I 'm looking for a suggestion on a small form factor Linux machine for a project

[G+_James Hughes]

I'm looking for a suggestion on a small form factor Linux machine for a project. It's main task will be to process a series of images into an animated gif using ffmpeg. I would like it to have an ethernet port. Speed, size and price are main concerns. Thanks in advance.

[G+_Matt Koglin]

Hi James, depending on your speed needs, the Intel NUC might be a good choice. I've got one with a 256GB SSD that I use in my photo booth that cranks through the photo processing pretty quickly.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SD9IS1S

 

If that's too powerful or pricey, perhaps something like the BeagleBone Black?

 

https://www.amazon.com/Seeedstudio-Embest-BeagleBone-Black-Rev-C/dp/B012TW5C7M

 

[G+_James Hughes]

I was considering using a raspberry pi 3 but not sure if it is fast enough.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Making a gif is usually just a process of putting together 3 more images. How many frames and how fast do you need the gifs? Pretty sure you should get a rough idea with handbrake benchmarks as to the fps you could get.

[G+_Benjamin Webb]

Checked the benchmarks and figure you could do 3 fps or less depending on resolution with a raspberry PI.

[G+_James Hughes]

Thanks for the input Matt Koglin and Benjamin Webb. The gifs would be made from about 90 individual images at a resolution of 1280 x 720. If the Raspberry Pi 3 can process 3 frames a second that should keep it around 30 seconds total process time which I think will work. Matt, I watched a video comparing the BB vs RPi3 and the quad core of the RPi3 was almost 6x that of the BB (which is only single core and 1ghz vs. 1.2ghz). I like the nuc and have looked at them. Maybe for another project but so far it looks like I'm sticking with the RPi3 (and it doesn't hurt that I have a few of them kicking around)