Need advice on upgrading for faster mpeg conversion.

[Faustus]

I"m converting to DVD quality MPG from DV and depending on what options I choose it takes between 8 and 10 hours to encode in TMPGenc. I very happy with the quality I'm getting... so I'm wondering what upgrade would help most with encoding in this program. Here is my current system stats.

CPU PIII 1GHZ
RAM 1GB PC133
HDD 80GB 7200RPM
VIDEO CARD gF2 TI 64MB

My main question is does anyone know what kind of advantage you get from a Duel cpu setup in TMPGenc... cause upgrading to a Duel PIII would be fairly cheap.

Also is the encoding on some of the new Athlon XPs that much faster? or am I pretty much stuck without going to a hardware encoder?

What do you guys think?

[Douglesh]

Get an AthlonXP it would kill a dual P3 in terms of functionality outside of TMPGEnc, and probably inside too. Get the XP 1900, its pretty cheap and fast, ive got a XP 1700 and i can encode standard vcd 352x240 faster than realtime which is plently fast for me

[vcdfreak]

When you say encode into 352x240 video do you mean 352x240 avi file to 352x240 MPEG format? I am currently investigating why my XP1800+ takes 5-10 times the video time frameserving from Premiere.

[mrtristan]

From my own personal research, it seems like a dual CPU system gives you the best functionality for the price. Most decent hardware encoder cards are in the $300-$400 range. You can get a motherboard/ dual CPU combo for about $400.

I was thinking about picking up an encoder card, but I just don't like the idea of paying that much for something that will only benefit me in one way. Upgrading to a dual CPU will cost a little bit more, but the flexibility of the system is much greater.

Your setup is very similar to mine. (See above.)

[Faustus]

I was thinking dual cpu cause a new duel system board and cpu is alot cheaper for a piii then for athlon because I'd need a new more expensive board, a new chip, AND new ram which I have a gig of now and dont realish having to buy another gig already.

But yeah I kinda figured CPU would be the best buy... also I'm encoding to DVD mpeg not vcd, tho from what I can tell it hardly matters time wise between to 2.