Systems, methods and articles of manufacture for transcoding video content. Embodiments include receiving an instance of video content for processing. A plurality of shots within the instance of video content is determined. Embodiments analyze the instance of video content to generate metadata describing the media content. The generated metadata includes, for each of the plurality of shots, data describing a plurality of frames within the respective shot. An optimized transcoding schedule for transcoding the instance of video content from a first video encoding format to a second video encoding format is generated based on the generated metadata. Embodiments further include transcoding the instance of video content according to the optimized transcoding schedule.