In one embodiment, a method processes video in a system including a host computer processing unit (CPU) and a plurality of transcoder instances. The method receives, by a transcoder instance in the plurality of transcoder instances, first Internet Protocol (IP) packets from a host router coupled to the host CPU. The transcoder instance decapsulates the first IP packets to determine video from a payload of each of the first IP packets and generates a transport stream of video from the video from the payload. The transport stream is in a format in which the transcoder instance can perform a transcoding operation. The transport stream of video is processed by performing the transcoding operation on the transport stream of video. The transcoder instance then encapsulates the processed video from the transport stream of video in second IP packets and sends the second IP packets to a destination.