a very large project - mass re-encode

[mdrdlp]

ive searched, but couldnt find anything to help. sorry if this has been covered.

heres my situation: i have a media server in my home.... its a g5 quad that i retired from my desktop use when i bought a new mac pro. i have it stacked full of hdd's, and use it to stream to various things around the home.

my problem: for a long time, i chose divx to encode everything i put on my server (im no fan of keeping 400,000 dvd's laying around my living room). i realize now, that this was a major mistake. but, i have over 1,000 titles done that way. (yes... my attic is almost like a blockbuster retail store)

as time has progressed, more and more has started using h.264. the final straw was when the xbox added support for the format. i know have an apple tv, a ps3, and a 360... all of which cant read divx (without an act of god, and possibly voiding a lot of warranties)... but CAN stream h.264. ive made the decision that im going to move my collection to h.264 immediately.

now... if worst comes to worse, i can always start bringing crates down from the attic, and re-ripping them into the new format. but, im trying to save the time. ideally, i would like to find a way to automate this process. either via command line, or ffmpegx with some way to daisy chain all of these files, and leave it unattended. i realize that the quality is going to decrease (a encode of an encode isnt the best option) but given the alternative of doing them one at a time, and completely destroying my home in the process... im willing to deal with it. i also realize this is probably going to take weeks... possibly even months. but the end result is well more than worth it to me.

can anyone offer any recommendation on how to accomplish this easily? im open to suggestions.

[redwudz]

Probably better in our MAC forums. Moving you.

H264 takes quite a while to convert and takes a bit of CPU power to play. I still use Xvid/Divx.

[mdrdlp]

sorry about that.

should have waited about 10 more minutes to post this. but thought i would post this for others... a friend just purchased one, and the speed increase was just RIDICULOUS. while my powermac is FAR from slow... it would take me roughly 35-45 minutes to rip or encode a movie in h.264. his MACBOOK (much slower) can do the same with this little dongle in 10 minutes. 10 FREAKING MINUTES FOR AN ENTIRE MOVIE!!

they have included some software that does batch conversion, which is EXACTLY what i needed. im really not fond of the price tag... but its the perfect solution for me. i cant ask for anything better.

google it (dont want to seem like im spamming) - its the el gato eye-tv turbo. just a little hardware dongle that does all the encoding. i'll probably pick one up tomorrow if i can find one local.

[lordsmurf]

How the hell do you afford (and watch!) 400,000 DVDs?

At 5 hours per day (7 days per week), it would take 219 years to watch them all, assuming an average of 2 hours per disc. Not to mention it would require at least $1 per DVD, meaning this collection cost at least a half million dollars.

Even at 1MB per movie, you're going to have hard drive space issues. Not to mention attic space problems (it would fill a large room, in spindles stacked floor to ceiling).

Even Blockbuster stores don't have this amount of inventory.

[Frobozz]

Given that even with the ElGato Turbo that encoding to H.264 is greater than real-time - and if lordsmurf's math is correct - it would take more than 219 years to transcode them all using one Mac (not including time spent ripping). I suggest getting at least 219 Macs and 219 Turbos so you can have the project completed in maybe less than 2 years if you don't go out much.

[edDV]

Smells like fraud. Whew hate that smell!


I need to see this dongle that acts like a supercomputer. Don't bother with us, take this to George Lucas and save some global warming. Lucas has a heavy footprint.

[Kryton]

I'm not sure if the USB ports on your G5 are on separate buses. If they are, you could buy a turbo (or two), ask your friend to lend you his and plug them all in at the same time.

I'm assuming you would be able to duplicate your encoding app for each turbo plugged in.

With a multi-core mac and lot's of hard drives things might go faster than you think.