H.264 x264 AVC very very slow encoding. Is this nromal?

[PuzZLeR]

Greetings folks,

In recent weeks I've been fascinated with the exciting new codec which has been called H.264, x264 and AVC.

I've tried some applications that do it and it's all way complicated and discouraging. Not that I cant do it, just annoying that alot of them use command line arguments, a utility is needed for this, and for that, etc. etc.

I've also bought the QuickTime Pro for Windows hoping that would be all I would need to get started. More headaches. Did you know that I had to get VLC to playback what QT encodes? Even QT doesn't play its own H.264 stuff! Geez. After further plugins, more reading, more installations, etc, I finally got it going.

Last night I started encoding a 90 minute production. When I woke up this morning, it was at 19% done. What gives? I have a modern PC and I get this? I heard the codec was CPU intensive, maybe needs a card or something, but I didn't realize how much so it was.

Anyhow guys, I'm disapointed. Is it all worth it today? Should I wait a bit longer instead so technology can adapt? Is there a better way that exists today?

Thanks for any feedback in advance.

[Baldrick]

Tried x264 encoder together with for example me gui? click on megui for some guides.

[PuzZLeR]

I've tried megui and found it very exhaustive with all the other stuff it seemed to need. Ok, I will take it up again, however, are the encoding times as similarly slow?

Any other ideas if any?

Thanks again folks.

[kschang]

264 will take a LOT of CPU power to crunch for the near future. It's supposedly even MORE asymetrical encoding than regular MPEG4 standards. Slow speed is expected.

[jman98]

I have a 3200+ AMD CPU. It takes FOREVER to encode X.264 or H.264. The last time I tried it was a few months ago and given the rather poor guides (at least at the time) to doing the encoding and the fact that it takes way too long, I decided not to bother with it at present. I've had excellent results encoding HD video to 720p Divx. With high enough bit rates (I used 3000 Kbps or better) Divx certainly can deliver high quality high def video and it doesn't take forever to encode it. I probably won't fool with H.264 or X.264 again until I get a significantly faster PC and that won't happen anytime soon.

[Scorpion King]

I don't care for the command line version of x264 and that is why I am still using my older version Core 50 svn - 569 build Sept 27 2006. It works from within my normal video programs like VirtualDub. I can't find it for download anymore.....

[edDV]

Don't be fooled by shortcuts. If you want H.264 advantages, it will take eons to encode. CPU power expands but won't get there for years unless you are dedicating a power machine to offline encoding?

The answer for H.264 encoding is hardware chip technology.

[jagabo]

I am still using my older version Core 50 svn - 569 build Sept 27 2006. It works from within my normal video programs like VirtualDub. I can't find it for download anymore.....

http://gabextreme.googlepages.com/x264vfwunited

[deadrats]

Greetings folks,

In recent weeks I've been fascinated with the exciting new codec which has been called H.264, x264 and AVC.

I've tried some applications that do it and it's all way complicated and discouraging. Not that I cant do it, just annoying that alot of them use command line arguments, a utility is needed for this, and for that, etc. etc.

I've also bought the QuickTime Pro for Windows hoping that would be all I would need to get started. More headaches. Did you know that I had to get VLC to playback what QT encodes? Even QT doesn't play its own H.264 stuff! Geez. After further plugins, more reading, more installations, etc, I finally got it going.

Last night I started encoding a 90 minute production. When I woke up this morning, it was at 19% done. What gives? I have a modern PC and I get this? I heard the codec was CPU intensive, maybe needs a card or something, but I didn't realize how much so it was.

Anyhow guys, I'm disapointed. Is it all worth it today? Should I wait a bit longer instead so technology can adapt? Is there a better way that exists today?

Thanks for any feedback in advance.

there's a couple of reasonably fast H264 encoders:

handbrake (originally an OS X application, there's 2 different windows ports that i know of, though each one still needs some work)

Mencoder264 (a really fast encoder, especially if you choose the 'fast' profile, one minor problem is that it wasn't compiled with support for FAAC, even though it's listed as an option, thus audio can only be mp3, uncompressed or stream copy, but you can create mp4 files)

dvbmenc (uses mencoder as it's backend, just like mencoder264, can encode to xvid or x264, has a few more tweakable parameters than mencoder264, can only create avi files with either mp3 files or just copies the audio of the source, over all a pretty nice little app).

the above mentioned apps can be found through google, as they are created by members of various boards and are distributed through said boards (except for hand brake).

quick time pro is one of the slowest H.264/AAC encoders out there, it takes massive amounts of cpu power to encode in real time (even 2 G5's culdn't do it and quick time makes extensive use of altivec instructions, at least it used to when it was meant for the power pc architecture).

you are also going to kick yourself, but instead of shelling out money of quick time pro with plugins you should just have downloaded mpeg streamclip and quick time alternative, done a full install of quick time alternative, including all plug ins, and you would be able to create H.264/AAC files using apple's codecs through mpeg streamclip. it's also a bit faster than quick time pro and all the files play just fine on a pc.

good luck.

[celtic_druid]

handbrake, mencoder, etc. are all using x264 for encoding.

[Soopafresh]

There's MpegStreamClip which will let you use Apple's h264 codec. Not much faster, and not as good as x264.


x264 can use multiple threads (at least the command line version can). If you have a dual-core machine, you can take advantage of a speed increase. Finally, there's a server farm version floating around, where you can split your movie up among several machines to transcode.

[Scorpion King]

I am still using my older version Core 50 svn - 569 build Sept 27 2006. It works from within my normal video programs like VirtualDub. I can't find it for download anymore.....

http://gabextreme.googlepages.com/x264vfwunited

Thanks for the link. Looks like a movement going on there.

Long live VfW. Yes, it's only getting started.

Works good.

[The_Doman]

I am still using my older version Core 50 svn - 569 build Sept 27 2006. It works from within my normal video programs like VirtualDub. I can't find it for download anymore.....

http://gabextreme.googlepages.com/x264vfwunited

Thanks for the link. Looks like a movement going on there.

Yes, very nice to be able to use the x264 codec with Virtualdub directly now.
Gives impressive results!

Too bad the x264 developers seem to hate the VfW version.

[live4ever]

Check out this if you have more than one computer to encode.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=117889

[filipdebie]

I use X264VFW with Virtualdub and VirtualdubMPG.
The result is the best I ever had.
At bitrate 800 , the size of the produced file is the same as XVID but the quality is much better.
With my Pentium 4 - 2.6 and 1 GB ram, it takes about 3 times the duration of the clip to encode, if I don't use filters (which I don't need, except cropping the black bars away)
Great job from the makers of X264 and thanks to DeathToSheepUnited for the VFW version

[celtic_druid]

To be fair I am not sure that any of the x264 dev's are running windows and that is what the W in VfW stands for. The VS project files are probably also out of date. Also there is still the fact that VfW can't properly handle all AVC features.

[jagabo]

Also there is still the fact that VfW can't properly handle all AVC features.

I know that B frames have issues with VFW. What are some of the other problematic features?

[Scorpion King]

Awhile back I was reading why they dropped Vfw so they could put more time into developing the encoder. I guess with each change they had to then update Vfw. So they dropped it in favor of the commandline - gui route. I was hoping someone would come up with a nice GUI that I liked. So far I haven't found one, so I'm sticking with Vfw. My x264 encodes so far are only for fun and tests, nothing important. I think x264-H264 is the best thing since canned biscuits and pre-rolled cigarettes.

[The_Doman]

...and of course, the Doom9 community hates its guts, so you may be beheaded if you seek VfW help there. Just maybe.