surfing while encoding or burning?

[budgirl357]

This may sound like a stupid question, but I must ask anyway. Is it not a good idea to surf the net or work with other programs (downloading from Kazaa) while encoding or burning? I have been doing it all along, and I haven't had any significant problems, but recently a friend told me that I should never do it!

Thanks in advance,
budgirl357

[man_friday]

yeah I have friends like that too. Did you friend tell you why you shouldn't surf and burn all at once.

[budgirl357]

NOpe, I guess they are going by the results that they got when they did it, or maybe from sombody else even. But I only have one computer and I always have other things I would like to do while working on a video. However, nothing is important enough to sacrifice the quality of a good flick. I just need to know the answer and if it isnt cool to do two things at once, is there a way I can get around it? Encoding takes so very long.

Thanks,
budgirl357

[man_friday]

buffer under runs were and probably still are common when attempting to burn and surf/whatever. This can be eliminated with a newer CDRW device which have some kind of burn proof or smart burn technology built in. SCSI devices are also another way to go but not terriblely cheap. I have a SCSI CDRW and DVD and have no problems burning, surfing and encoding all at once. There is no reason not try burning and surfing at once, the worst that can happen is you'll make a few coasters.

[Tbear]

I do my encoding while I sleep, doesn.t seem so long that way. Just an idea for you. 8)

[spidey]

No problem at all. I burn, and run Edonkey while encoding....

BUT make sure you set your thread processing priority to IDLE TIME ONLY. This then let's it encode ONLY when the CPU is not busy with other events. Go to OPTIONS, THREAD PROCESSING - set BOTH to IDLE TIME ONLY.

Obviously higher processing threading is better to speed it up, but if you want it to be rolling while you work on other things, this will allow it.

I have done it with no intereference on both a P 3 866 and a P4 1.9g

[budgirl357]

thanks for all of the informative replies. But I forgot to ask about downloading too. Is this using too much power or should I not worry (at least until I get a more accomidating CDrw drive).

Thanks,
budgirl357

[pacmania_2001]

I have a shitty old burner with no new smart burn technologies and am running it on a 400 Celeron and have no problems burning and surfing/downloading/playing games at the same time.

[Allan55]

Hi,

When I've had "JustLink" underrun kick-in, my DVD player hickups when it gets to the underrun gap ("BurnProof" has bigger gaps, so bigger hickups I guess). So I say: Avoid underrun for standalone DVD player use.

As to using Gnutella stuff, the last few versions of Limewire aren't all that stable even when nothing else is running and occasionally crash Win98. This could ruin your whole day (night?).

Allan

[SLK001]

It is risky to do, unless you like throwing away bad disks (CDs are cheap, so who cares - it's just the time you have invested, but DVD-Rs are a different matter). Just bring up Window Task Manager and watch the loading. If it gets too high (which it will during encoding) then you could have problems with an encode that you won't know about until much, much, later (ie, when you finally watch the thing). By then, you may not remember that you were downloading those XXX pictures.

If you are burning, all it takes is for a mis-behaving application to tell the processor that it has the highest priority while running, and you will see your "burn buffer" drain to "zero" which will create a skip in a DVD. A fast enough machine may be able to overcome this with sheer speed, but why risk it? Unless, of course, those XXX pictures are really hot!