2.4G Pentium to 3.0G Upgrade worth it for encode?

[snek11]

I have a 2.4G Pentium 4 with 512 Ram. My Mobo can support up to a 3.0G P4 and I want to have faster encoding. I mainly encode in TMPGEnc from divx or VCD to DVD mpeg. Would this upgrade really speed me up or is it not much of a difference? I feel like my encoding times are slow.

For instance, a 60 min divx file to 1/2Full dvd (352x480NTSC) takes 4.5 hours with 2 pass VBR High Quality.

Is that about right?

[lordsmurf]

Why would you encode "VCD to DVD"? Just author the MPEG-1 files.

4.5 hours? You've got some bad settings. Some of those overkill settings. See this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/convert/tmpgenc/tmpgencplus.htm

If you want 2-pass VBR, use something else.

[fmctm1sw]

I did some testing with my PC by overclocking and doing encodes at different speeds. You could probably get a good idea of exactly how fast a 3GHZ CPU would speed up you encode. My results were very linear and predictable. But as mentioned, if you want to speed up, just drop $60 on CCE.

*edit* an oh yeah... Don't reencode your VCDs. Demultiplex the audio and convert to AC3 and leave the resolution alone, it's DVD compliant. I've done a lot of these.

[snek11]

Well I tried using standard mpeg alone and it doesn't play right, so I've stuck to re-encoding it. Either way I do mostly divx to dvd. I'll check out that site and read up, thx. I've read through a lot of posts here and there and I'm still having trouble with what settings I should use.

[rhegedus]

Does your motherboard support hyperthreading?

[snek11]

No I don't have hyperthreading.

[snek11]

lordsmurf: I just finished reading that article, it was a great help, great guide. I did have an extra question though, it was about resolutions.

What would you do if you had a source that was 640x480, blow it up to 720x480 or go to 352x480?

[junkmalle]

What would you do if you had a source that was 640x480, blow it up to 720x480 or go to 352x480?

If your source isn't fuzzy 720x480 will be noticably clearer than 352x480. But it also depends on just how much you want to put on a DVD. A rough rule of thumb would be 2 hours or less 720x480, more than 2 hours 352x480.

[handyguy]

.6ghz would give you about .6/2.4ghz of improvement.
So if encoding takes 2 hours on 2.4ghz you would get about .6/2.4 worth of improvement

[funkguy4]

.6ghz would give you about .6/2.4ghz of improvement.
So if encoding takes 2 hours on 2.4ghz you would get about .6/2.4 worth of improvement

it's not that simple...you gotta take I/O latencies and badnwidth bottleniecks into account. your actually gain will most probably not be this much.

[din4na]

Trust me, its worth .

If you can raise your Mhz by 500 , you can raise your encode frame/sec = 5-6 frame, and i think its cool

But , btw, you need to buy a new mobo, that support HT

[Quantum]

If you are using TMPGEnc Xpress it will take advantage of HT and the SSE3 of a Prescott processor. Something to consider since the Prescotts are now quite a bit cheaper than the Northwood equivalents.

[jimmalenko]

Theoretically you should be able to reduce your times by about 25%. Practically it'll probably be closer to 15%-20% IMO. As mentioned, you'd probably get a much bigger time decrease just by using CCE instead of TMPGEnc, but then you've got to ride the learning curve with it after that. Personally I'd keep it as is, and then the mext time you're due for an upgrade, upgrade the mobo to a HT-enabled one and then drop the fastest CPU you can afford into it.

[funkguy4]

@jimmalenko
Amen.

Also, if you're into the whole overclocking bit (which P4's are popular for) head for the low end of the high class, they usually overclock well. but get ready for some heat.

But damn, your current cpu is better than mine and i don't forsee an upgrade for a good 2.5 yrs from now (currently working on 2.5 yrs old Athlon XP 1900 PALOMINO this thing runs hot and noisy)

[monzie]

Using a 2.4 AMD and CCE (via AVISYNTH) I achieve

a) around 1.3 real time for CBR encodings (excellent results but 'wasteful')

b) around 1.3 real time (per pass) for 2 pass VBR's (much longer encoding obviously) but excellent results

c) the most stunning (you have to see it to believe it).... around 1.8x real time using OPV mode......with no VISIBLE drop in quality from cbr or vbr (where talking divx/xvid source upsized so there is no extra info to gain anyway)......so a typical 90min movie encoded in around 50mins.....and yet it only uses a ave bitrate of around 1.8-3.5.....depending on the Q value used and the source avi.

So why not try CCE first?