Is it normal for Handbrake to be this slow?

[edd1234]

I'm converting Game of Thrones from blu-ray.
I've already used MakeMKV to rip the 10 episodes to MKVs, and Handbrake's loading the 10 files from there.

I started with the High Profile preset. Changed x264 Preset to Very Slow*. Changed x264 Tune to Film. Kept Constant Quality at 20. Removed the Pass-Thru. Just one audio track, from DTS-HD MA to AAC, Dolby PLII.

And I get between 5 to 10 FPS. I'm surprised that it's going to take longer to convert the episode than it would do to play it back.
My PCs an i7-3770k, and it's loading the files off a SATA3-6GBPS HDD, and saving to another SATA3-GBPS HDD. Neither have faults.

*Obviously the clue may be in "Very Slow", but in the past with many other films I've tried it's never been nearly this slow, and changing to the "Slow" or "Medium" presets barely speeds it up.

Is it just something special about the Game of Thrones video content, or is my PC playing up?
Thanks.

[redwudz]

Some videos are slower to encode. Depends on their content. I use RipBot for BD>MKV conversions. It takes about 2 - 3 hours for most BDs with my system. I use VidCoder (Handbrake GUI) only for DVD>MKV conversions. It takes about 25 - 30 minutes for DVD>MKV conversion. The content encoded makes a huge difference, along with your encoding settings and what output quality you want.

[hello_hello]

Check your CPU usage. If it's sitting on 100%, you're encoding as fast as you can.

[edd1234]

Yeah, CPU's on 100%.

It's been running for roughly 8 hours, and it's just about converted 3 hours of video. (AVG FPS: 007.8).

On the plus side, when I converted one episode yesterday (as a test), I had a CRF value of 20, and the x264 preset was "Slow", and the output was 3.85GB.
The same episode that's come out today, was CRF 18 with x264 preset "Very Slow", has come out at 3.16GB.

So I guess all this time is worth it, if I'm getting more quality for a lower size.

[Hoser Rob]

The real meat in h264 encoding is all those nice video parameters. But they greatly increase encoding time. I think it's worth it for the quality.

[jagabo]

In my experience, using presets slower than "slow" rarely reduces file size by more than 1 or 2 percent. And visual quality isn't significantly improved.

I seem to recall that Handbrake can be rather slow at decoding the source video. Even if you switched to Ultrafast you wouldn't encode much faster because you'd be bottlenecked by the decoding.

[hello_hello]

I'd agree. The slower presets don't tend to change the file size all that much. Sometimes a slower preset can even increase it a little. Are you sure everything else was the same? Tune "film" will generally increase the file size compared to tuning "none". As will tuning "grain".

[ocgw]

I would install a large HSF and overclock that i7 processor, I have a 2700K that passes benchmarks @4.8Ghz on air and have it set @ 4.4Ghz with minimal cpuv and it does not get too hot when encoding, it would noticeably speed up your encode times

[jemcfarlandIII]

Yeah, CPU's on 100%.

It's been running for roughly 8 hours, and it's just about converted 3 hours of video. (AVG FPS: 007.8).

On the plus side, when I converted one episode yesterday (as a test), I had a CRF value of 20, and the x264 preset was "Slow", and the output was 3.85GB.
The same episode that's come out today, was CRF 18 with x264 preset "Very Slow", has come out at 3.16GB.

So I guess all this time is worth it, if I'm getting more quality for a lower size.

You check out the other .H264 option - (Intel QuickSync) in the dropdown box - same killer quality with proper settings - half hour or less per movie I was getting 4-5 hours on with regular .H264 option

[edd1234]

Yeah, CPU's on 100%.

It's been running for roughly 8 hours, and it's just about converted 3 hours of video. (AVG FPS: 007.8).

On the plus side, when I converted one episode yesterday (as a test), I had a CRF value of 20, and the x264 preset was "Slow", and the output was 3.85GB.
The same episode that's come out today, was CRF 18 with x264 preset "Very Slow", has come out at 3.16GB.

So I guess all this time is worth it, if I'm getting more quality for a lower size.

You check out the other .H264 option - (Intel QuickSync) in the dropdown box - same killer quality with proper settings - half hour or less per movie I was getting 4-5 hours on with regular .H264 option

This was over a year old... :P

[jagabo]

At its best Intel's Quick Sync encoder is about the same quality as x264 at the very fast preset. And about twice as fast depending on which CPU you have. It's worth trying but I can't bring myself to use it because of the mediocre quality.

[edd1234]

It is incredibly fast, I use it a lot now but still...
this massive necro wtf

[jemcfarlandIII]

At its best Intel's Quick Sync encoder is about the same quality as x264 at the very fast preset. And about twice as fast depending on which CPU you have. It's worth trying but I can't bring myself to use it because of the mediocre quality.

It really depends on the <source> and the actual film if you will notice any degradation.
I just setup 3000+ files for my HTPC - you learn quickly that you do not want any files larger than
2.5 Gb or you're wasting space.

I stream to remote locations and home - never have a film transcode on me - and I serve 3 streaming HD films at once on my laptop.
To do that - I have no choice - but to give up some quality. (I set my standards slightly higher than YIFY - but not much.)

For fast moving films and/or films where the quality really counts - cool CGI, etc.. - I use the full power of handbrake and wait 2-3 hours.
For slow-moving dramas and the like - the Intel option is acceptable.

I didn't see the year till after I posted. The months looked close so I assumed ...

- JEMIII