time it takes to encode

[dydo]

please can anyone advise me how long it should take to encode a movie in avi format to mpeg with tmpgenc. my movie is in two parts, when i start the encoding for the first part it says it will take around 24 hours. is this correct and is there anyway of speeding it up
cheers

[vhelp]

need more info!

* CPU
* Speed
* using any filters?
* etc, etc.

[dydo]

its a fairly slow system pentium 200 mmx 256mb im not using any filters that i know of

[vhelp]

dydo,

I'm sorry about your slow cpu. I can't really offer good speedup suggestion
other than:
* find a good PC mazizine (computer shopper)
* look for < $60 motherboards and find a good fast CPU chip for that MB
that will support all your hardware/IO cards you already have in your system.
I purchase the XP 1700+ (though I bumped into proble, it's working for now)
for $195, and I was lucky it worked in my Socket A MB - took me 10hours to
figure out how to get it to work (10hours straight)
But, I could have gotten a replace CPU for (T-Brd) for $80 bucks.

Assuming you can spend $80 for an Athlon T-Brd CPU chip and another $50 <
for an new MB, (or approx $130) you got yourself a much faster encoding
system.

Otherwise, the best I can suggest (softwarewise) is to run dozens of tests
on various bitrate encodes and see which one looks the best, give or take
a few scenes that will not corroperate. Do like, short 5 second encodes in
TMPG...do:
* Advanced tab
* [x] Source and dbl-click it and do like a range of 100 frames, by clicking
the Begin and End button. Then click OK button to accept
* start with a bitrate of 2500, working your way down till quality is just about
not so good. Do this by adjusting/knocking down your bitrate by 100 each
encoding process. Try this with a dozen or so small clips, then burn them
all on CD in one shot, and play them on your DVD/TV. Don't burn as ONE
file, but burn each file, by dragging each .mpg clip into, ie, Nero and then
burn.

I hope this works out. Once you find the lowest bitrate you can stand, stick
to it on all your encodes till you can afford a faster (in your case) CPU and MB
combo in your next upgrade.

May the CPU b with you

-vhelp