XVID not multi-processor aware?

[JohnDH]

I use the video codec "XviD [.AVI] (ffmpeg)" option a few times a week, and I've noticed that ffmpeg seems to use only one of the computers two CPUs (on a dual 2.7).

I was wondering why this is and if the multi-processor feature might be added in future ffmpegX versions for this codec option.

[major]

Check also "XviD mencoder", is it better?

[JohnDH]

No, it doesn't appear to be. I watch the activity monitor with the two CPUs combined into one percent rating and when either ffmpeg or mencoder is encoding, the percent of CPU usage averages about 55%. I take that to mean one CPU is being used to encode and the other 5% is normal system activity.

H264 encoding always uses 85 to almost 100% for the two CPUs combined.

Are both CPUs supposed to be used when encoding to XVID?

[major]

XviD historically lacked good support for multithreading. This is currently evolving and may be included in next version.

[JohnDH]

Cool, that would cut down the time to encode a show to about an hour for me. Thanks for your time major, keep up the great work.