Apple encode path
VideoToolbox encoding without a remote desktop.
VideoToolbox is Apple’s hardware-accelerated media framework. On RenderMac it shows up as an explicit codec intent on bounded FFmpeg services - not as an SSH session into someone’s Mac. Our 2026-07-22 bakeoff encoded 20 minutes of 1080p30 H.264 in 95.1 s on an M2 Max.
When VideoToolbox helps
- High-volume H.264/HEVC normalization where wall-clock matters.
- Pipelines that already target Apple playback ecosystems.
- Jobs that should not spend 40 minutes on a 0.5 vCPU software encode for a 20-minute source.
Measured wedge: M2 Max VideoToolbox 20-minute encode finished in 95.1 s; the Cloudflare Linux shape has no VT path and took 2371 s for software x264. See the encode bakeoff.
How RenderMac exposes it
Buyers call ffmpeg.transcode.v1 (and related services) with declarative codec fields such as h264_videotoolbox. The control plane quotes capacity, leases a Mac runner, and verifies the artifact. There is no arbitrary filter graph injection and no unmanaged remote desktop.