Hey @Jim, I haven't used HW or GPU video encoding ever since this I first created this thread.
At this point, I'm simply using 11 separate dedicated servers, I found some cheap ryzen 5s and running 2 encoding processes on each a the same time.
I encode in 4K, 2K, 1080p, 720p, 480p and in total, these 11 servers can easily encode 1K-1.5K videos daily in these formats. 4K videos take between 60-90 minutes for all 5 qualities each. sometimes, a 90-120 minute 1080p video takes 2-3hours to encode in 3 formats. Trailers and timeline screenshots every 2 seconds included.