MainConcept 1.4 Encoder Very Slow?

[vcddude]

Hello all,

I keep reading about how much faster MainConcept 1.4 is compared
to TMPGEnc, but I am not seeing much speed improvement.

My system:
- WinXP Pro SP1
- 512MB RAM
- 2.4GHz Pentium 4
- 200GB disk

I ran a few tests with a 1 min clip, 10 min clip, and 1 hour 46 min clip, all DV clips captured from Canopus ADVC-100.

I do not see anything close to "near real-time" encoding with MC1.4.
Here is what I am seeing in terms of encoding speeds, with both
MC1.4 and TMPGEncPlus 2.511: [TMPGEnc encoded with "high quality(slow)" setting]

1 min clip - CBR encode to elemental streams (m2v, wav)
MC1.4: 4 min 10 sec (not even close to "real-time")
TMPGEnc: 7 min 02 sec
-- Here MC is about 2x TMPGEnc speed

1 min clip - 2 Pass VBR to elemental streams (m2v, wav)
MC1.4: 7 min 32 sec
TMPGEnc: 10 min 23 sec
-- Here MC is about 1.4x TMPGEnc speed - big deal

10 min clip - 2 Pass VBR to elemental streams (m2v, wav)
MC1.4: 1 hour 8 min 37 sec
TMPGEnc: 1 hour 29 min 25 sec
-- Here MC is about 1.3x TMPGEnc speed - big deal

I started encoding the 1hr 46min clip with MC1.4 in 2 PassVBR mode
and it took about 6 hours to complete the first pass -- I did not let it
complete -- but this means it would take ~12 hours to enode the
whole thing! This would be SLOWER than TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc usually
encodes this kind of file for me in 2 Pass VBR mode in about 9 hours
total.

So, my question is:

Why do I see such "slow" MC Encoder performance? In CBR mode it
looks like MC is about twice as fast, but in 2 Pass VBR mode MC does not
appear to be much faster than TMPGEnc (and actually may be slower).
Is this to be expected or do I have some wrong MC settings enabled?

Thanks for your help.
vcddude

[vcddude]

Another thing -- MainConcept is much faster on my laptop (which has
a slower CPU!) than on my desktop with the faster CPU. I don't understand this...

vcddude

[BJ_M]

your results are way off ... but without knowing more facts , can't tell you why ...

looks like some conversion or something is happening -- or a lot of noise reduction or some codec reading issue

[vcddude]

your results are way off ... but without knowing more facts , can't tell you why ...

What would you like to know? This is really strange -- MC1.4 is really
fast on my laptop -- I installed the Panasonic DV codec. My desktop
is using the MainConcept DV codec. Think I should install the Panasonic
DV codec on my desktop? (desktop is the one showing poor encoding
performance). Laptop CBR encode is about real-time.

I am totally stumped. Are there any obvious settings for me to check?
In both cases I use the default settings of "Search Method=5"
and "Search Range=15" and do not enable NoiseReduction.

Also in the main MC window, when I load a clip, sometimes it says "DirectShow Import" and other times "AVI Import". Why is this?


vcddude

[BJ_M]

its switching between microsoft and Mc dv codec ..

use graphedit and see which one is being used ...

you can set priorities in mc options ... try to turn off one or the other avi readers ..

[vcddude]

Do you think this is the root of the problem?

vcddude

[vcddude]

looks like some conversion or something is happening

What kind of conversion might be happening? Sorry for all the questions
but I really wanna figure this one out.

vcddude

[BJ_M]

you said in a pm that your system takes a long time to boot and such - you may want to check that out first ...

in mc -- options -> import modules

turn off directshow import , turn off dv import (type1)

try that , then try only direct show on

[vcddude]

Thanks, I will clean the registry and the startup folder, and then
tweak the module settings tonight.

stay tuned for results -- thanks for your help

vcddude

[vcddude]

Update: I discovered that my hard drive was BADLY fragmented. I ran Windows Disk Defragmenter and unfortunately it could not totally defrag the drive because I still have a large AVI (25GB) that I need to convert to MPEG. This one is fragmented into literally hundreds of pieces. The 60 second clip I was encoding with MC1.4 is not fragmented but I am hoping that this general fragmentation issue is the source of my problem. Once I finish with this AVI I will convert to MPEG with TMPGEnc, delete the AVI and then defrag again. Do you think this will fix my "slow MC1.4" problem?"

Also, do you think this fragmentation issue is the source of the long boot-time? (WinXP Pro window is shown for about a minute).

Thanks,
vcddude

[BJ_M]

fragmentation shouldn't slow up the boot that much -- being that windows was prob. installed on a unfrag'd drive and the files dont move . though a badly frag'd swap file or a corrupted MFT table can slow things down a lot .. there is also a hidden dir in winxp which preloads parts of programs that are used a lot -- this can get mucked up ... slow boot ussually (im no expert) is result of unfound devices and drivers and drive problems in general ..

i do know that the best defrag ive used (and use) is O&O defrag ..

[vcddude]

also after doing the defrag i encoded the 60 sec DV clip with MC1.4 in CBR mode and it still took about 3 minutes to encode. so some problem still exists somewhere. nobody else has ever seen this problem?

this has me stumped.

thanks for the defrag tip - i will try out the O&O product - they have
a 30 day trial.

vcddude

[racer-x]

I'd say it's time to reinstall XP or restore from a previously made good image. I'm running XP pro (no SP) with an AMD XP1700 and easily encode default CBR settings in real time.

[vcddude]

Ugh, i've done that twice already within a period of a month to solve some other problems....

if that's what it takes, i'll need to seriously consider it. Easy to do, just takes some time.

thanks,
vcddude

[vcddude]

Here's another piece of info that may help solve this:

On my laptop where MC runs fast as expected, when you launch MC1.4, the splash screen is displayed for maybe one second and then the MC1.4 GUI is displayed.

On my desktop where MC performance is very slow, the splashscreen is displayed for about 3 seconds before the GUI is displayed.

Weird. Does this point to the fragmentation issue?

vcddude

[racer-x]

You may have something you don't know about that's running in the background sucking up your system resources.

[vcddude]

What's the simplest way to identify this system resource sucker? Use the Task Manager? When I do this I don't see anything using CPU cycles.

vcddude

[BJ_M]

no disrespect ... but sorting something like this out long distance and blind , is very difficult ... and when it comes to it .. a re-install is the shortest route to go (unless you also have a hardware isssue)

[vcddude]

Yeah I understand, no disrespect taken. I will try a WinXP Repair first to see if that fixes things. If not, I will consider a full XP reinstall without a disk wipe.

thanks,
vcddude

[johns0]

i recently had to remove intel application accelerator from a p4 and got back from pio to udma 5,dont know if this will help

[vcddude]

Hello all,

After trying several things, I discovered that XP in general was having
serious performance problems, so it wasn't just an MC1.4 issue.

So, after defragging, cleaning the registry, and cleaning the startup folder, I did a WinXP Repair Reinstallation. This fixed the problem! Wasn't too painful (took about 45 minutes) and now everything runs as expected.

Thanks for everyone's help!
vcddude