I’m sitting here at Starbucks reading about the launch of RipCode’s product today. Transcoding is huge now, and only getting bigger. Many video websites actually outsource the transcoding. So when you think you’re uploading to YouTube, it’s actually going to a 3rd party who transcodes it (into Flash video usually) and then sends it to YouTube. I wonder what the payback time is on buying a box vs using a service?
A typical RipCode V4 box costs $58,000 and replaces 10 to 20 general purpose servers, plus energy costs are 1/20th to 1/40th the cost of an equivalent server cluster. For tier-one UGC sites, which can stream more than 300 million to 500 million videos per month, the payback is evident. For others, the answer depends on factors such as volume, quality, and ingest-to-output ratio.