Good Free Transcoding Software

[Bob740]

I am looking for something similar to Handbreak that I can transcode my .avi files into (x264). can anyone steer me in the right direction. Handbreak seems a little slow. Also is there a good free, easy to use program that I could add text to movies I already have.
thanks

[aedipuss]

handbrake isn't slow at all. it can also add subtitles.

[dylz]

aedipuss while your there one question, (offtopic) can handrake upconvert the video to a higher res? since all it seems to do is downscale.
I used handbrake once and added a few filters and thought whoa this is slow it said it was gonna take like three hours,then went to default profile and only took 30mins so make sure your not using filters.

[redwudz]

If it's encoding slow, probably because your CPU is slow. H.264 takes a lot of CPU power. A quad core with a CPU speed of 3Ghz will make it fairly fast. Filling in your Computer Details would help considerably, so we would know what you are working with. HINT!

But I would check Task Manager, assuming a MS OS, it should be running all cores at 100%. If so, that's as fast as it can get. Unless you plan a upgrade, just let the encodes run overnight.

And, depending on the front end/GUI you use for the X.264 codec, there are some settings with the codec than can speed up the encoding. Using a single pass encode with just quality settings is fairly fast, but you don't have any control over the output size. I use two pass and set the output size. But it still takes a long time.

[fritzi93]

It's your settings. Changing to another program won't help as the most popular ones all use the X264 encoder anyway. That said, yes, you need enough CPU power to get the job done in reasonable time.

[Bob740]

Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU
Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T6400 @ 2.00GHz 147 °F
Penryn 45nm Technology
RAM
4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 398MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
Sony Corporation VAIO (N/A)
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor @ 1600x900
Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Hard Drives
313GB FUJITSU MHZ2320BH G1 (IDE) 106 °F
Ricoh Memory Stick Disk Device (IDE)
3.95GB Ricoh SD/MMC Disk Device (IDE)
Optical Drives
Optiarc BD ROM BC-5500S
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

[Bob740]

This is my PC info. Also, I have a mkv movie that is 7.93GB, I guess I don't know how to set up Handbreak. Any help is apricated.

[redwudz]

Sorry, I accidentally deleted your post about converting a MKV while changing the title to conform to our rules. You can repost it if it doesn't concern the question you've asked here. If not you can add it to this thread. If you repost it, please post it with a title descriptive of your subject. And thanks for your PC data. Your PC should be fast enough to do long encodes overnight if needed.

Moderator redwudz

[Bob740]

I forgot I had Xilisoft. I put my movie in that, and converting to a MP4-MPEG-4 Video. The preview looks very good while its converting. Thanks for you guys help and input.