In one embodiment, a method receives a first chunk in a plurality of chunks from a video. The plurality of chunks are sent to a plurality of transcoding units for transcoding in parallel. The method transcodes the first chunk at a first transcoding unit to generate a first transcoded sub-bitstream. Then, first statistical information is received from one or more second chunks being transcoded by other transcoding units. The first statistical information from the one or more second chunks is compared to second statistical information from the first chunk and it is determined whether to perform a second transcoding process based on the comparing. When the second transcoding process is to be performed, the method performs the second transcoding process with the first chunk to generate a second transcoded bitstream and outputs the second transcoded bitstream. When the second transcoding process is not to be performed, the method outputs the first transcoded sub-bitstream.