Does more RAM mean faster encoding?

[vtecmw]

I have a Pentium 2.4 Ghz
512 MB PC2700 DDR RAM
1 60 GB Hard Disk
1 250 GB Hard disk (50 Gig Partion + 200 Gig Partition)
I capture to AVI from my Tivo using VirtualDub
I encode using Canopus ProCoder and TMPGEnc.
Encoding a 2 hour movie to MPEG-2 DVD takes about 9 hours with my system.
I use 2 Pass VBR, 5000 average bit rate, 6000 max bit rate. I know that 2 Pass is slow. What I would like to know is if more memory would help speed up encoding times?

Any information is appreciated.

[holistic]

.....would like to know is if more memory would help speed up encoding times?

NO

[tigerman8u]

512mg of ram is enough. Encoding time is mainly dependent on the clock speed of your cpu.
try main concept. 2-4x faster.

[teegee420]

Agreed. Mainconcept MPEG Encoder has recently become my personal favorite. It's much faster than TMPGEnc and even edges it out a little in terms of quality in my opinion.

[tsantsa]

Agreed. Mainconcept MPEG Encoder has recently become my personal favorite. It's much faster than TMPGEnc and even edges it out a little in terms of quality in my opinion.

I don't agree with the quality comparison. Tmpgenc seems to be 'smoother' or something like that. I find Mainconcept to be blocky with it encoding...Though that may have to do with the settings more than anything else...Mainconcept has ALOT of nonuser-friendly settings! And it has quite a few more than tmpgenc.

I use tmpgenc mostly now since the settings are more user friendly than mainconcept...My opinion anyhow. :P

Though, if you set you encoding for overnight, then it doesn't matter how long it takes eh?

[teegee420]

that may have to do with the settings more than anything else...Mainconcept has ALOT of nonuser-friendly settings! And it has quite a few more than tmpgenc. I use tmpgenc mostly now since the settings are more user friendly than mainconcept...My opinion anyhow.

You're absolutely right, dude. The thing is, I've actually had Mainconcept for a few months and I've only recently worked all the kinks out as far as the various settings. Believe me, There were several comparisson tests that I ran to reach my assessment.

[johns0]

Try doing a pal to ntsc conversion with mainconcept.

[teegee420]

I haven't needed to do that particular conversion for quite some time. I take it Mainconcept didn't perform well for you in that regard?

[johns0]

Nope,cant change the framerate and even files that are 23.976 cant be encoded at 23.976,they get changed to 29.97.

[VCDHunter]

Nope,cant change the framerate and even files that are 23.976 cant be encoded at 23.976,they get changed to 29.97.

Are you sure ? I've recently done some encodes of 23.97 avis to 23.97 mpeg1 and they appear to have done correctly.

[LeoNapier]

Encoding is a CPU intensive task.
512 Mb of memory is sufficient if yr not multitasking during encodes!
Maybe you should look into upgrading yr CPU if faster encoding is required.

[johns0]

VCDHunter,try encoding to mpg2,thats where i couldnt change any framerates.

[VCDHunter]

VCDHunter,try encoding to mpg2,thats where i couldnt change any framerates.

Yeah - the framerates are greyed out, don't understand why tho, TMPGenc has a template for NTSCFilm for VCD and SVCD I think I'll stick with TMPGenc.

[tigerman8u]

that may have to do with the settings more than anything else...Mainconcept has ALOT of nonuser-friendly settings! And it has quite a few more than tmpgenc. I use tmpgenc mostly now since the settings are more user friendly than mainconcept...My opinion anyhow.

You're absolutely right, dude. The thing is, I've actually had Mainconcept for a few months and I've only recently worked all the kinks out as far as the various settings. Believe me, There were several comparisson tests that I ran to reach my assessment.

Mainconcept has become my standard also. TMPGenc does have more setiings but if doing straight conversions Mainconcept does a great job. I've also been able to do some conversions with Mc that TMPGenc wouldn't load the file. I d/l the newest conversion of MC 1.4.1 but haven't had a chance to use it yet.

[andkiich]

This topic had been covered before.

CPU/BUS speed are key here, and depending on the encoder, the actual CPU may play a part as well. Some encoders are INTEL optimized, so they will have a faster encode time with those chips.