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H.264 Video Encoding

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thor17usa

thor17usa

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Joined
May 1, 2004
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I want to start encoding some video to H.264, but it seems to take twice as long to do so compared to Sorenson 3 Pro or Mpeg-4. I am using the Quicktime Codecs for encoding. I use the Sorenson Compression Suite version 4.2. Would upgrading my server from and AMD 2600+ to something better decrease my encoding times per clips significantly? Would dual processors help even further. I am not sure if the Sorenson Suite can utilize multiple CPUs, but I will check into that.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this.
 
Well, it is the H.264 codec that Apple uses, but I am running this on a PC using the Sorenson Compression Suite 4.2. The codec is now a standard I think called MPEG part 10, or something like that.

Does anyone know how long it takes to encoding about 3-4 minutes of video into H.264 on a PC, because it takes about 20-25 minutes on my AMD XP 2600+ server, which seems a little slow. If I can speed this up that would be great.
 
a) Buy a P4
b) buy a dual rig/dual core cpu (preferably P4 too)

P4 is better at encoding than athlons. And yes, generally codecs can use more than 1 cpu at the same time. At least the good ones: encoding is very paralelizable (is that a word?). I dunno if that Sorensen suite can do it tho.
 
I don't have any personal experience with H.264, but everything I've read about it says that it's slow as mollassas. It does a ton more than MPEG-4 to shave off bits, but obviously at the cost of increased CPU time. You're only real hope would be to tweak the compression settings (if you can) and disable some of the advanced features. Upgrading to a more powerful rig would also obviously benifit.

JigPu
 
JigPu said:
I don't have any personal experience with H.264, but everything I've read about it says that it's slow as mollassas. It does a ton more than MPEG-4 to shave off bits, but obviously at the cost of increased CPU time. You're only real hope would be to tweak the compression settings (if you can) and disable some of the advanced features. Upgrading to a more powerful rig would also obviously benifit.

JigPu
Click to expand...
I agree with you on that. I just run a H.264 encoding job and it took 30 minutes for 5 minutes of video, which is insane. Granted I am running this job on a AMD 64 3200+, but that is still to slow, cause I know it will take longer on my server processor, which is only an XP 2600+.

I think I am going to upgrade the server to something like a P4 with HT or a Dual-core for encoding video. Which would be a better choice for a student on a budget? I like the idea of a dual core, but if the price difference is too big, then a dual-core might have to wait.
 
Anyone else here know if video encoding has gotten to the point where we can use multiple system to create a render farm for encoding video? I know there are render farms for encoding 3D animation scenes and similar distributed system for other multi-unit application.

I have three computer at my immediate disposal and wanted to know if there might be a software package for distributed video encoding. I think Apple has something like this in their latest version of Final Cut Pro Studio.

Any ideas?
 
I have finally made it to dual-core nirvana and I am loving!

My next question pretains to which video encoding software can take advantage of the dual-core now. I have access to Sorenson Suite 4.2 and Discreet Cleaner XL. I want to encode to Quicktime MPEG-4. Does anyone have any other good encoders that can use the dual-core?
 
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