, timing audit, audio truth, fixity, lineage — and ships with the evidence attached. Output is deterministic: the same source and preset produce a byte-identical result whether one worker ran it or forty.

What happens when a worker dies mid-job?

The master notices the missed heartbeat, reassigns that worker's chunks across the rest of the fleet, and retries a failed chunk up to three times before a job is ever marked failed. Slow workers get fewer chunks; dead ones get none. You watch all of it live in the console.

Do you see my media?

No. TRNSCODE is self-hosted — sources, encodes and evidence stay on hardware you own. There is no upload step and no cloud dependency; the only thing that talks to us is the license check.

What does installing it involve?

Download, unzip, run. The master is a self-contained folder on Windows, macOS or Linux — no installer, no prerequisites, FFmpeg ships inside. Workers download from the master and join the fleet in minutes. Start free on one machine.

— Start encoding

Point it at a folder.
Get your frames back.

Install the master, join a worker, submit a job. Self-hosted and free to run on hardware you already own.

Start a job →Read the docs
Self-hosted · your hardware, your network