good laptop for x.264 encoding

[mmbwdpnz]

Hi I'm currently looking for a new laptop for video encoding. It must be fast with avisynth, and megui. harddrive space really does not matter to me. Im am not willing to spend more than 500$ on it.

[jagabo]

Lol

[johns0]

You will have to spend over a $1500 dollars and more for a laptop that is good for encoding hd material if that's what you will be encoding,It's best to get a desktop computer at 1/2(around $800) the price of a good laptop that will do the same job.

[yoda313]

It's best to get a desktop computer at 1/2(around $800)

If the posters budget really is 500.00 then "fast" must be redefined. It won't be the newest i7 or the latest x6 amd processor.

But the desktop is definitely the best way to go for the most bang for your buck.

[jagabo]

This is the the range you're talking about:

Toshiba C855, Intel Core i3-2328, 15.6" Screen, $398 after $50 MIR
http://www.frys.com/product/7350184

Near the bottom of the barrel.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-2328M+%40+2.20GHz

[ranchhand]

For a bit more than $500 (not including monitor) you could build a desktop computer that would do a fairly decent job; order your parts from Newegg.com and you will save a lot of money.

[sanlyn]

Actually, build-your-own isn't that cheap. You forget, the operating system is a good chunk of the cost. A retail PC practically gives the OS away. And there's no way to compete with the mass-volume purchase price of tens of thousands of PC components. You can find some hot specials in DIY packages at newegg or tigerdirect, but you have to know what you're looking for.

If the O.P. mentions laptop, I'm assuming it means no monitor is present for a PC. Trying to work video with a dirt-cheap $90 LCD is nothing but a headache. So we're back to the original solutions: either spend more for a decent laptop, or spend half the laptop price for a decent PC/monitor combo. At least the PC will have a hard drive that's not so slow you'll fall asleep waiting for something to happen.

[Backpain]

Try looking at TigerDirect. www.tigerdirect.com and look around for some good deals. They some times include shipping. I have always had good luck.

[jagabo]

You'll also find that many laptops overheat when encoding video for extended periods.

[deadrats]

Hi I'm currently looking for a new laptop for video encoding. It must be fast with avisynth, and megui. harddrive space really does not matter to me. Im am not willing to spend more than 500$ on it.

if you must buy a laptop and you must stick with under 500 clams then i strongly suggest you give up on the notion of software based encoding and buy a laptop with an Ivy Bridge based dual core that supports quick sync.

quick sync has improved with IB processors and i have started revisiting encoding with it and found that you can get a very good quality encode if you do one or more of the following:

1) max out the number of reference frames (if the app allows you to set it manually)

2) use a good quality denoise filter for all your encodes (even if your source doesn't seem to have any noise)

3) set the motion search range to some really high number (i use 512) if the app allows it (video mastering works does).

this last one i learned from various experiments with main concepts software based encoder and comments made by one of the x264 developers. while testing various apps i noticed that mc's h264 encoder would default at seemingly crazy motion search range values, anywhere from 192-512. while investigating to see why this was when x264 seems to go from 8 to 128, i ran across a post where some guy wrote an app to analyze motion search on a per frame basis and he found that x264 in fact would hit values in the hundreds, well past what the assumed hardcoded limit was. he asked in one of the forums why this was and one of the x264 developers answered that x264 only use the motion search range values that end users input as a "suggestion", that x264 routinely will go well past that unless one limits the range via maximum motion vector length.

this got me thinking that maybe intel's encoder needed to have it's range set in the hundreds (i was using x264 as a guide and limiting it to 32) and viola, much better encodes once i upped the range to the hundreds.

but if you're hell bent on software based encoding, done "fast", on a laptop costing under $500, then you may need to visit the parking lot of a best buy in a really bad neighborhood, and hope that someone that just grabbed one from the store and ran out is eager to ditch his loot real fast and let's it go for a few bills, before the cops get there.

[jollyjohn]

For a bit more than $500 (not including monitor) you could build a desktop computer that would do a fairly decent job; order your parts from Newegg.com and you will save a lot of money.

I've doing that for sometime now and I love my PCs I use an old box and put inside as much as I want to have in them and save hips.

[ranchhand]

Re: Sanlyn
XP you can get for almost nothing; Vista a tad more. Medium quality Asrock mobo with integrated video, memory, maybe an old hard drive laying around, get a Dual Core CPU @3GHz or better http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113283
Apevia case with PS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144224

Remember I said medium quality and approximately $500. If on a really tight budget it will take patience and shopping around, but it can be done. The result has got to be better than a bottom of the ladder lap running 2.1GHZ or lower CPU.

[sanlyn]

Re: Sanlyn
XP you can get for almost nothing

I know. I bought 2 more copies since November. Watch out for the real cheapies, though -- they are usually pirated. Mine were sealed retail editions.

[mmbwdpnz]

What about an hp?

[johns0]

Hp=crap

[mmbwdpnz]

so will my computer effect the quality of my encodes? Im not talking about speed or the quality of my encoding piece of crap, but the quality of my 10 bit anime encodes in meGUI?

[redwudz]

Just about any PC or laptop can do H.264 encodes. A faster PC is a help and would speed things up. More CPU cores is a definite plus. My six core CPU does H.264 encodes much faster than my earlier quad cores, even when they had higher CPU speeds. Usually ~25 minutes DVD disc > MKV. A single core CPU running ~2Ghz will be very slow. But it will likely get the job done if it doesn't overheat, but it will also likely take overnight.

You can build your own PC, but $500 is about minimum. Some careful shopping might keep you close to that. Find a good CPU first, the best you can afford, then a motherboard, and the rest usually falls into place.

[jagabo]

I noticed these laptops in todays Fry's ad. They fit in the OP's $500 limit:

If you plant to use QuickSync, Lenovo, Core i5 (Ivy Bridge, 2 core, 4 thread) US$448
http://www.frys.com/product/7532956

Maybe better performance with some apps (x264?), Acer, AMD A8-4500M (quad core), US$498
http://www.frys.com/product/7533296

[mmbwdpnz]

Which of the pcs do u think would be better? I appreciate all the help im getting on this topic.