Systems and methods perform a failover, handoff type of process for machines actively encoding and transcoding media content or other data, including live video. Based on dynamic analyses, including detection of needed updates due to security anomalies and encoder state evaluations, the encoder instance initially receiving a stream can restart following handoff to another encoder instance. System downtime is minimized through actions such as initializing the replacement encoder and passively migrating network resources to same, without any explicit coordination or messaging between the two instances.