Computer Encoding Box

[Clownzer]

Hey Guys,

I figured this would be a good thread to start and to build on to give people some specs to follow when designing there next encoding box. I know a lot of you have to be like me and hate waiting for an encoding job to finish so they can use there pc again. So here I would like to use this thread for individuals to chime in on what hardware and software should be taken into consideration when designing an encoding box.

So here are some areas I think would be helpful in the design

BRAND: Intel or AMD
Is one considered better than the other?

MBOARD CHIPSET: Nvidia, Intel, Ati
Does one have an advantage over the other?

CPU: Single, Dual, Quad and Beyond
Why is one better than the next and is there software that can take advantage of all or one of them.

RAM: 2, 4 or 8GB - ECC or Non-ECC
With encoding is more better?

HARD DRIVE: 5400, 7200, 10K, 15K or SSD
Does drive speed help with encoding?

VIDEO CARD: Nivida, ATI, Onboard, Add-In
Does this impact encoding or just play back

OPERATING SYSTEM: 32bit 64bit
Software / Encoding Speed impact?

I look forward to your replies and will update this first post as the comments come in. I would like to look at this from the point of taking a pure source, bluray / dvd rip and encoding it through x264 or another high end format.

[yoda313]

RAM: 2, 4 or 8GB
With encoding is more better?

Not necessarily. 2gb at least is a good idea for vista or 7. But that is just for applications to run smoothly with multiple apps open. The encoding is generally cpu intensive.

Basically allocate your funds for a faster processor not ram for video encoding.

[Ai Haibara]

It probably should be noted that if you use a 32-bit OS, you'll only be able to use a little less than 4GB (3.2GB? I don't remember the exact number) of RAM, even if you have more than that installed.

I wouldn't make that my determining factor in wanting to move to a 64-bit OS, though. Even though I've seen some 32-bit programs work much better on my Vista64 tower as opposed to my Vista32 tower, I'm not sure I really recommend moving to a 64-bit OS unless you're familiar with the pros/cons, all the information you can find (making sure the programs you want to use will actually run on that version of the OS, for example), and are absolutely sure you'd want to use it.

Of course, I think Microsoft's working toward eventually being 64-bit only - but that shouldn't be a deciding factor, either.

[redwudz]

BRAND: Intel or ATI
Is one considered better than the other?

I assume you mean Intel or AMD CPUs? They are very close in performance with some CPU models. AMDs are generally lower in price.

MBOARD CHIPSET: Nvidia, Intel, Ati
Does one have an advantage over the other?

They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and supporters. But, IMO, not a lot of difference.

CPU: Single, Dual, Quad and Beyond
Why is one better than the next and is there software that can take advantage of all or one of them.

If your encoding application can use multiple threads, then more cores are usually better. More important is the CPU speed. Multiple cores with CPU speeds close to 4Ghz are best for some video codecs like Xvid, H.264 and similar for the fastest conversion times.

RAM: 2, 4 or 8GB - EEC or Non-EEC
With encoding is more better?

EEC is more useful for servers. Non-EEC is fine for encoding PCs. RAM doesn't have much affect on encoding speed. Use what your motherboard recommends. I prefer 4GB for 32bit OSs. They can use a bit less than 4GB, most of my PCs use about 3.5 - 3.7GB.

HARD DRIVE: 5400, 7200, 10K, 15K or SSD
Does drive speed help with encoding?

Hard drive speed doesn't have much affect on encoding speed as that is mostly determined by CPU speed. A 7200RPM HDD is fine. A faster boot drive can help with boot speed and program loading.

VIDEO CARD: Nivida, ATI, Onboard, Add-In
Does this impact encoding or just play back

Some newer video cards from Nvidia and ATI can use the card for hardware acceleration and encoding and may lower your CPU access levels. But you still want a fast CPU.

OPERATING SYSTEM: 32bit 64bit
Software / Encoding Speed impact?

As mentioned, 64bit OSs can help encoding speed if the encoding program is 64bit aware. But I use 32bit OSs as all my programs work with them.

And welcome to our forums.

[ocgw]

Hey Guys,

I figured this would be a good thread to start and to build on to give people some specs to follow when designing there next encoding box. I know a lot of you have to be like me and hate waiting for an encoding job to finish so they can use there pc again. So here I would like to use this thread for individuals to chime in on what hardware and software should be taken into consideration when designing an encoding box.

So here are some areas I think would be helpful in the design

BRAND: Intel or ATI
Is one considered better than the other?

MBOARD CHIPSET: Nvidia, Intel, Ati
Does one have an advantage over the other?

CPU: Single, Dual, Quad and Beyond
Why is one better than the next and is there software that can take advantage of all or one of them.

RAM: 2, 4 or 8GB - EEC or Non-EEC
With encoding is more better?

HARD DRIVE: 5400, 7200, 10K, 15K or SSD
Does drive speed help with encoding?

VIDEO CARD: Nivida, ATI, Onboard, Add-In
Does this impact encoding or just play back

OPERATING SYSTEM: 32bit 64bit
Software / Encoding Speed impact?

I look forward to your replies and will update this first post as the comments come in. I would like to look at this from the point of taking a pure source, bluray / dvd rip and encoding it through x264 or another high end format.

First off, welcome to the forums

If you are reencoding a blu ray w/ BD-RB it has a nifty lil' setting called "run in idle process", it will then only run in the background and not interfere w/ or slowdown anything you are doing cpu wise, and if you have enough hard drives for BR-RB to work on w/o accessing your OS drive you can multi-task to your hearts content while reencoding, you can actually forget you have a heavy duty reencoding job running

I have had BR-RB running in the background from 1 HDD to another, while ripping a blu ray to a 3rd HDD, while watching a blu ray from a 4th drive w/o any "strain" on my system, or any loss of quality

btw I run a highly overclocked AMD quad w/ 8GB of DDR2 1066 w/ a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB boot drive, I convert a blu ray to BD-9 in 4-6hrs

ps. I just swapped out my Phenom II X4 940 BE 140w cpu for a Athlon II X4 630 95w, now I can reencode all night in a heatwave w/o turning on the air lol

Guess what? L3 cache does NOT help reencoding whatsoever, so my early high stock voltage, L3 cache heat creating Phenom II would run @ 3.8Ghz, but was on the thermal edge even w/ a monster hsf, my new Propus does the same job @ 10c* lower temps

not bad for $112 eh?

My Phenom II X4 940 BE @ 3.8Ghz now serves faithfully in my 2nd PC, My Athlon II X2 245 Regor @ 3.8Ghz will be replacing my old 6000+ in my 3rd PC (6000+ is getting sold off w/ other assorted obsolete gear as a complete PC)

You know, I have 3 Phenom II/Athlon II cpus and they are all stable @ 3.8Ghz on air, nice since my old 6000+ was a poor overclocker, I wasn't sure if AMD would ever recapture the overclocking glory of the XP/Athlon 64 days

ocgw

peace

[rallynavvie]

What is EEC memory?

[Poppa_Meth]

What is EEC memory?

http://www.tech-faq.com/ecc-memory.shtml

Error Correction Codes

[ocgw]

What is EEC memory?

http://www.tech-faq.com/ecc-memory.shtml

Error Correction Codes

That is all "fine and dandy", but what is EEC memory? :P

ocgw

peace

[Clownzer]

Wow guys thanks for all the replies, ill get to updating the first post and post my project box in the works.

@ocgw Sorry I ment ECC memory that my two windows servers use, fat finger mistake.

@ocgw (also) how do you like the quality that BD Rebuilder produces? I have been using RipBot264 and converting my movies straight to mkv to stream to my WDTV.

Thanks

[redwudz]

Electronic Error Correcting? (Or maybe just a typo ) ARGH..., too many acronyms, not enough sleep. ECC would probably have been better.

[ocgw]

Wow guys thanks for all the replies, ill get to updating the first post and post my project box in the works.

@ocgw Sorry I ment ECC memory that my two windows servers use, fat finger mistake.

@ocgw (also) how do you like the quality that BD Rebuilder produces? I have been using RipBot264 and converting my movies straight to mkv to stream to my WDTV.

Thanks

I see you can take a j/k

I experimented w/ BD-RB and found it to be an amazing tool, but in the end I opted for the purist approach for my personal collection, uncompressed, movie only (tons easier and faster too), and HDD's are a "dime a dozen" these days

ocgw

peace

[rallynavvie]

but in the end I opted for the purist approach for my personal collection, uncompressed, movie only (tons easier and faster too), and HDD's are a "dime a dozen" these days

Yeah, I'm surprised people are still encoding down as much these days with how cheap storage is. Everyone is so worried about getting encoding artifacts and getting their encoding speeds down as low as possible and for the cost of the additional hardware/software required you could just spend more on storage and rip the entire disc to an image file and mount it on demand.

I stopped re-encoding rips about 5 years ago when I first got MCE running. Granted the storage array I bought was a little overkill (and still is) but at the time I wanted expandability. Now you can get a tower case with a lot of room for HDDs and add on some of those multi-HDD NAS or USB drives that are going for so cheap.

However that doesn't mean there isn't a need for encoding speed. While I'd say an easy 90% of folks on this site are mostly interested in re-encoding video (from rips and whatnot) but there are still a few who compose, edit, and master source video projects. Those are the folks that should really be spending more on their hardware/software.