I upgraded an old PC and use it to rip BDs

[barkinglama]

to MKV and then to DIVX Pro 720p avis.

The spec is

MBoard MSI K9N6PGM2-v2
RAM Generic 1 stick 2GB 800mhz DDR2
CPU AMD II x2 240 2.8Ghz not hyperthreaded (can't remember the exact model possibly a 5000)
Running Vista HP ; Make MKV; AnyDVD HD; Handbrake and DIVX Pro

1 SATA BD ROM
1 SATA DVDRW

2 PATA HDD (recycled) with sys partition on one

Predictably it takes ages to convert the MKV to DIVX Pro ( at the moment I am using handbrake after make mkv to change the codec to h264 but I am going to try direct conversion to DIVX Pro from Make Mkv rip)

I was looking at upgrades to speed things up

I am considering

AMD Quad Core Phenom II X4 965
2 x 2GB DDR3 1333Mhz
AMD 880G + SB710 Motherboard


I can get this locally for £250 with an ASROCK HDMI Mboard

Would this speed up the transcoding significantly?

Is there any tinkering that could be done to the present setup that would make things significantly quicker?

Any input appreciated

[jagabo]

I think you'll about double your encoding speed. But you might consider a Nvidia graphics card and MediaCoder with hardware h.264 encoding.

[yoda313]

to MKV and then to DIVX Pro 720p avis.

May I ask why you are encoding twice?

Have you looked harder to find a program that will do bluray straight to divx pro? That would cut your process in half.

-------------------------------------

Also have you considered avchd? If you are using divx pro in 720p I guess you need a codec that your player will play. If you are using a bluary player - like a ps3 - why not convert to avchd?

[barkinglama]

to MKV and then to DIVX Pro 720p avis.

May I ask why you are encoding twice?

Have you looked harder to find a program that will do bluray straight to divx pro? That would cut your process in half.

-------------------------------------

Also have you considered avchd? If you are using divx pro in 720p I guess you need a codec that your player will play. If you are using a bluary player - like a ps3 - why not convert to avchd?

I hope to be encoding once now - I hope, basically my LG BD player (in the bedroom) doesn't like the codec of Makemkv so I converted it to h264 using handbrake, now I have a sony BDP-s370 in the livingroom mainly for BD and lovefilm but it won't stream any MKV from my Windows Home Server (running various DNLA and MP11) but it will DIVX Pro (which seems to be the best overall for me just now anyway)

Then there's my 360 and mac mini - sigh

[barkinglama]

I think you'll about double your encoding speed. But you might consider a Nvidia graphics card and MediaCoder with hardware h.264 encoding.

I take it that means it would take half the time if so that would be great. But would it be cheaper to go with the graphics card (pref passive)

Would that give me significant time saving

Would doubling the RAM to 4Gb help significantly?

Cheers for the replys so far

[jagabo]

I think you'll about double your encoding speed. But you might consider a Nvidia graphics card and MediaCoder with hardware h.264 encoding.

I take it that means it would take half the time if so that would be great.

If you're talking about Divx's h.264 encoder, not their older MPEG 4 part 2 encoder. The older Divx encoder won't improve as much.

But would it be cheaper to go with the graphics card (pref passive)
Would that give me significant time saving

A mid level GPU may encode several times faster than your current CPU. The last time I checked (a year ago), the GPU encoders didn't deliver as much quality as x264 at good settings (roughly similar to Divx h.264 in speed and quality). But MediaCoder has probably made a lot of progress since then. Look for some benchmarks and samples. Deadrats keeps track of this stuff, you should PM him.

Would doubling the RAM to 4Gb help significantly?

No.

[barkinglama]

I take it that means it would take half the time if so that would be great.

If you're talking about Divx's h.264 encoder, not their older MPEG 4 part 2 encoder. The older Divx encoder won't improve as much.

No I meant in refercence to my initial thoughts of replacing the MBoard CPU and RAM, which I'm thinking would be overkill ? based on what I have read here.

But would it be cheaper to go with the graphics card (pref passive)
Would that give me significant time saving

A mid level GPU may encode several times faster than your current CPU. The last time I checked (a year ago), the GPU encoders didn't deliver as much quality as x264 at good settings (roughly similar to Divx h.264 in speed and quality). But MediaCoder has probably made a lot of progress since then. Look for some benchmarks and samples. Deadrats keeps track of this stuff, you should PM him.


[/QUOTE]Would doubling the RAM to 4Gb help significantly?[/QUOTE]
No.[/QUOTE]

My current Motherboard will accept AM3 chips so I could put a quad core in there and use a nVidia graphics card?

Would that help as it would likely be the cheaper option.

[jagabo]

My current Motherboard will accept AM3 chips so I could put a quad core in there and use a nVidia graphics card?

Would that help as it would likely be the cheaper option.

You could update just the GPU. That will be the faster of the either/or options (if you use a GPU encoder like MediaCoder or BadaBoom).

http://blog.mediacoderhq.com/benchmarks-cuda-h-264-vs-x264/

Under that scenario the CPU doesn't have much to do -- updating from a dual core to a quad core in addition won't make much difference. If you update only the CPU you'll get about double your current speed if you are using Divx's h.264 encoder (ie, if you're currently getting 5 fps you'll bump up to 10 fps). If you are using Divx's MPEG 4 Part 2 encoder you will only get about 50 percent improvement (ie, if you're currently getting 10 fps you'll bump up to 15 fps).

[deadrats]

I think you'll about double your encoding speed. But you might consider a Nvidia graphics card and MediaCoder with hardware h.264 encoding.

best advice at the moment, media coder's gpu accelerated h264 implementation is currently the best available, using my gts250 i can encode 1080p @ 12mb/s abr at 16 fps, 720p @ 8mb/s abr at 40 fps and i can clean up dvd spec mpeg-2 using yadif deinterlacer, 3d denoise, deringing and auto color balance and encode to 480p @ 4mb/s abr at 70 fps and all these encodes include 3 b frames, cabac, dynamic gop, 4.1 and main.

you're not beating that with any software only based solution, i don't care what cpu or x264 settings you use.

[barkinglama]

My current Motherboard will accept AM3 chips so I could put a quad core in there and use a nVidia graphics card?

Would that help as it would likely be the cheaper option.

You could update just the GPU. That will be the faster of the either/or options (if you use a GPU encoder like MediaCoder or BadaBoom).

http://blog.mediacoderhq.com/benchmarks-cuda-h-264-vs-x264/

Under that scenario the CPU doesn't have much to do -- updating from a dual core to a quad core in addition won't make much difference. If you update only the CPU you'll get about double your current speed if you are using Divx's h.264 encoder (ie, if you're currently getting 5 fps you'll bump up to 10 fps). If you are using Divx's MPEG 4 Part 2 encoder you will only get about 50 percent improvement (ie, if you're currently getting 10 fps you'll bump up to 15 fps).

Thanks again for the help, ideally I want as much of the combined "power" of the cpu and gpu working on the conversion, it's all I now use it for. I've downloaded badaboom and will give it a try at the weekend

[barkinglama]

I think you'll about double your encoding speed. But you might consider a Nvidia graphics card and MediaCoder with hardware h.264 encoding.

best advice at the moment, media coder's gpu accelerated h264 implementation is currently the best available, using my gts250 i can encode 1080p @ 12mb/s abr at 16 fps, 720p @ 8mb/s abr at 40 fps and i can clean up dvd spec mpeg-2 using yadif deinterlacer, 3d denoise, deringing and auto color balance and encode to 480p @ 4mb/s abr at 70 fps and all these encodes include 3 b frames, cabac, dynamic gop, 4.1 and main.

you're not beating that with any software only based solution, i don't care what cpu or x264 settings you use.

I understood very little of that but I have been looking at getting a graphics card maybe 1GB DDR2.

What card would you recommend pref passive

[jagabo]

ideally I want as much of the combined "power" of the cpu and gpu working on the conversion

You can't combine the two on a single encoding. It's one or the other. Well, you could have the CPU working on audio while the GPU is working on the video. Or you could encode two videos at the same time, one with the GPU, one with the CPU.

[nic2k4]

My current Motherboard will accept AM3 chips so I could put a quad core in there and use a nVidia graphics card?

Would that help as it would likely be the cheaper option.

What do you mean old? This is still pretty current, granted it doesn't support DDR3 memory, but it does take recent CPUs. Check out your boards CPU support page. That Phenom II 965 is not supported, it`s 125W TDP, but a nice Phenom II 1055T x6 is. The 965 runs at 3.4 GHz, but the fastest (955) your board can take runs at 3.2 GHz and the x6 has dynamic acceleration which will let it run at 3.2 GHz (from 2.8) when less than 3 cores are used.

Adding another 2 GB of memory would provide a 10-15% speed gain; not from the extra memory, but from enabling dual channel mode. But, you would most likely have to replace your current 2 Gig stick; the sticks should be the same with same memory chips. These days that technology is more flexible, so you don`t have to get special dual channel memory kits anymore. You might be able to swap yours, depends on the stores you deal with.

As Jagabo suggests, a CUDA enabled Nvidia card would be the cheapest way to go. CUDA gives the fastest transcoding speeds with quality that is sometimes better, but not much worse than CPU transcoding. You just have to research which GPU to go with for speed and price. A GTX275 is probably going to run around a little more than £100.

[barkinglama]

My current Motherboard will accept AM3 chips so I could put a quad core in there and use a nVidia graphics card?

Would that help as it would likely be the cheaper option.

What do you mean old? This is still pretty current, granted it doesn't support DDR3 memory, but it does take recent CPUs. Check out your boards CPU support page. That Phenom II 965 is not supported, it`s 125W TDP, but a nice Phenom II 1055T x6 is. The 965 runs at 3.4 GHz, but the fastest (955) your board can take runs at 3.2 GHz and the x6 has dynamic acceleration which will let it run at 3.2 GHz (from 2.8) when less than 3 cores are used.

Adding another 2 GB of memory would provide a 10-15% speed gain; not from the extra memory, but from enabling dual channel mode. But, you would most likely have to replace your current 2 Gig stick; the sticks should be the same with same memory chips. These days that technology is more flexible, so you don`t have to get special dual channel memory kits anymore. You might be able to swap yours, depends on the stores you deal with.

As Jagabo suggests, a CUDA enabled Nvidia card would be the cheapest way to go. CUDA gives the fastest transcoding speeds with quality that is sometimes better, but not much worse than CPU transcoding. You just have to research which GPU to go with for speed and price. A GTX275 is probably going to run around a little more than £100.

Thanks for the input, yeah I had seen that the cpu in my OP wasn't supported but there is a large selection of AM3 that are - I was a bit surprised by that I thought the board would be totally out of date by now, I think that the best way to go would be a CUDA card. I'll have a look for a GTX275 I have seen a GT240 with 1GB DDR2, is the amount of RAM on the card important or is it just the chip?

[jagabo]

is the amount of RAM on the card important or is it just the chip?

Only for gaming.

I missed that you only had one stick of DRAM in your computer now. Yes, adding another will give you a small improvement in encoding speed because of the dual channel access. I don't know that it will be as much as nic2k4 says though.

[barkinglama]

is the amount of RAM on the card important or is it just the chip?

Only for gaming.

I missed that you only had one stick of DRAM in your computer now. Yes, adding another will give you a small improvement in encoding speed because of the dual channel access. I don't know that it will be as much as nic2k4 says though.

Thanks all for the input, I won't be gaming so might be able to save a few bucks on the card. I have a list of CUDA enabled nVidia cards so will take that with me and see what I can get.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to create a file in less than a day

[deadrats]

Thanks for the input, yeah I had seen that the cpu in my OP wasn't supported but there is a large selection of AM3 that are - I was a bit surprised by that I thought the board would be totally out of date by now, I think that the best way to go would be a CUDA card. I'll have a look for a GTX275 I have seen a GT240 with 1GB DDR2, is the amount of RAM on the card important or is it just the chip?

the amount of ram is most definitely important, just like with any other workstation related task. i'll give you an example, i am currently using media coder to clean up some vob encapsulated mpeg-2/ac3 videos ripped from some dvd's i have. i already posted what settings i was using, using gpu-z i saw about 120 mb of video card used, a 2% load on the video cards memory controller and a 20-30 percent gpu load. (side note, if i change "filter by source" to "filter by encoder" the frame rate jumps from 70 fps to 170 fps with no noticeable degradation of quality).

if i'm encoding 720p video the video card memory jumps to about 250mb and if i'm encoding 1080p video it jumps higher still. the higher the resolution, the higher the bit rate and the more gou accelerated filters the more onboard ram you will need to avoid swapping out to main memory.

i don't consider the gtx275 a good choice, a better choice would be the gts450 1gig, it can be had in the $130 range, it's a dx11 part, uses fast gddr5 and it only uses a single 6pin power connection.

[jagabo]

I didn't realize mediacoder could use that much video memory. Still, I'd like to see some actual benchmarks with different amounts of memory.

[nic2k4]

... is the amount of RAM on the card important or is it just the chip?

That's a bit of a loaded question, the amount of memory as a lot to do with the architecture of the GPU, something in the lines of 128 MB of memory on a 64bit GPU is more than on a 128 bit GPU (except on Nvidia cards your dealing with cores). At any rate here's a quote from the wiki "Note that many applications require at least 256 MB of dedicated VRAM".

From what I see you should probably look at a GTS450 card for future capabilities and it`s only a little more expensive than a GTX275.

Oops, Deadrats posted the same thing while I was writing.

[jagabo]

It looks like I'll have to try mediacoder again. I tried it when it first came out and the results were so terrible (compared to x264) I uninstalled it. The only nvidia card I have right now is an old 256 MB DDR3 9600 GT (sitting on the shelf, unused). I know CUDA will work with it but will I have severe limitations? I mostly deal with standard definition video. For example DVD to h.264/AC3 MKV.

[deadrats]

I didn't realize mediacoder could use that much video memory. Still, I'd like to see some actual benchmarks with different amounts of memory.

media coder seems to be the most complete usage of cuda i have seen from any app, it's the only app i have seen that will load the gpu to around 50% (depending on filters and resolution) and it most definitely takes advantage of the on board ram.

as for benchmarks obviously it would take quite a bit of extensive testing but it should be obvious that if the app has to swap out to main memory it places an additional load on the cards memory controller, the pci-e bus and adds additional time due to having to refresh the buffers.

considering how cheap a pretty decent video card with a gig of ram is i don't see any reason to try and save $10-$20 by skimping on the on board ram, but that just me.

[deadrats]

It looks like I'll have to try mediacoder again. I tried it when it first came out and the results were so terrible (compared to x264) I uninstalled it. The only nvidia card I have right now is an old 256 MB DDR3 9600 GT (sitting on the shelf, unused). I know CUDA will work with it but will I have severe limitations? I mostly deal with standard definition video. For example DVD to h.264/AC3 MKV.

i think you'll be more than pleased with the results, a 9600gt has 64 cuda cores compared to the 128 on my gts250, considering even when using the gpu accelerated filters i am hitting 170 fps (with one file i actually hit 180 fps) when encoding 720x480 mpeg-2 to 720x480 h264, i would be surprised if you couldn't hit over 80fps with that card, even with filtering enabled, though you would probably be close to maxing out the card's ram with too many filters enabled.

give it a try, i think you'll have a hard time going back to software based encoders once you give it a shot.

[barkinglama]

I bought a Zotac 512MB Geforce 210 and downloaded the latest drivers for it from the zotac site, it appears that CUDA is enabled but the trial version of Badaboom said that I didn't have a CUDA card installed (I have disabled onboard graphics in BIOS and 210 is the only graphics showing in device manager)

I ran badaboom again and no warning this time but it's only encoding at 8fps?

What's going on?

[jagabo]

I ran badaboom again and no warning this time but it's only encoding at 8fps?

Encoding what at 8 fps? 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480?

[jagabo]

i think you'll be more than pleased with the results, a 9600gt has 64 cuda cores compared to the 128 on my gts250, considering even when using the gpu accelerated filters i am hitting 170 fps (with one file i actually hit 180 fps) when encoding 720x480 mpeg-2 to 720x480 h264, i would be surprised if you couldn't hit over 80fps with that card, even with filtering enabled, though you would probably be close to maxing out the card's ram with too many filters enabled.

give it a try, i think you'll have a hard time going back to software based encoders once you give it a shot.

I'm still figuring out all the details but I'm not all that impressed. I made a mistake about which card I had, it's an 8600 GT, not a 9600 GT. I am seeing 80+ fps encoding a 720x480 DVD source with CUDA (no filtering). But the lowly A64 X2 is getting about 30 fps with x264 (medium preset). I've been using the "variable bitrate" mode but the quality slider doesn't work with the CUDA encoder. I had to manually adjust the I/P/B quantizers in the advanced CUDA settings (the default values were horrendous). Quality appears to be OK once I adjusted the quantizers, but I haven't compared closely with x264 encodes yet. The mediacoder app itself is full of bugs. I can't make MKV files -- it complains about a missing ZLIB1.DLL. I didn't see any way to set the PAR/DAR when encoding from a AviSynth script.

[barkinglama]

I ran badaboom again and no warning this time but it's only encoding at 8fps?

Encoding what at 8 fps? 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480?

Mkv made with Make mkv and handbrake 1920 x 1080

I did notice that mediacoder the cpu was 100% and badaboom 10-15% so it must be using the GPU

Was estimating over 10HRS for the transcode to xbox 360

Doesn't appear to be making it any quicker

This is the card

http://tinyurl.com/34fzs3q

[nic2k4]

Mkv made with Make mkv and handbrake 1920 x 1080

I did notice that mediacoder the cpu was 100% and badaboom 10-15% so it must be using the GPU

Was estimating over 10HRS for the transcode to xbox 360

Doesn't appear to be making it any quicker

Handbrake and MakeMKV don't seem to support CUDA. Which version of MediaCoder did you get?

[barkinglama]

Mkv made with Make mkv and handbrake 1920 x 1080

I did notice that mediacoder the cpu was 100% and badaboom 10-15% so it must be using the GPU

Was estimating over 10HRS for the transcode to xbox 360

Doesn't appear to be making it any quicker

Handbrake and MakeMKV don't seem to support CUDA. Which version of MediaCoder did you get?

I just downloaded the latest one and the latest badaboom vers 0.7.5.4742 and 1.2.1.367 respectively

[nic2k4]

I guess you didn't get the CUDA version, click here to get it.

[barkinglama]

I guess you didn't get the CUDA version, click here to get it.

Thanks for that I'll look at it later, it was badaboom that told me I was getting 8fps (max)