video encodin

I just bought a dvd burner, my 1700xp does mpeg-1 just fine but mpeg-2 is super slow 30mins of video = 1hr 30mins encoding. so my questions is, I would like to get a dual amd rig if it will knock that time down to says 30mins. is this possible or should i just suffer through it until cpus in general get faster? i use tmpenc plus and sonic mydvd if those two programs arent smp capable i wouldnt really notice a difference. n e one have any thoughts or suggestions ?

(dont no about sonic dvd) tmpgenc does supports 2 cpus its really up to u if u wana spend money to make the time less but im not sure how less its going to be

I don't think it will make it three times faster. It will twice as fast, at best.

Look around for some benchmarks. You could try 2cpu.com or their forums.

I see you have one T-bred and Windows XP Pro, already. In your case, the upgrade cost wouldn't be too much. You would just need one more 1700 T-bred, a good heatsink, a dual CPU motherboard (I recommend the MSI K7D Master) and a decent PSU , if you don't already have one (at LEAST 450 watts, 500 or more is recommended.)

The big place that I KNOW you will notice a difference is is multitasking. You will ba able to encode and do lots of other stuff, simultaneously, without the massive slowdown that you get on a single-CPU system.

check your settings in tmpgenc
are you encoding using vbr? that would explain it if so.
what you want to use is CQ (constant quality)
you can adjust the max/min bitrate, and overall quality percentage. play around with those settings and see what you get.

Would I be able to encode video on a dual p3 500mhz computer, and surf the web/listen to music/talk on aim without any or little lag?

Skiing Squirrel said:

Would I be able to encode video on a dual p3 500mhz computer, and surf the web/listen to music/talk on aim without any or little lag?

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Should be. You might feel a little slowdown, due to a lot of memory being used, but it will still be pretty smooth and a LOT better than trying to do those things on a single-CPU system.

Alright, thats what I want to hear! thanks.

thanks !!! just changin that settin took me from 1:30 to 50mins! much better and cheaper solution. I priced what i would need to setup a dual and it was 400 not bad but this solution is alil less, thanks!

Skiing Squirrel said:

Would I be able to encode video on a dual p3 500mhz computer, and surf the web/listen to music/talk on aim without any or little lag?

Click to expand...

i already do this with my rig, minus the aim talking (reaches for barf bag at the mention of aim)
the only problem is, when multitasking during the encoding, the total encoding time will most likely double.

ssspy007 said:

thanks !!! just changin that settin took me from 1:30 to 50mins! much better and cheaper solution. I priced what i would need to setup a dual and it was 400 not bad but this solution is alil less, thanks!

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good job! glad it helped.
one thing i do, which actually adds a little time to the process, is check the padding box in the same window as the CQ bitrates. since 2000 is the minimum bitrate, padding keeps the quality up to that level when there isn't much going on in the frames being encoded, like the intro or a scene change that has very little movement. otherwise, the encoding during those frames can seem a little to 'blocky' for my taste.

k i will play with more of those settings, just curious what does ur 2.2ghz xp do in the same situation?

not to go to far off subject but when I run CBR I get a lot of blocky frams when there is alot of motion on the video with the VBR I get much less but it dose take longer to encode but depending on what your looking for it may be worth it
just my $0.02

ssspy007 - could you tell me a little about the settings that you are using? The file type, the output file, size, bitrate, ect. If your computer is OC'd, ect.

I am just curious because It takes me about an hour (+- 5 minutes) to take a DV (.avi) to .mpeg2, 720 by 480, 6000 kbps, VBR, using TMPGE. That is on my MP2000's with only 22 minutes of footage. I don't use CBR as I would like the better quality of VBR. I would be very impressed if it took you 1:30 on an actual 30 minutes of video.

Thanks

Stedeman said:

not to go to far off subject but when I run CBR I get a lot of blocky frams when there is alot of motion on the video with the VBR I get much less but it dose take longer to encode but depending on what your looking for it may be worth it
just my $0.02

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CBR is not the way to go. High action scenes will suffer lack of bitrate when you are dealing with a movie that needs to be kept under 5 gigs. CQ keeps the video at a constant quality, and i've found it to be more than adequate for all my movies.

ssspy007 said:

....what does ur 2.2ghz xp do in the same situation?

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Generally, it takes a little less than 1.5 hours encoding for every hour of film at dvd quality, give or take a little, depending on the average bitrate of the film itself.
An interesting note, i recently went head to head with a friends p4 2.66 on 512MB Rambus1066, with a movie that was just over two hours long. Original file size was about 5.3 gigs, and i beat him by an hour!!!!! My time was about 3 hours, his was about 4!!!
He ALMOST switched platforms after that.

I get 66 Fps encoding DVD to Divx using "Gordian Knot" my mates p4 2.53 gets 30 fps.

The reason I got a dual rig in the first place this time.... Was to do video encoding. I too got frustrated with my single CPU system and I had an XP1700+ Thoroughbred A, on a KT333 system.

I decided to go and pickup an MSI K7D-L motherboard, and a second XP1700+.

One thing I found is that going dullie is not as easy as some people would like to think. The system throws off a ton of heat. I'm running my system overclocked, and to keep the racket down I went with H20 cooling, totaly worth it if you want a silent computer.

My other recommendations is getting a RAID setup, currently I'm running a promise fast track TX4 on a 66mhz PCI bus slot, with 2x7200rpm Maxtor Diamond Max plus HD's.

Over all my dullie is about 80-100% faster than my single CPU system for video encoding, compared to my single CPU. You will give up some gaming performance with the MPX setups, but not enough it should bother you (I just upgraded my video card to solve that problem)

I bought my mobo refurbed for $159, a second CPU for $67 all the rest I owned, so for about $225 you can cut your render times in half.