Transcoding Speeds

[IpicmaNose]

I have an older scsi system with a large ide drive used for ripping my backups/storage/etc to on a p3 500 system w/ 512ram. Will i see an improvement on my transcoding (i use dvd decryptor, shrink, dvd2one) speeds if i transcode from harddrive to another harddrive versus harddrive to itself? Plenty of space available on the harddrive and defragged.

Also, anyone notice shrink's nero burns sometimes at 4x and sometimes at 2x? I have ritek g04s and usually burn at 4x, but occasionally notice it burns at 2x even though it states it's burning at 4x. I tell by the amount of time it takes. Copytodvd burns consistently at 4x. No coasters, but a strange thing nonetheless.

[K2]

your transcoding speed is more limited by your CPU speed.

[Thunder In Paradise]

Probably not. The only real speed difference you'll notice in transcoding is whether you transcode from disc to HD, or HD to itself. And K2 is right, transcoding has alot to do with CPU speed. Like with me, I have a 2.53Ghz P4 in my computer right now, and transcoding a normal 2 hour movie usually took around 15-20min. Now, since I've overclocked my CPU to 2.87Ghz, I've dropped my trans. speed to about 9min flat.

[IpicmaNose]

Thank you for the advice. I went ahead and checked my cpu usage and yup, 100% usage while transcoding so i think my cpu is maxed out. Maybe it's time for an upgrade.

Any opinion on SATA drives vs SCSI (U160) drives? I now finally see 10000 rpm sata drives, but then scsi has hit 15000 rpm.

[mrbass]

Also, anyone notice shrink's nero burns sometimes at 4x and sometimes at 2x? I have ritek g04s and usually burn at 4x, but occasionally notice it burns at 2x even though it states it's burning at 4x. I tell by the amount of time it takes. Copytodvd burns consistently at 4x. No coasters, but a strange thing nonetheless.

Are you sure...keep burning with CopyToDVD and see if it doesn't burn at 2X. I'm almost 99% sure it's the ritek g04's in my experience.

[IpicmaNose]

mrbass- yeah you're right. usually all my burns are part of the transcoding process, so i usually set it and forget it. i did pay attention this time around and i did notice even with copy to dvd it sometimes did copy at 2x. and sometimes at 4x. checked the settings on both nero and copytodvd and they are set at 'max' - 4x for me. wonder why it does that with the media? riteks have been good so far, no coasters and play on my standalones and got the ones rated 4x.

at what rate do most higher end processors transcode at? my p3 500 transcodes at around 1,500 Kb/s. Takes a while to transcode and deep analysis. A question that is running through my mind is, if deep analysis is supposed to improve quality by going through the entire movie and deciding where to pinch and cut bitrate, shouldn't that also help in transcoding time...knowing where and when to pinch?

[mrbass]

people jump on me when I say Ritek G04 are unreliable ...because in a sense they are 100% reliable...no bad burns. Only problem is they don't burn at 4X many times. I had one 100 pack they did burn at 4X and another 100 pack that didn't. That was an expensive $200 lesson that I learned. Now I only do TDK or Fuji to burn at 4X.

[IpicmaNose]

mr bass- thanks for the reply. Is it that way for copytodvd in particular or nero? or both since it's the media? I too bought a 100 pack and now noticing a majority burning at 2x speeds, actual time wise not what it says in the burner window. Not that I'm hurting for time, but would rather see it burn at 4x consistently. Strange how some will burn at 4x though...is it a quality of manufacture thing?

[mrbass]

yes..it's the media....after this expensive lesson go get a 100 pack of TDK 4X or a 15 pack of TDK at costco for $26.99. Or try Fry's and get a 100 pack of Fuji's 4X DVD-R or DVD+R for $139.99.

[IpicmaNose]

00 6C 00 00 01 40 C1 FD 9E D8 52 00 02 76 0E 14 .l...@....R..v..
88 9A 80 00 03 52 49 54 45 4B 47 00 04 30 34 00 .....RITEKG..04.
00 00 00 00 05 88 80 00 00 00 01 00 06 08 12 11 ................

is it because of the 'v' version making some inconsistent burn speeds? any ideas?

Have been not using the option to burn in shrink... encoding to HD and then opening Nero 6x. It burns at 4x compared to 2x when shrink opens nero, on two tries. copytodvd opened by itself (vs using dvd2one) still burns at 2x, also on two tries. same files.