Handbrake Slow

[chrissilke74]

Hi All,
just a quick question. I am running Vista Ultimate with 1GB Ram and AMD 4400+ Dual Core. I realise my Ram is a little low for Vista but Handbrake still takes almost 3 hours to convert a DVD to AVI. I was under the impression that my system would reduce this time considerably as it takes about the same time on my Laptop which is 3 years old and only has 512MB Ram running windows XP and a Pentium M 1.6GHZ processor. Is it just my system? I should mention that I am using the onboard video also.
Thanks for any advice.

[guns1inger]

The video is completely irrelevant to the encoding process, so you can ignore that for starters.

You ram is about half the minimum needed for smooth running of Vista Ultimate. Have you installed Service Pack 1 for Vista yet ? If not, do so. It provides many improvements in performance and memory usage. It doesn't perform miracles, but it is noticeable.

My other suggestion would be to try some other software. Perhaps the version of handbrake, or the way you have it configured, isn't using both cores properly.

[chrissilke74]

Hi,

thanks for the reply. I am intending on buying some more memory today. I haven't updated to SP1 yet so I will have to give that a try I didn't realise VISTA had memory issues.
With my system optimised how long would you say the encoding process should take? I would be looking at one pass encoding. If their are other faster programs then I would consider those also but I just find the quality Handbrake produces is very good. I have tried a few and I must say their is a noticeable difference.

Cheers.

[guns1inger]

SP1 stream lines some of Vista's memory usage, speeds up disc copying and generally improves performance. Like I said - you don't get XP performance, but the difference is worth it.

I don't know what you will get from an AMD. From my quad core intel I can convert SD MPG files to Xvid with AutoGK at around 90 - 98 fps and still comfortably browse the web etc as well.

[chrissilke74]

Thanks again.

Are you saying I would be better off with XP? I was under the impression that VISTA was the way to go? I could look into x64 XP I suppose?

If you are getting those sort of frame rates how long does it take to convert a DVD? I am lucky if I get 25fps.

Cheers once again.

[guns1inger]

I usually don't bother with DVDs, but convert SD broadcast streams. I can encode 6 - 8 hours of footage in under 3 hours.