Unbelieveably long render and export times

We always made a little joke at the office that FCP should have been called, Final Render Pro -
Anyways, I have a massive amount of video content that is in WMV and AVI format. ( no choice, files dropped on me for a job) These files range from 350megs - 600 megs with bitrates of 2700-3100. I need to watermark these videos and its mind boggling how long it is taking. I have tried a large menagerie of techniques and they all range from insanely long, to monumentally, epically, long. It will say 3 hours left for 5-6 hours.
Here are a few methods I have tried -

Watermark function in compressor - too long to even track (canceled)

Added watermark in FCP, rendered, then exported to DV STREAM - 3-8 hours to QT Pro - Exporting of various file types from .DV file - 25mins to 3 hours ( plus the 3-8 hours to create .DV file = 10 or more hours to do 1 video

Exported right to .MOV and .WMV from FCP after rendering - 4-9 hours


I know there is no easy way around this task. Has anyone here had any experience with clustering machines together? Seems like this function doesn't work or barely works. I have multiple machines networked together, and would love to take advantage of that function if it would really reduce the time this is taking.
Any info or experience anyone cares to share is very much appreciated.

ALOHA

PS - Did I mention that I have a deadline of Tues at 12am to get this done?
28 of these insane frekin AVI/WMVs to watermark - Why can't all video just come in .MOV already? hehe

As I'm sure you know, Qmaster is used in FCP for render farms. I would *assume* that you would need several mid-range to high end computers networked together to notice a big difference in rendering times. A usual render farm can be anything from four to a hundred computers....

Render farm... you know, i think after 5 years of complaining, I think I will take that advice. Thank you! ALOHA

No one else has any ideas on how to watermark these videos? I realize the render farm option is ideal, but by midnight tonight i'm not gong to make that happen. Dang, I really hate these frekin PC file formats!!!