Mux

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Do the transcoding yourself only if the volume is small and predictable.

WHERE THE LINE IS
- A handful of videos a week: ffmpeg on a small server is fine
- Bursty user uploads: you would be building a queue, a worker pool and a capacity plan

STACK FOR THE SMALL CASE
- A queue table, one worker, ffmpeg, S3-compatible storage, a CDN

THE PIPELINE
- Upload straight to storage with a presigned URL; your server never holds the file
- A job row is written before work starts and updated as it progresses
- ffmpeg produces HLS at three resolutions; the originals are kept

FAILING WELL
- A job that fails is retried twice, then parked with its ffmpeg output stored for reading
- Never delete the original on failure

COSTS
- Measure storage and egress before deciding this is cheaper. Often it is not

Include the job schema, the worker and the ffmpeg ladder.