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This is really neat, but since you said "anything"... I have a legal question that I haven't been able to find the answer for:

How do you deal with the licensing issues regarding open source encoding software? Do you pay the MPEG-LA a fee directly for use of the software? Is it per file/per minute/flat fee?

Just wondering about the mechanics of this, mainly for an in-house streaming application.

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IANAL, but generally, you need a license if you're using open-source encoders or decoders and you're the one who actually compiles them. (Again, not a lawyer, but that changes ffmpeg from "a source code description of an encoder" to "an encoder.")

MPEG video stuff is generally pretty cheap or free for low volume. Audio codecs are fairly expensive, on the other hand. AAC + MP3 + AMR is >$20K in minimum fees.

No, we don't pay the MPEG-LA (yet). The information they provide has given us reason to believe that we don't need a license at this point.

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