ChatGPT answers, unedited

For an educational channel publishing hour-long lectures, the best choice depends on what you mean by “batch-process”:

• Convert/compress/export many lectures
• Remove silence and mistakes automatically
• Add captions/transcripts
• Create chapters, clips, or shorts
• Publish to a course platform

Here are the strongest options:

My recommended setups

If you upload raw 60–120 minute lectures with minimal editing:

• FFmpeg + TimeBolt
• FFmpeg handles conversion/compression
• TimeBolt removes pauses and dead space automatically www.timebolt.io

If you want polished YouTube lectures:

• DaVinci Resolve + Descript
• Edit the master lecture in Resolve
• Use Descript for transcript cleanup, captions, and finding sections quickly

If you have hundreds of archived lectures:

• Build an automated pipeline:
  1. Drop recordings into a folder
  2. FFmpeg converts them to your upload format
  3. AI transcription generates captions
  4. Batch export thumbnails/metadata
  5. Upload

Hardware matters too

For hour-long 1080p/4K lectures, prioritize:

• 32 GB RAM (especially for 4K)
• Fast SSD storage
• Modern CPU (Apple Silicon or recent Intel/AMD)
• GPU acceleration if using Resolve/Premiere

For most solo educational creators, I’d choose DaVinci Resolve as the main editor + FFmpeg for automation. Add TimeBolt if your lectures contain lots of pauses or classroom dead time. www.timebolt.io

If you tell me your workflow (camera + screen recording? raw classroom footage? YouTube only? how many lectures per week?), I can narrow it down further.

For an educational channel with lots of hour-long recordings, I’d choose Shutter Encoder as the default—especially if your main goal is batch processing rather than detailed editing.

My picks

1. Shutter Encoder — my recommendation

Shutter Encoder official site

It's built around FFmpeg and is particularly good for repetitive jobs: you can create presets, queue multiple files, normalize audio, add subtitles, rewrap files without re-encoding, change codecs/resolution, and monitor/watch folders. Its documentation specifically supports render queues and watch-folder workflows. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

For example, you could have:

Lecture_001.mov
Lecture_002.mov
Lecture_003.mov
...

and apply the same 1080p H.264 + AAC + loudness normalization + naming convention to the entire batch.

2. DaVinci Resolve — choose this if you're actually editing

DaVinci Resolve

If every lecture needs things like intro/outro cards, cuts, slides, graphics, color correction, or manual cleanup, Resolve is the better all-in-one choice. Its Deliver page has a render queue that can batch multiple timelines/clips and even offload rendering to another system with Resolve Studio. www.blackmagicdesign.com

3. FFmpeg — choose this if you're technical

If your workflow is highly predictable, FFmpeg can be even more efficient than a GUI. You can write a script that processes an entire folder overnight, automatically names outputs, extracts audio, encodes different resolutions, etc. Shutter Encoder is essentially a much friendlier interface around FFmpeg. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

What I'd use for your channel

Record → Shutter Encoder → YouTube

I'd keep the workflow as automated as possible:

1. Drop all new recordings into an input folder.
2. Shutter Encoder's watch folder detects them.
3. Apply your saved lecture preset.
4. Encode to your standard YouTube format.
5. Put finished files into an output folder.
6. Upload/schedule them separately.

That is likely to save considerably more time than opening each one in a full editor.

Bottom line:

• Mostly identical processing of long lectures → Shutter Encoder
• Need substantial editing → DaVinci Resolve
• Want a completely automated production pipeline → FFmpeg
• Already deeply invested in Adobe → Premiere Pro

If you tell me Windows/Mac, your CPU/GPU, recording format (e.g. 1080p H.264), and exactly what you want done to each lecture (compress, normalize audio, remove silence, subtitles, intro/outro, chapters, etc.), I can recommend a specific batch workflow and settings.

For an educational channel publishing hour-long lectures in batches, I’d choose Shutter Encoder as the default.

Shutter Encoder official site

Why it fits your workflow

• Batch queues: Load many recordings and apply the same encoding settings without handling each video individually. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com
• Presets: Save one YouTube-ready configuration and reuse it across your entire lecture library. www.shutterencoder.com
• Watch folders: You can have it monitor an input folder and automatically process recordings as they arrive—particularly useful if you record lectures regularly. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com
• FFmpeg underneath: It supports H.264, H.265, AV1 and numerous professional formats, giving you plenty of flexibility. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com
• Useful preprocessing: You can crop, normalize audio, add subtitles, watermark videos, trim recordings, and perform some operations without re-encoding. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com
• Free: It's free software with Windows, macOS, and Linux versions. www.shutterencoder.com

What I'd use for your channel

The key distinction is that Shutter Encoder is more of a processing pipeline than an editor. If your lectures are already recorded and you mostly need to normalize audio, trim dead space, add captions/watermarks, encode, and export dozens of files, that's exactly the kind of repetitive work it is designed for. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

If you're doing full editing of every lecture, I'd instead use DaVinci Resolve for the editing and Shutter Encoder for the subsequent batch-processing stage.

My recommendation: start with Shutter Encoder + a saved YouTube preset + a watch folder. That should give you a largely hands-off workflow for a recurring lecture series. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

If you tell me Windows/Mac, your recording format (e.g. 1080p H.264), and whether you need automatic silence removal/captions, I can recommend the exact batch workflow and encoding settings.

For an educational channel producing lots of hour-long lectures, I’d choose Shutter Encoder unless you need substantial editing inside the same application.

My recommendation

1. Shutter Encoder — best overall for batch processing

It is particularly well suited to your workflow because it has:

• Batch/render queues for processing many recordings unattended.
• Saved presets, so you can establish one “YouTube 1080p lecture” configuration and reuse it.
• Watch folders, which can automatically process new recordings dropped into a folder.
• FFmpeg underneath, giving you broad codec/format support.
• Options for subtitles, loudness normalization, trimming, scaling, watermarks, and other repetitive processing. www.shutterencoder.com
• It is free and open source. github.com

For example, you could have:

Raw Lectures → Watch Folder → Shutter Encoder → H.264 MP4 → YouTube folder

and let a batch of hour-long lectures encode while you're away.

2. DaVinci Resolve — best if you're actually editing the lectures

If every lecture needs cuts, graphics, slides, color correction, audio work, etc., Resolve is the better editor. Its Deliver page supports multiple jobs in a render queue and batch processing. www.blackmagicdesign.com

The tradeoff is that it's considerably more software than you need if your recordings are already edited and you're mainly trying to convert, normalize, subtitle, and export dozens of long files.

3. FFmpeg — best for maximum automation

If you're comfortable scripting, raw FFmpeg is ultimately the most powerful option. You can create a script that processes an entire directory with exactly the same settings, automatically names files, creates multiple outputs, etc.

But I'd start with Shutter Encoder. It gives you most of that power without having to maintain scripts.

What I'd use for your channel

For your specific description, I'd go with Shutter Encoder. Its render queue and watch-folder functionality are almost tailor-made for a channel where you're repeatedly processing long recordings. www.shutterencoder.com

If you tell me Windows/Mac/Linux, your CPU/GPU, recording format (e.g. OBS MKV), and whether you need subtitles/audio normalization, I can recommend the exact batch-processing setup and encoding settings for hour-long YouTube lectures.

For an educational channel with hour-long lectures and lots of recordings to process, I’d choose Shutter Encoder as the default.

My ranking

Why Shutter Encoder fits your use case: it can queue multiple files, save reusable presets, monitor a folder automatically, rename outputs, normalize audio, add subtitles/watermarks, and use hardware acceleration. It is built around FFmpeg, so you get a lot of FFmpeg's capabilities without having to write scripts. www.shutterencoder.com

For example, you could make one preset called “Lecture YouTube” that:

• converts recordings to H.264/H.265
• normalizes lecture audio
• adds your channel watermark
• embeds/burns captions if needed
• applies the same naming convention
• sends finished files to your upload folder

Its Watch Folder feature is particularly useful: recordings dropped into an input folder can automatically be processed when they're ready. www.shutterencoder.com

When I'd pick something else

FFmpeg is better if you want to eventually automate the entire operation—e.g., drop 100 recordings into a folder overnight and have a script process them according to your rules. It is extremely powerful, but you'll need to be comfortable with command-line scripting. www.ffmpeg.media

DaVinci Resolve is the better choice if you're actually editing each lecture—cutting mistakes, adding slides, fixing color, inserting graphics, etc.—and then need to batch-render the finished timelines. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically for multiple jobs. www.blackmagicdesign.com

Bottom line:
If your workflow is primarily “record → apply the same processing → export → upload”, start with Shutter Encoder. If it becomes “record → automatically perform a complicated series of operations on hundreds of files”, graduate to FFmpeg scripting.

If you tell me your computer (Windows/Mac/Linux), recording format, and what processing you do to each lecture, I can recommend the exact setup and encoding settings.

For an educational channel with lots of ~1-hour lectures, I’d choose Shutter Encoder unless you need full timeline editing.

My pick: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder is particularly well suited to repetitive, long-form processing:

• Batch queues: add many recordings and process them with the same settings. www.shutterencoder.com
• Presets: save your encoding configuration and reuse it for every lecture. www.shutterencoder.com
• Watch folders: it can monitor an input folder and automatically process recordings as they arrive—very useful if you're producing lectures regularly. www.shutterencoder.com
• FFmpeg-based: supports a huge range of codecs and containers, including H.264, H.265, AV1, ProRes and DNxHR. www.shutterencoder.com
• Useful lecture-specific operations: subtitles, audio normalization, trimming, cropping, overlays/watermarks, loudness analysis, and more. www.shutterencoder.com
• Hardware encoding: it supports NVIDIA, AMD and Intel hardware acceleration where applicable. www.shutterencoder.com
• Free: there's no subscription or feature limitation. www.shutterencoder.com

When I'd choose something else

DaVinci Resolve is worth considering if you need to make edits before exporting. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically for batch-processing multiple timelines/clips. www.blackmagicdesign.com

For your workflow, I'd set up Shutter Encoder as:
raw lecture recordings → watch folder → standardized H.264/H.265 preset → output folder → YouTube upload

If you're processing 10–50+ hour-long recordings at a time, I can also recommend the specific codec, resolution, bitrate/CRF, audio settings, and hardware-acceleration configuration I'd use for YouTube lectures.

For an educational channel publishing hour-long lectures in batches, I’d choose Shutter Encoder unless you also need substantial editing.

My pick: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder official site

It’s particularly well suited to repetitive lecture processing because it supports:

• Batch queues — add many recordings and process them sequentially.
• Saved presets — configure your YouTube encoding settings once and reuse them.
• Watch folders — automatically process new recordings dropped into a folder.
• FFmpeg-based encoding with H.264, H.265, AV1 and other codecs.
• Hardware acceleration on supported NVIDIA, AMD and Intel hardware.
• Subtitles, audio normalization, trimming, cropping, watermarks, and other common lecture-processing tasks. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com
• It is free, with Windows, macOS, and Linux versions. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

For long recordings, I'd favor one job after another rather than trying to encode several hour-long videos simultaneously unless your machine has substantial CPU/GPU headroom. Shutter Encoder itself recommends a maximum of two simultaneous video jobs in its render queue. www.shutterencoder.com

When I'd choose something else

DaVinci Resolve is the better choice if each lecture needs editing before export. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically for adding multiple timelines/clips and batch-processing them. www.blackmagicdesign.com

A practical lecture workflow

I'd set up Shutter Encoder + one saved preset roughly like this:

Recording → normalize/clean audio → H.264 hardware encode → MP4 → YouTube upload folder

Then drop an entire day's or week's recordings into the queue and let the machine work unattended. You can even configure a watch folder so newly completed recordings are automatically picked up. www.shutterencoder.com

If you tell me your computer (Mac/Windows + CPU/GPU), recording format/resolution (e.g. 1080p/4K), and where you're publishing (YouTube only or also podcast/LMS), I can recommend the fastest batch-processing setup and encoding settings for hour-long lectures.

For an educational channel publishing hour-long lectures in batches, I’d choose Shutter Encoder unless you also need substantial editing.

My pick: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder

It’s particularly well suited to repetitive lecture workflows because it can:

• Batch-process many files through a render queue.
• Save encoding presets, so every lecture gets identical settings.
• Use FFmpeg and support H.264, H.265, AV1, ProRes, DNxHR, etc.
• Watch a folder and automatically process recordings as they arrive.
• Add subtitles, normalize audio, watermark videos, resize, change frame rates, and more.
• Run unattended, including an option to shut down the computer when the queue finishes. www.shutterencoder.com

For example, you could have:

Raw Lectures/ → Shutter Encoder watch folder → YouTube Ready/

and have every hour-long recording automatically converted to your standard YouTube format.

When I'd choose something else

DaVinci Resolve is a strong alternative if you need to remove mistakes, add slides, graphics, intro/outro segments, etc. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically for batch-processing multiple timelines/clips. www.blackmagicdesign.com

What I'd do for lecture production

If your workflow is basically record → clean up → encode → upload, I'd use Shutter Encoder and create one preset for your channel—e.g. 1080p H.264, consistent bitrate/quality, AAC audio, fast-start enabled, standardized filename.

If you're doing significant editing before publishing, use DaVinci Resolve instead and batch the finished timelines through its render queue.

If you tell me Mac or Windows, your recording resolution (1080p/4K), and roughly how many lectures you process per week, I can recommend the exact setup and encoding settings.

For an educational channel with hour-long lectures and a need to batch-process many recordings, I would choose based on what you are repeating most often (cutting silence, captions, formatting, exporting, or making clips).

Best overall workflow: DaVinci Resolve + automation

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is usually the strongest choice if you want a long-term professional setup. It handles long timelines well, has strong audio tools, batch exports, and can reuse templates (intro/outro, lower thirds, color settings). www.digitalcameraworld.com

Choose it if you:

• publish full lectures with consistent branding
• need high-quality exports
• want one editor that can grow with your channel

Downside: it is more complex to learn than simpler editors.

Best for automatically cleaning long lectures: TimeBolt

TimeBolt is designed around long-form talking videos. It can detect and remove silence and has batch processing for multiple videos, which fits lecture archives well. www.timebolt.io

Choose it if your main bottleneck is:

• long pauses
• dead air between explanations
• repetitive trimming of many one-hour recordings

A common pipeline:

1. Record lecture
2. Run through TimeBolt to tighten pacing
3. Finish in Resolve/Premiere
4. Export

Best if you edit by transcript: Descript

Descript is useful for lecture creators because you can edit the transcript instead of hunting through a one-hour timeline. It is particularly good for:

• removing filler words
• fixing spoken mistakes
• generating captions
• making shorter versions from lectures

www.ruzuku.comtoolchase.comwww.timebolt.io

Best for turning lectures into Shorts/clips

If your goal is to turn each hour-long lecture into multiple YouTube Shorts, use an AI clipping tool alongside your main editor. Tools like Opus Clip focus on finding highlight moments from long videos. www.ruzuku.comtoolchase.comwww.timebolt.io

My recommended setup for an educational channel

High-volume lecture channel:

Recording → Storage → Batch cleanup → Final edit → Clips

• Recording: OBS Studio / your current recorder
• Cleanup: TimeBolt
• Main edit: DaVinci Resolve
• Captions/transcript edits: Descript
• Shorts: Opus Clip or similar

This avoids making your main editor do repetitive work.

If you are processing 10+ one-hour lectures per week, I would lean toward TimeBolt + DaVinci Resolve. If you are mostly a solo educator who wants speed over fine control, Descript + Resolve is probably the smoother workflow. www.ruzuku.comtoolchase.comwww.timebolt.io

A few details would change the recommendation:

• Windows or Mac?
• How many lectures per week/month?
• Are they mostly talking head, slides + voice, or screen recordings?
• Do you also want automatic Shorts generation?

For an educational channel with hour-long lectures, the best choice depends on what “batch-process” means for you: cutting dead air, improving audio, generating captions, exporting multiple formats, or creating clips. For a high-volume lecture workflow, I’d look at these:

My recommendations by channel size

If you publish 5–50 lectures/month:

• Use DaVinci Resolve + TimeBolt
• Workflow:
  1. Drop raw recordings into TimeBolt → remove dead air
  2. Import into Resolve → apply intro/outro, branding, audio cleanup
  3. Batch render with presets

If you want “upload recordings and let AI handle it”:

• Consider Descript for transcripts/captions and quick edits.
• Add a dedicated audio cleanup tool if your recordings vary in quality. denoisr.com

If you have hundreds of archived lectures:

• Build around FFmpeg scripts:
  • normalize audio
  • convert formats
  • add metadata
  • create YouTube-ready files overnight

If your main goal is turning lectures into YouTube Shorts/clips:

• Use a clipping tool after the lecture master is created. AI clipping platforms can scan long recordings and generate short-form candidates. streamyard.com

A practical “creator” stack I’d choose:

1. FFmpeg → automated file handling
2. TimeBolt → remove pauses from batches
3. DaVinci Resolve → final polish and exports
4. Descript → captions/transcripts

That combination gives you speed without sacrificing lecture quality.

If you tell me your setup (Windows/Mac, number of lectures per week, whether you need captions, and whether the source is Zoom/OBS/camera footage), I can narrow it down to a specific workflow.

For an educational channel with hour-long recordings and lots of them, I’d choose based on whether you’re editing the lectures or mainly converting/exporting them.

My picks

🥇 Best overall for your use case: Shutter Encoder.
It is built around FFmpeg and has a render queue, reusable presets, folder monitoring, automatic file naming, and batch processing. Its documentation specifically recommends processing multiple videos through its queue, with up to two simultaneous video encodes recommended. www.shutterencoder.com

Shutter Encoder official site

For example, you could set up a preset like:

Lecture recordings → H.264/H.265 → 1080p → standardized bitrate/audio → output folder

Then drop 20–50 lectures into the queue and let the machine work through them overnight.

When I'd choose Premiere instead

If you're actually editing each lecture—cutting mistakes, adding slides, lower thirds, intro/outro, captions, etc.—I'd go with Premiere Pro + Adobe Media Encoder.

Media Encoder lets you queue multiple exports, save presets, and render in the background while you continue working in Premiere. Adobe specifically recommends sending longer exports to Media Encoder. helpx.adobe.com

Adobe Premiere Pro

The workflow I'd use for a lecture channel

If your recordings are already edited:

OBS/camera recording → Shutter Encoder → standardized YouTube files → upload

If you need editing:

Recording → Premiere/Resolve → Media Encoder/Render Queue → YouTube

And if you're doing the exact same processing to hundreds of recordings, I'd eventually move to FFmpeg scripts. That's the most scalable option—you can have a folder automatically processed without manually configuring every file.

Bottom line: Start with Shutter Encoder unless you need a full video editor. It's unusually well suited to the "I have a mountain of long recordings and want them all processed the same way" problem. www.shutterencoder.com

If you tell me what you need to do to each lecture (e.g. trim silence, normalize audio, add intro/outro, captions, compress, make 1080p/4K, create YouTube + podcast versions), I can recommend the fastest batch workflow and settings.

For an educational channel producing lots of hour-long lectures, I’d choose based on whether you’re primarily editing or encoding/processing.

My pick: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder is probably the best fit if your workflow is something like:

record → trim/normalize/subtitle → encode → repeat for 10–50 lectures

It’s free, built around FFmpeg, supports saved presets, render queues, watch folders, hardware acceleration, and can process multiple files without requiring you to build a full editing project for each lecture. Its documentation specifically recommends using the render queue for multiple encodes and supports watch-folder automation. www.shutterencoder.com

Why I’d favor it for your use case:

• Batch-process an entire folder of lectures.
• Save one encoding preset and reuse it.
• Watch a folder and automatically process new recordings.
• Trim without re-encoding when possible.
• Burn in or embed subtitles.
• Normalize/convert audio.
• Add a logo/watermark.
• H.264/H.265/AV1 and many other formats.
• Hardware encoding for NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPUs. www.shutterencoder.com

When I'd choose something else

DaVinci Resolve is the better choice if each lecture needs actual editing—cutting mistakes, inserting slides, color correction, graphics, etc. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically for batch-processing multiple timelines/clips. www.blackmagicdesign.com

FFmpeg is the ultimate option if you're comfortable scripting. You can build a command/script that processes every file in a directory identically, making it extremely efficient for a large archive. FFmpeg itself is a command-line media converter capable of reading and transcoding a very wide range of inputs and outputs. ffmpeg.org

What I'd do for your channel

If your lectures are already recorded and mostly need standardized processing, I'd use:

Shutter Encoder → saved preset → watch folder → automated batch processing

For example, you could have it automatically take:

Raw Lectures/

and produce:

YouTube Ready/

with consistent 1080p, H.264, AAC, loudness-normalized audio, subtitles, and your channel watermark.

If you're processing dozens of hour-long recordings at once, this is considerably more convenient than opening every recording in a traditional editor. Shutter Encoder even supports automatically waiting for files that are still being written, which is useful if recordings are being dropped into the watched folder by another process. www.shutterencoder.comwww.shutterencoder.com

Bottom line: Start with Shutter Encoder. Move to DaVinci Resolve if you need substantial editing, or FFmpeg scripting if you eventually want a completely automated production pipeline.

For an educational channel with many hour-long recordings, I’d choose based on whether you’re mainly encoding/converting or actually editing.

My pick: Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder is probably the best fit if your workflow is something like:

record lecture → trim/normalize/resize → encode → upload

It’s free, uses FFmpeg, supports saved presets, batch queues, watch folders, hardware acceleration, and a huge range of codecs. Its render queue can process multiple files, with the documentation recommending up to two videos simultaneously. www.shutterencoder.com

Why I'd pick it for you: you can create one “YouTube lecture” preset and throw an entire folder of recordings at it rather than opening each recording in an editor.

If you actually edit the lectures: DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve is better if you need to remove sections, add slides/graphics, clean up audio, color-correct, etc. Its Deliver page has a render queue specifically designed to batch multiple timelines/clips. www.blackmagicdesign.com

If you're already in Adobe: Media Encoder

Adobe Media Encoder is excellent for a production pipeline. Its Watch Folders can automatically detect new video files and encode them using a predefined preset, which is particularly useful if you're producing lectures continuously. helpx.adobe.com

Quick recommendation

For hour-long lectures specifically, I'd start with Shutter Encoder unless you need substantial editing. Its watch-folder + preset system is particularly well suited to “drop 10 recordings into a folder and let the computer process them overnight.” www.shutterencoder.com

If you tell me Mac or Windows, your recording format (e.g. 1080p H.264), and roughly how many lectures you process per week, I can recommend the fastest setup and encoding settings.

For an educational channel with multiple hour-long recordings, I’d prioritize batch queues, presets, hardware encoding, and automation over a full editing suite.

My picks

1. Shutter Encoder — my recommendation if you mainly need processing

It uses FFmpeg underneath and has a render queue, reusable presets, watch folders, hardware acceleration, and support for H.264/H.265/AV1 and professional codecs. Its documentation specifically recommends processing up to two videos simultaneously, which is useful for long recordings where you don't want to overwhelm your CPU/GPU. www.shutterencoder.com

Shutter Encoder official site

A good workflow would be:

Drop 10–20 lectures → apply one saved YouTube preset → queue overnight → wake up to finished files.

2. Adobe Media Encoder — best if you're already using Premiere

This is probably the smoothest choice if your lectures are edited in Premiere. It has queues, presets, watch folders, and can automatically encode files placed into a watched directory. You can also create multiple outputs from the same source. helpx.adobe.com

Adobe Media Encoder

3. FFmpeg — best if you want to automate the entire pipeline

If you're comfortable with scripts, FFmpeg gives you the most control. You could have a script automatically:

• find new recordings
• normalize/convert them
• encode them to YouTube-ready H.264
• generate lower-resolution copies
• rename them
• move completed files into another folder

It's less convenient initially, but potentially the fastest workflow once automated.

What I'd choose for your channel

If you're editing the lectures first: DaVinci Resolve or Premiere → Media Encoder.

If you're already finished editing and just need to batch-process/export: Shutter Encoder.

If you have dozens of recordings arriving regularly and want a nearly hands-off pipeline: FFmpeg + a script, possibly with Shutter Encoder as the GUI for jobs you don't want to script.

For hour-long lectures, I'd also avoid running many encodes simultaneously. Two hardware-accelerated encodes at once is often a better throughput/temperature/disk-I/O compromise than trying to encode 8–10 files simultaneously.

If you tell me Windows or Mac, your CPU/GPU, and whether you need editing, compression, subtitles, normalization, or just YouTube exports, I can recommend a specific setup and presets.