How do I speed up the rendering process?

[bjhoopes]

Once I edit an AVI video file -- put in stills, transitions, and effects -- I need the render the movie to MPEG1 or 2, or whatever. That process is just slow, like 3 to 7 seconds for every second of video.

Is there a way to speed this up, or is it totally processor constrained? I'm running a P4 1.4ghz, so a faster processor would help, but I'd like to approach real time encoding. Is there some sort of a add in board that would speed the rendering process up? If so, do you need to use specific software to take advantage of a particular hardware board?

[Pied-Piper]

What is your encoding software and the settings you use for your mpeg file? are you frameserving? The speed is dependent on the editor and avi codec you have used for your project, too.
For instance, a video editor built in mpeg encoder is not a good choice. LSX MPEG encoder which is used in ulead MSP editor is faster than most of software encoders but the quality in comparison is not very good.
Always try saving avi files at similar specifications to your desired mpeg file, and then encode to mpeg by TMPGEnc, CCE, Panasonic, etc or frameserve directly from you editor.
The video resolution, being progressive or interlaced, framerate and lots of other parameters are important.
I have a p4 1.5Ghz and software MPEG encoding speed rarely takes more than the file length.
I have not seen any addin but for real time video MPEG rendering, PRO cards like pinnacle DV500, DC1000, Targa 3000 are required at 1000$+ they're excellent. these cards come with a huge amount of software and real time transitions and effects.
A faster CPU will help but HDD speed, file system(FAT32 or NTFS), your OS and configuration, fragmentation of files on partition the file is being saved, and the processes running in the backgroung affect the time of rendering.
Be sure to unload other non-important things while rendering.

[tgpo]

Try getting a mac.

-TGPO

[vitualis]

Unfortunately, the software for making a decent VCD on a Mac is few and far between...

Regards.

[bjhoopes]

Nice, thanks for the mac suggestion. I've actually considered that, but I think I still have a lot to learn before I try to solve the problem by throwing money at it.

As for the AVI codec, the AVI file is a DV AVI file (I think that's what it's called) -- its a movie file created by my digicam via a DV firewire card. I've used both MGI Videowave III and TMPGenc to encode with similar response times from both.

With regards to progressive or interlaced, frameserving, etc. I have no idea. Guess I have more reading to do. I've seen these terms, but don't fully understand them. I'm fairly new to this.

Pied-Piper, can you tell me more about the rendering cards? Do the cards, such as the pinnacle cards, simply convert incomming firewire videa to mpg on the fly, or can they also be used to convert existing DV AVI files to MPG realtime? Thanks.

[Pied-Piper]

bjhoopes,
Check http://www.videoguys.com/prof.htm
and pinnacle website for more detailed specifications.
There is a very good guide at
http://www.geocities.com/lukesvideo
that I'm sure will help you to understand all the terms you've mentioned.

[Spicuzza]

bjhoopes,

The most effective method I've found to get the fastest rendering/encoding time is to capture with the exact same settings as the final project.

For example before I posted I captured a one minute TV clip 352 x 240 uncompressed AVI, 29.97 frames per second, audio 224 kbps, then encoded that to Mpeg-1 352 x 240, 2300 kbps, 29.97 frames per second, audio 224 kbps.

This took 50 seconds to rendered/encode. Granted there wasn't any editing/stills/transitions...etc, but you can see that this is faster than real time and for many projects the final quality is fine for most eyes, especially if the target playback device is a computer.

What takes the time when encoding is when there are differences in the captured file's frame size, frame rate, file format and data and audio kbps vs the final project settings. The more settings that are identical the less the CPU has to do.

Try this and see if it helps. If you don't see a dramatic improvement my next guess would be that there are multiple programs running in the background of your computer stressing the CPU while you are trying to encode.

Gary Spicuzza
cic7@juno.com

[thxkid]

I use Ulead media 5.0 with hollywoodFX Gold to make my videos with edits, very complexed transition scenes, I get a 1 to 1 ratio if I render at 352x240 uncompressed AVI and 1 to 2 at 480x480 Huffy AVI, I have the following

AMD 1400
512 Megs SDRAM
64 MEG Voodoo 5
30 gig 7200 Western Digital hard drive

When I don't need to edit I use my Happuage MPEG2 hardware decoder card to capture to burn to a SVCD, quality is excellent either way I choose to go.

[Pied-Piper]

Real-Time means no rendering at all and playback of the edited movie on the fly. This requires specific software and hardware that support this function.
When you see transitions and effects in a live stream or broadcast, they're real time.
I hope this helps to understand the meaning of RT!
If you have not such combination of hardware and software, the time that you need to render an edited movie depends on the above parameters, source(DV AVI, MPEG, or anything) compression and resolution and the quality you set for your final file(I mean the settings you use).
Always try to capture your video at highest possible resolution and the least compression, if yo want to edit your captured video later it's no point to capture MPEG(PAL or NTSC) or use a lossy codec. for example if you have a digital (mini)DVcam that captures video at 520-530 vertical resolution progressive, capturing at lower resolutions just degrades your work. You can change the resolution when rendering to make a (s)xVCD.
If you have an smart video editor such as Ulead MSP 6+ which does not reencode your files when they're at the same settings as your project, file format reduces the time.

[bjhoopes]

Thanks to all for the suggestions and advice -- it has been tremendously helpfull. I'm diving into the DVD authorizing business. DVD is the target for all of my editing, so quality is important. I've done tons of reading since I first posted this. I've looked into a Pinnacle DV1000 mpeg2 capture card. From what I understand it captures and encodes real-time into an editable 100% frame accurate mpeg2 format (IPP) with very little loss. Again, from what I understand, it can then convert to a DVD mpeg format (IBP) faster than real time -- depending on the FX used, I assume.

Aside from the expense of the card ($1,200'ish) it seems like a pretty good solution -- less encoding, smaller hard drive footprint, DVD quality, etc. Am I missing something?