why is HCENC being so slow all of a sudden?

[DaneClark]

I'm trying to author a disc that has 6 22 - minute titles on it. A job that should have only taken about half a day is taking all week because the framerate suddenly dropped to a very low increment on the last 2 titles. And I've been able to do discs with 6 22 - minute files before, it's never started happening until now, and it's getting annoying. Is there anything I can do to speed it up? I really dont want to have to start the disc over.

[KarMa]

You getting full cpu usage on all cores (I forget if HCENC is multithreaded)? You using any kind of avisynth filters on these titles that would bottleneck it? Your computer doing anything else demanding? Your HDD limit in free space and maybe heavily fragmented, causing the read speed of the source file to drop? Could be anything but HCENC MPEG2 encoding should be faster than realtime playback on modern cpus, even at the slower presets.

[jagabo]

HCENC can encode NTSC DVD video at about 300 frames per second with about 75 percent CPU usage on my quad core i5 2500K. So a two hour movie would take about 12 minutes -- not two weeks. Something is seriously bottlenecking your system.

[davexnet]

What AVS script was used?

[DaneClark]

I started it over, and it was the exact same deal - the last 2 titles seem to be the only ones that are going that slow. Could something be wrong with the .avis?

[TimA-C]

It's not something more mundane like running out of disk space, internet security program poking it's nose in, a memory leak in a driver or background task that's eating RAM and forcing Windows to use virtual memory (temp files on hdd), failing RAM or HDD, damaged file/directory structure or just bloomin' updates downloading/installing just when you don't want them to etc? Also, unless I've seriously missed something (wouldn't be the first time!), HCEnc doesn't author? So, are you encoding 6 x 22 minute titles with HCEnc so that you can then author them with something else? In which case can you not just re-encode the last two titles without having to restart the whole project? I think more info on what you're doing and how you're doing it would be helpful.

[DaneClark]

I'm using HCENC to create a disc image that I can burn using ImgBurn. For some reason, the last two .avis are the only ones that are going that slow

[TimA-C]

How are you creating a disc image in HCEnc? If HCEnc can genuinely can do that then I'd really like to know how. Anyway, back to your problem, are the two avis that you're having issues with from the same source as the other four? Can you see any differences in their properties compared with the other four in MediaInfo?

[jagabo]

How do you expect to get any help if you don't provide the requested information?

[DaneClark]

Maybe I'm not using the right terms - I'm doing whatever using HCENC to make a DVD folder that can be burned onto a video disc that can be played in a basic DVD player using ImgBurn would be called. And all of the files are from the same source, I'll check them in mediainfo when I get home

[DaneClark]

Here's what MediaInfo says about the first file:
AVI: 462 MiB, 22 min 21 s
1 video stream: MPEG -4 Visual (XviD)
1 audio stream: MPEG Audio (MP3)
Overall bit rate: 2 887 kb/s
Writing application: Lavf52.93.0

First video stream
2 618 kb/s, 640*480 (4:3) at 30.000 FPS, MPEG-4 Visual (XviD) (Simple@L1)

First audio stream
257 kb/s, 44.1 kHz, 2 channels, MPEG Audio (MP3) (Version 1) (Layer 3) (Joint stereo / MS Stereo)

[jagabo]

You're not having a problem with the first file. And you're still ignoring the requests for your AVS scripts.

[DaneClark]

I'm not using any .avs scripts for this job, I just use AVStoDVD to select the files I want and when I click start it opens HCENC automatically

[KarMa]

How much Harddrive space do you have on the drive/s that hold the source video and the target directory. Maybe try defragmenting the source file if it is on a spinning HDD.

[jagabo]

Look at memory usage while encoding. Do you see the program using more and more memory?

[davexnet]

Don't forget AVStoDVD does use AVS script, either the run log
Or the Title/Edit avisynth tab will show it. Without it,
You / we are only guessing at this problem

[johns0]

Better yet whats your computers specs?Are you dual core or quad core?Some systems are much better so give more details so we can help you.

[TimA-C]

Hi Dane, OK, It would have been useful to know that you were using AVStoDVD rather than just HCEnc to begin with. Thanks for the partial MediaInfo report on the first file of the six, but actually a copy of the full reports from both one of the four files that you say is working OK, and from one of the two files that you say aren't working OK would be a lot more useful - it's a bit difficult to compare two items when you only have part of one of them . . . !

[DaneClark]

Here's the info for one of the files that is working OK:
AVI: 462 MiB, 22 min 21 s
1 video stream: MPEG-4 Visual (XviD)
1 audio stream: MPEG Audio (MP3)
Overall bit rate: 2 887 kb/s
Writing application: Lavf52.93.0

First video stream
2 618 kb/s 640*480 (4:3) at 30.000 FPS, MPEG-4 Visual (XviD)
( Simple@L1)

First audio stream
256 kb/s 44.1 kHz, 2 channels, MPEG Audio (MP3) (Version 1) (Layer 3) (Joint stereo / MS Stereo)

[jagabo]

Here's the info for one of the files that is working OK:

Do you want help with the files that are working OK?

[DaneClark]

Here's the info for one of the files that is working OK:

Do you want help with the files that are working OK?

No, what I want is to figure out what to do to make the files that aren't working OK not take so long in HCENC

[DaneClark]

I tried arranging the files in a different order, and I've discovered that the problem isn't the files themselves, the problem might be that HCENC is getting gradually slower and slower with each file. I was able to make 3 discs before this one that were almost exactly the sane and didn't have this problem, what could be causing it all of a sudden?

[ricardouk]

Why dont you post the video file properties? Your need help and yet you dont post the media properties of the files you're having problems with?!?!

open video with mpc-hc---> right click on the video---> properties and copy whats inside the mediainfo tab.

[pandy]

Sudden loss of performance in demanding tasks may be related to insufficient CPU cooling - i can imagine issue with heatsink (loose, not properly contacting CPU, dried thermal grease or trivial like clogged with dust). I would recommend checking temperatures. Jagabo hint with memory consumption (and swap abnormal activation) can be another thing i would not ignore.

[DaneClark]

Maybe it is a heat issue, maybe a shoukd turn off my PC for a few hours, but the weird thing is that even when I start the job over without turning off my PC, the first 4 files still go fine and it doesn't slow down until the 5th file. And the problem can't be with the files themselves because it's always the same deal no matter what order I arrange them in