The H.264 hardware encoder is designed as a modular system with small, efficient, low power components doing well defined tasks. The principle design aim was to make an scalable encoder for megapixel images suitable for use in camera heads and low power recorders.
The H.264 encoder is released here under a BSD-style license
Read the manual for more details, or browse the CVS repository. The main project summary page is on https://sourceforge.net/projects/hardh264/.