system question

[downer]

I was just curious as to what people do for systems that they use to encode. I know encoding takes a while and eats up CPU. So do people just have one really good system (p4, or amd xp2100+) and use it for everything. Or do people generally have 2 systems one strictly for the encoding aspect, and the other for personal regular stuff.

Just wondering if I should get one really good computer, if I would be able to encode, and at the same time burn cd's, check e-mail, maybe work on some word documents, edit mpeg's etc.. and not have it be to much a burden on my computer (buffer underrun errors while encoding, and burning, etc). Or stick with what I have (pentium3 1gig) and use a crappy system (p3 700) for the encoding?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[sterno]

I don't use my machine too much while it's encoding, it's really annoying when you're 90% through an encode and something you're doing crashes the machine. But if you're careful what you run that shouldn't be a problem.

[thebigguy]

I set mine to run overnight using TMPGenc, I only have PIII 1.0.

[LordKariya]

One main non-encoding computer (Athlon XP 1700)

1 Capture/Encoding box (Athlon XP 1700 with the AIW)
2 Encoding boxes (Athlons 1.2 and 1.0)

Networked, all with the same software

[downer]

thanks for the posts. I think 2 pc's might be the way to go but hopefully I will be able to get away with one.

trial and error will be the only way to solve this one!
thanks again!

[kitty]

I vote for one bad ass machine. As you already have a P3 machine you can use it for surfing while the big boy works on all those encodes. Or like someone said do the big encodings during the night (or while at work) then play while you are using it.

[vinchi007]

well, I do it as well over the night or when I leave the house.
I have desktop 1GHz AMD and laptop 2GHz P4, but I don't use my laptop for encoding just simply I didn't set up the software yet

[Gazorgan]

I do everything on my 2 PC's. I encode smaller eps and run on mIRC on the slower one. The faster one is for DVD's and longer encodes ( and gaming ). I do other things while encoding. In fact, I watch movies while encoding, Joyous is W2K and priority levels (not to be confused with TMPGenc priority levels). You can get fancy and be encoding in vdub and TMPGenc at the same time while watchign a movie and d/l something, but you have to play with the settings for each app. And yes, it slows down the eoncoding. But then you can't pause that 6 hour encode in the middle to watch a flix.

Of course the fast machine has only the minimum running. OS, Patches, and Virus scanner. The older box has twice the background applications, jsut goes to show ya what happens over time.

[Anonymoususer]

got a 450MHZ Processor 20 GIG Harddrive..windows 98..takes around 8 - 10 hours to encode an hour of a movie....

Pity me !!!!

[hwoodwar]

I personally have three systems running on a regular basis. I have somewhere between 150 and 200 tapes that I have recorded off of cable TV over the years.

1. Capture/conversion of those tapes to VCD, CVD, or XSVCD formats: Pentium 4 2.0 gig overclocked to 2.4gig, 512meg PC333 ram, two WD 7200rpm hard drives (system/archive hd 2meg cache, capture hd 8mg cache), ATI AIW Radeon 7500 Capture/Video card; heavily used. I built this system strictly for capture/conversion and encoding, after I tried the other two systems listed below, and decided I wanted faster encode times and minimal dropped frames.

I find with the capture system I can be encoding one set of files in TMPGenc, while capturing to another file in VirtualDub with little to no dropped frames.

2. DVD Ripping system: Celeron overclocked to 1.1gig, 384meg ram; used about fifty percent of the time, strictly for DVD ripping

3. General purpose, and everything else: Duron overclocked to 1gig, 384meg ram; turned on whenever I need it. For light simple stuff, like surfing the Net, usually I'll just use one of the other systems, if it is already on, as the use of resources is minimal and only rarely affects encode times.

All three systems have internal DVD-ROM drives, CD burners, are networked together so I can easily transfer files, and on the same network there is an HP Laserjet 4p printer.

[Anonymoususer]

can you spell Bastard...

[crahak]

I have several machines networked, but mainly the 2 biggest ones share the job. One does the capturing (and at quiet times do encodes) whereas most of the time, the other will do the encoding. Both have DVD and CR-RW drives too, and they do come in handy. Mainly, it's the encode machine that does the DVD-Rip/encode work, and the capturing machine that does the burning at quiet times... Anyways, works for me... lol