Can you be more specific by "in hardware"? I'll buy that there's some trick analogous to shaders on the desktop. But I'd want to know the specifics to be able to evaluate that. How many encodes have you been able to do, anyway?
Encoding and upstreaming a single 640p video does seem plausible. But for each additional encode you need HLS and RTMP, and both CPU and upstream bandwidth grow linearly with each encode. A single bitrate means HLS and RTMP - two encodes, two upstreams. (Only HLS means only Apple software - 20% of the mobile market, 5% of the desktop market).
Encoding and upstreaming a single 640p video does seem plausible. But for each additional encode you need HLS and RTMP, and both CPU and upstream bandwidth grow linearly with each encode. A single bitrate means HLS and RTMP - two encodes, two upstreams. (Only HLS means only Apple software - 20% of the mobile market, 5% of the desktop market).