Install the required tools on each Linux Mint machine: `ffmpeg`, `ssh`, `rsync`, `GNU parallel`, `tmux`
Ensure passwordless SSH access between the coordinator machine and all worker machines
Put the source video files in a shared directory or sync them to all worker machines
Split the workload by assigning different input files or different time ranges to different machines
Use `GNU parallel` to dispatch transcoding jobs across multiple machines over SSH
Example command for file-based distribution: `parallel -S host1,host2,host3 ffmpeg -i {} -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -c:a aac {.}.mp4 ::: *.mkv`
Example command for chunk-based distribution: `ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -f segment -segment_time 600 -c copy part%03d.mp4`
Transcode each segment in parallel on different machines
Recombine segments after transcoding if needed using `ffmpeg` concat demuxer
Use a shared output directory or copy completed outputs back with `rsync`
Monitor jobs with `tmux`, `htop`, and `parallel –joblog`
Limit CPU usage per worker with `nice`, `ionice`, or `taskset` if needed
Use hardware acceleration if available, such as VAAPI, NVENC, or Quick Sync
Verify output integrity with `ffprobe`
Automate the workflow with shell scripts or `Makefile`
Keep codecs, frame rates, and audio settings consistent across all workers
Use a scheduler like `Slurm`, `HTCondor`, or `OpenMPI` for larger clusters
Prefer splitting by independent files when possible to avoid recombination overhead
Use a shared filesystem like NFS, Samba, or SSHFS if convenient
Test the pipeline on a small sample before running large jobs