How fast will a Intel 2500k processor convert 4 hours of avi to DVD

[johnharlin]

I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade to an Intel 2500k processor and that is dependent upon how fast that processor can encode videos and convert videos to DVD. I have no interest in games whatsoever but great interest in videos and would like to save time with a faster processor since sometimes I have to wait for hours for the encoding or conversion to DVD.

[jagabo]

It depends on the encoder and settings used. What CPU and software are you using now?

[johnharlin]

I am using a Pentium 4 1.6ghz which takes over 6 hours to convert 4 hours of 640 by 480 avi to DVD. I use Nero because it is easy to use though I know it is not the best. I use a Pentium 4 Celeron 2.8ghz processor at work and that takes about 4 hours to convert a 4 hour avi to DVD. So I was wondering how much faster an Intel 2500k would convert like maybe 20 minutes. That would be nice.

[jagabo]

I don't know about Nero but CCE (a very fast encoder) on my Core 2 Quad Q6600 runs about 4x realtime (single pass encoding). Ie, 4 hours of video can be encoded in 1 hour. HCEnc is slower. The same 4 hours of video would take about 3 hours. My guess is an i5 2500K will be two to four times faster than your 1.6 GHz P4 when running Nero.

Most MPEG 2 encoders aren't very well multithreaded. They get good gains going from one core to two but not much more going from two cores to four. In fact, the two aforementioned encoders run pretty close to the same speed on my dual core systems.

[D_Knife]

For an i5 2500K converting in the "20 minute" range you are probably talking about using Intel's Quicksync to encode the video. Quicksync is incredibly fast, but only encodes to H.264, not MPEG 2 (DVD).
If you don't need to put your video onto an DVD with menu's and everything then the output from Quicksync is quite nice, especially for mobile devices and stuff your friends/family watch (since they can't spot crappy encodes anyway).

[JimmyS]

If you are set on having DVD video as your final output, give FAVC a try. It allows you to specify the number of cores (N), to use during the encoding process for both its QuEnc and HC encoders. It splits the source video into N approx. equal sized segments and encodes each on a seperate core allowing maximum CPU utilization. The available settings are somewhat limited so you'll have to evaluate if it to see if it meets your quality needs. The program is getting a bit "long in the tooth", but still works very well and you'll end up with a Video_TS folder ready to burn.

[deadrats]

Quicksync is incredibly fast, but only encodes to H.264, not MPEG 2 (DVD).

this is so not true it's not even funny. quick sync supports hardware decode of vc-1, mpeg-2 and h264 and supports hardware encode of both h264 and mpeg-2 as well as a whole slew of video processing operations (in hardware).

in fact, if the OP were so inclined and decided on going the quick sync route he could save a ton of dough and just buy a core i3 2100 (dual core, hyper-threaded), the cheapest h67 motherboard he can find (typically in the $80 range), ram is cheap so i would pick up 8 gigs ddr3 for about $80 and look into using either media coder (free).

that would be his best bet if he wants stupid fast mpeg-2 encoding at the cheapest price.

[nwo]

I am using a Pentium 4 1.6ghz which takes over 6 hours to convert 4 hours of 640 by 480 avi to DVD. I use Nero because it is easy to use though I know it is not the best. I use a Pentium 4 Celeron 2.8ghz processor at work and that takes about 4 hours to convert a 4 hour avi to DVD. So I was wondering how much faster an Intel 2500k would convert like maybe 20 minutes. That would be nice.

Damn that's slow, i have a old Pentium 4 2.4ghz (HT) with ConvertXtoDVD that makes a Avi/xvid to full dvd in 59 minutes, so most likey the Nero software taking to long to encode the mpeg, try the demo of ConvertXtoDVD.