Power required to trancode multiple streams in H.264?

[limiteddi]

Here is my set up: KU DVB-S feed > 4 x TBS Quad Tuners > Linux Box > WAN(Fiber)

Linux box will be transcoding the stream to H.264 from MPEG1/2 via VLC or FFmpeg How good would the Linux box need to be in order to handle this setup for multiple channels?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Noone knows. It depends on too many parameters to answer.

[limiteddi]

Noone knows. It depends on too many parameters to answer.

Fair enough, let me turn the question around a bit:

How much CPU usage is required to transcode mpeg2 to H.264 on newest I7 Intel Quad Core PC?

[nobody.loopback]

on My PC (MacOS) a 1.1Mbit/s DVBS to h.264 stream needs about 70 to 100% of one core of a 2.4Ghz CPU, E5620@2.4.ghz.
How many channels to you want to stream ? 4 or 16 ?

[limiteddi]

on My PC (MacOS) a 1.1Mbit/s DVBS to h.264 stream needs about 70 to 100% of one core of a 2.4Ghz CPU, E5620@2.4.ghz.
How many channels to you want to stream ? 4 or 16 ?

16
It seems like some serious horsepower is required to handle a dozen of channels if one core of 2.4Ghz CPU can only do 1 channel. Or am I interpreting this improperly?

[nobody.loopback]

No, correct. CPU depends however mostly on the output size, and the desired quality. I start one instance of VLC per channel. I never tried more then 4 channels simultaneously. Of course VLC uses more then one thread and more then one CPU, But load is about 8% (of 8 CPUs) with one channel.
A new I7 should have about 2.5x CPU power of my old Xeon 2010. I guess, it could be capable of 8 or 10 channels.

But, try yourself. As Jean Baptiste already told, there are many factors which influence the final CPU load. Even the content you play will change the load.

[johnInHolyrood]

See my post just submitted about using an i7-3770k to transcode two streams