Tmpg encoding speed query

[csaag]

Plus 2.5 version took 1 hour to encode 4 min of 480x480 (huffy 2.1.1) AVI (30 fps) to Mpeg2.
Tmpg settings were interlaced, CBR of 2520 (default setting) and motion search precision of 'high quality (slow)'
My system has an Athlon XP 1600+ (Win 98), 256mb DDR2100 ram
I was curious if that amount of time seemed normal to others and, if not, what could be contributing to the time. No other programs were running.

I previously encoded 30 min of AVI but used the 'motion est search (fast)' setting for MSP. That took about 90 minutes.

[rioja]

follow the link at this site

http://www.vcdhelp.com/comparison.htm#mpeg

it takes a while to convert. I normally batch code at night so when i wake up, everything is done . It just takes me a sweet dream to get 4 films done !!!

[csaag]

According to that chart, 1 min of AVI video took about 8 minutes using Tmpg (looks like an older version though). I was getting twice the time.
A 2 hour movie to convert would take about 30 hours at that rate (and my resolution was 480x480 which was smaller than the res used in that chart).

That makes me think I'm not setting something properly since I don't see posts about those types of times.

[theDruid]

just a though csaag...

but other than the video settings you mentioned, you don't happen to be encoding from one hard disk to another do you (eg. a capture disk & your main disk)?

If so, are they on the same IDE channel (eg. one a primary slave, the other the primary master)?

This could be a reason for the slowness you're experiencing - as the computer can only 'talk to' one of the devices on each IDE channel at a time.

cheers,

mcdruid.

[dryduck]

That does seem somewhat slow. With very similar input, output, and settings, I was seeing about 4x realtime (i.e. a 1 minute video takes about 4 min to encode) on the "slow" motion search setting -- P4 1.7GHz, 256 megs memory. Actually that might have been on "slowest".

But interestingly, your 30 minute sample on the 'fast' setting is about 3x realtime, which is close to what I get on that setting. Did something change on your system in between? Source or destination drive of the data files? Is something sucking up memory or cpu time that you do not realize is running? Did your drive become badly fragmented?

[csaag]

I only have 1 hard drive (Maxtor 5400rpm 40gb). DVD-rom/Cd-writer are on the other IDE channel. *edit* About dual hard disks, I remember the ABIT (KR7A-133) mb manual stating not to put HD's on the same channel with slower devices like CD-roms - something about it slows down HD performance.

System setup should have been the same for both captures (Vcool running, Zonealarm loaded but not doing anything - out of laziness I didn't disable it. I guess Vcool is pretty useless also during this process).
I did defrag the disks both times but not immediately before the captures. With the kids jumping on and off the PC I guess anything's possible.
I'll retry the MSP settings and be more rigorous about the system status and note the times.

[csaag]

OK I forgot about mentioning noise reduction in Tmpg.
In Tmpg I had the noise filter selected (left the settings at default) BUT I also checked the high quality checkbox. This setting gave me a 15x realtime encoding time.

3x time - MSP set to motion est search with no filters
5x time - MSP set to high quality(slow) with no other filters
6x time - MSP set to high quality(slow) with default settings for noise filter
15x time - MSP set to high quality(slow) with default settings for noise filter
and high quality checked.

The source was analog camcorder video which looks very good on both the PC and the TV. So should I apply any filters (in Vdub or Tmpg)?
From what the help box said about the HQ checkbox I don't think I need it.
thanks

[gll99]

You may want to check the Options....environmental settings...CPU

Make sure you have the right CPU option set on.

I also follow a suggestion posted by another user a while back and set the use multiThread ON even though I have only 1 cpu. I set the 3 boxes on , Plus the video prefetch to 64 ( I have 512 mem so could up this)
The prefetch would probably not help with frameserving but I leave it like that anyway.

You could try these settings if not already set like that and see if they help.

[andie41]

Interesting tip on checking the Multithread in Environment settings - I would never have tried this setting, as I only have a single processor (Athlon XP 1700+) but when I ttried it and checed the associated 3 boxes, my encode time decreased by 10%. I don't understand why that would be the case, but if it doesn't decrease the quality, then why not?

Also, by selecting SSE, my encodes have decreased by about 38%. With the basic encoding as reported previously - 480x480, CBR 2520, motion estimate, I am getting tantalizing close to real time (1.65X). I have my cpu overclocked by about 10%.

andie

[gll99]

If you have 3D now with that cpu.

If its not grayed out then it should be on also as well as SSE ...MMX...MMM2 if applicable.

[csaag]

Thanks for those tips gll.
I just saw Best Buy selling 256mb Crucial 2100 DDR for $35 so I'll be upgrading to 512mb ram myself today