Why does it take SOOOO long?

[someonesomewhere121]

I am using convertxtodvd to try and convert avi to dvd's. I just finished one dvd and it took around 4 hours. Is it because i had other programs running? I only have 512 RAM and 2.6g processor , Should i just leave it running while not using the computer?

thanks

[guns1inger]

Sounds about right if you were trying to do other things as well. If you have two physical hard drives then you might gain some relief by having the source on one disc and writing the results to the other.

The biggest gains come from dual or quad core CPUs, which can halve or better the time it takes. Otherwise all you can hope for a small, incremental improvements.

[kimco52]

Only four hours??
How long was the video? 30 mins?
Generally speaking, you should not be doing anything else on the computer when doing video stuff.

[halsboss]

In the real world, hollywood aside where they have the fantasy of zooming into pictures as crisp as you'll ever see from the crummiest of image sources... it does take a while. Your rig isn't the specciest so depending what clip and processing you were doing to it, it'll take time. A lot more detailed info than "some avi clip" would be helpful... good luck.

[jman98]

I am using convertxtodvd to try and convert avi to dvd's. I just finished one dvd and it took around 4 hours. Is it because i had other programs running? I only have 512 RAM and 2.6g processor , Should i just leave it running while not using the computer?

thanks

Yes, working on other programs doesn't help, but I have a bigger question for you. You are unable to let your PC do the work while you sleep (and thus it doesn't matter if it takes 4 hours) because ...?

Note that if you find something that works faster, it will certainly result in lower quality output.

[AlanHK]

Do ctl-alt-delete and look at the task manager. You'll see what's running, and how much memory and processor time is being used.

You probably have more than enough memory for this. Video encoding is basically processor bound: just depends on the number of cycles.

Don't worry about doing things like web browsing or writing documents. The extra load that imposes is trivial. 99.9% of the time it's waiting for you to do something, and so it can get on with encoding. As long as you're not doing anything intensive involving large amounts of data (eg, watching other videos) it'll be as fast as if you left it alone.

My setup is similar to yours. Encoding MPEG using HCEnc takes about 2.5x the playing time for a two-pass encode. (4 hours of video takes about 10 hours.) I just batch them up overnight.

[oldandinthe way]

Using ConvertXtoDVD my 1.4mhz Centrino Duo lakes approximately half the run time to convert AVI to DVD when I am using a two hour or less run time. Time frames are longer but not linear when I increase the amount of video I am writing. Suggest you check the input characteristics of your avi files and what you have specified the output parameters to be.

[handyguy]

Maybe your dvd drive is running in PIO mode?