Also apparently cron works in termux, so it could all probably be scripted there.

I think you could get something working using termux to install and run ffmpeg on your phone. Then using an automation app, e.g. if this then that, you could run a script in termux to re-encode the files. And automate it at night while charging.

People like to think that because they own a gun, if they ever got to use it they would be John Wick.

Way too true, I know too many people who are genuinely like this my brother included. If people have this kind of mindset they shouldn’t be allowed to own guns, it is a tragedy waiting to happen.

Not gonna lie that is kinda my hobby. Pick up other hobbies, learn a bunch get okay but not too much time sunk in, time for a new hobby.

OpenSUSE tumbleweed is a good compromise IMO. it is also a rolling release distro with built in snapshotting. So if anything does go wrong it takes ~5 mins to roll back to the last good snapshot. You can set the same thing up on arch but it isn’t ootb and YAST is a great management tool as well.