System and method for active transcoding of content in a distributed system

A system implemented in hardware, comprising:

• a computer infrastructure comprising:
• a media service configured to receive a file with parameters from a user;
• a rules engine configured to store at least one encoding rule associated with the file;
• a log based job creator configured to split the file into different-sized packets based on a logarithmic scheme provided by the file as one of the parameters, sizes of the different-sized packets being up to an optimal packet size, and the optimal packet size being a largest packet size determined based on a capacity and a transcoding capability of a grid computer within a distributed grid transcoding system;
• sending an aggregate of the different-sized packets to a plurality of grid computers that include the grid computer only when the aggregate of the different-sized packets are equal to the optimal packet size, to be processed simultaneously;
• increasing the sizes of the different sized packets based on the logarithmic scheme;
• processing smaller different-sized packets prior to processing larger different-sized packets as determined by the splitting step;
• and
• streaming processed smaller different-sized packets to the user while the larger different-sized packets are being processed.

A computer program product comprising a tangible computer readable hardware storage device having readable program code tangibly stored on the computer readable hardware storage device, the program code comprising:

• program code to divide a file into different-sized packets based on a logarithmic scheme using predetermined parameters of the file, with sizes of the different-sized packets being up to an optimal size, and the optimal size being a largest packet size determined based on a capacity and a transcoding capability of a grid computer within a distributed grid transcoding system;
• program code to send an aggregate of the different-sized packets to a plurality of grid computers that include the grid computer only when the aggregate of the different-sized packets are equal to the optimal packet size, to be processed simultaneously;
• program code to increase the sizes of the different sized packets based on the logarithmic scheme;
• processing smaller different-sized packets prior to processing larger different-sized packets as determined by the dividing step;
• and
• streaming processed smaller different-sized packets to a user while the larger different-sized packets are being processed.