EPISODE QUESTIONS re. Distributed Rendering

Hi there. We are in need of beefing up our video processing end of things. Looking at Episode as an option. I love the expert advice in this forum and would very much appreciate some with respect to our needs. We need to:

- take several 1-hour videos that start as either ProRes or AVID QT reference files (in 1080 usually) and then we need to process these master source files out into: H264 FILES FOR iPads, DVD files for use in DVD Studio Pro (ideally these one-hour files would already have chapter markers that have been put in during the editorial phase and will carry through to the processed files for use as master media in DVDSP), WM9 files.

That is our most common need. I would love to get advice on the most efficient way to accomplish this. Is it with Episode Engine using our 12 Mac Pros for distributed rendering?
Would Episode Pro be enough, or since these are 1-hour files would Split n Stitch be the only thing suitable to my needs?

Any advice on how to set this up (including any advice on setting up the network to ensure the media can be accessed by the Episode processing workstation) is much appreciated. Thanks so much.