PeerTube - Remote Transcoding

PeerTube is a free-libre and federated alternative to centralized video platforms such as YouTube, Twitch or Vimeo. It empowers content creators (institutions, video-makers and live streamers, communities, etc.) to self host their own collective video-platform without being isolated in the wide web. The technical choices behind PeerTube (ActivityPub Federation, peer-to-peer broadcasting) keep the source of this sugestion (the technical and financial bar to self & collective hosting: you no longer need Google's server farm and Amazon's money to host your own PeerTube servers (an instance) and synchronize it with other servers to share video catalogs!

There is still one technical bottleneck: video transcoding. This step is essential for a smooth video broadcasting experience. Transcoding happens at every video upload or during live-streams, and consumes a lot of CPU power. Instances hosting lots of content creators or live streamers tend to rapidly need to upgrade the CPU power of their server, to avoid a bottleneck that only happens episodically. Allowing transcoding work to happen remotely could solve a number of important logistical problems in a more efficient, resilient, affordable and eco-friendly manner.