The ideal computer setup for encoding?

[acio1]

First, I was not sure where to post this question, so forgive me If this is the wrong area.

My Question is geared towards Computer Hardware. I have a PIII 800mhz PC with about 382 mb of ram. When encoding it takes me about 18 to 24 hours for about a 1:59 movie. Is this normal for encoding, or upgrading my computer will speed up the encoding process? Can anyone give me some ideals?

Thanks.

[Bullworth]

Pretty normal, it is also going to depend on your settings and what kind of encoding you are doing. MPEG2 is going to take longer than MPEG1 and the more you tweak the settings to get the most quality the longer it will take. With my Athlon 1.4 it took me about 13hrs to encode LOTR. Moved up to an XP 2200+ and 382 DDR and it dropped to a little under 6 hours.

[Nelson37]

Something from CRAY would be nice.

[Craig Tucker]

Check my computer details, with my setup I can encode to VCD faster than real time. A 2 hour movie would take about 1 hour 45 min from divx and that is with motion search precision set to high in TMPGEnc.

[tenders]

IMO the ideal computer set-up is one that works if it ain't broke don't fix it! encoding takes time. if your standalone dvd player supports svcd, then try my guide,it WILL cut your encodimg time. 8) http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119210

[musher70]

damn i love this post...guess the 3.06 pentium would really
kick ass, some rambus sticks would help,preferably the 1066
at least 512 of that, a really big hard drive, cause you gonna
need it in the end, you know at least 100 gigs at 8 mb's,but if
you cant afford that, stick with a 2100xp at 100 bucks, get
some perf memory say 2-2-3 cas rating of ddr 2100 at least,
circuit city has 80g 8mb buffered w/d at $80 THIS WEEK..

all of this of course is running xp...still got that ME disc....

[acio1]

People,

Thanks for the information, at least now I know what to look for when upgrading.

I have a friend who used a laptop to encode with the following specs: 1.8gig, 512 ram and fininshed the encoding process less then 3 hours! the only difference was he used (CBR) video only, and I used (CQ) Audio and Video during the encoding process (tmpgenc).

Thanks for your input.

KEEP IT REAL.

Later.

[crahak]

Well, it mainly comes down to cpu power... (besides settings, filters, ... and programs used) Memory speed and cpu speed will not really help as for encoding speed, but you'll get these people that will tell you to buy all-fast-and-huge (oh, power supplies were the big trend not too long ago).

[Craig Tucker]

Well, it mainly comes down to cpu power...

Memory speed and cpu speed will not really help as for encoding speed

You just contradicted yourselt here. Of course CPU speed matters, it is the 1 major hardware factor above all others that determines encode times.

[Excavator]

I'm a total newbie at this video/DVD stuff.
I've done about 30 movies now and was encoding them in less than 3 hours.
Watching the system monitors I see that my CPU is never over 30% while encoding but ALL available memory is being used. If I were to upgrade I would add 2 512meg sticks of PC1066.

In answer to your original question acio1, upgrading your computer will definitely speed up your encoding times.

[musher70]

crahak you really have a problem dont you...
you're probably one that likes older versions
of windows too...power doesnt matter? had a
750duron once, took 22 hrs to reencode a
90min movie, now with a 2000xp it takes only
8 hrs i think, also using ddr instead of 133sdram
whoa that really makes a difference....guess o/s
makes a difference too but not really sure...

[rsuave5]

i encode most things in real time or less.mpeg 1 to compliant vcd is prety quick. but a mpe1 to dvd compliant takes about as long as the clip is . i say big processor and lots of ram. how much? as much as you can afford

[vhelp]

acio1,
First, your request goes incomplete. You need to add a few more
details.

Also, peoples posting here are NOT giving specs that explains why
they get those time speeds in their setup, ie:
* CPU chip: ??
* CPU speed: ??
* Mothorboard: ??
* OS version: windows 98 vs. NT vs. w2k vs. xp, etc.
* RAM: ??
* Encoder: TMPG or CCE or LSX or MainConcepts, etc.
* Source: if it DVD rip, capture, divX-to..xx
* Final Encode to: VCD, SVCD
* Resolution: 352x240, 352x480, 480x480, 720x480, etc.
* Encoding Method: CBR, 2pass or more, CQ, etc.
* Filtering: any ??
* Source length: 60 min, 2hours, 30min, etc.
* Others stuff here. . .

All these things add up, and ANY number of combination can yield a
given time-code (speed) but I just love how people love to post their
encoding speed, but leave out the above important info that would
otherwise justify, "ohh, that's why.."

CPU: your biggest boost in speed
Motherboard: 2nd, if properly tuned, and ALL items working in concert
with each other, can add to the final increase in speed, which explains
why some can get better results than others using same setup or
totally different.
OS: Bare in mind, that some versions may hadle memory more efficiantly
than others, and that can help to some degree, but not more 10% or anything.
Memory: is good. the faster, the better, but again, not more 10% or
anything.
I could go on, and on, and on, but you get the picture. And, you can
deduce (figure) it all out, after looking at the above list.

I dont think that crahak made a mistake w/ statement. I think it's
just one of those "wrong keypresses or something like that". We all
make these simple mistake. ..was prabably on to something and got
cross-linked w/ something else

acio1, and others...
so what's the ideal setup ?? ...well, that ALL depends on the above
and then some. Trial and error will bring you closer to what you
feel is THE ideal setup. But, the most important speed increasing
agent, is of course, CPU chip !!
Everything else all falls into place with trial and error steps.

Good luck in your IDEAL setup
-vhelp

[Craig Tucker]

I think I gave all the necessary information.

[txpharoah]

RAM! It's all about the speed and amount of RAM that control encoding time.

P4 or AMD+ should be the minimum, those Celeron and PIII and others, just give in to the fact it will take time to encode. Those older systems were NEVER made with video in mind.

If possible get 512-to-1G of PC800 RDRAM. It's by far the fastest. DDR is next best, and PC100/PC133 SDRAM just plain sucks. Always 512 as a minimum, 1G is optimal. Anything more is just throwing away money, as your system can only write stuff to RAM so fast (the full gig is rarely fully used).

I can encode 8000CBR in TMPGEnc with clipping, noise reduce, and some color filters for a hour and a half movie in about 4-7 hours max, using a P4 1.8 and 512meg RDRAM. In case you didn't know, that a big file, and a lot of stuff going on in the encoding. Cut corners with the Motion Estimate. A faster processot would only incrementally increase the time, but anoter 512meg of the RAM would probably knock off another 3 hours of time at least. The CQ makes no difference in time really, and the 2-PASS VBR only doubles the time. Remember, I've got several filters going on. A filter-less encode at this rate would take 2-4 hours.

I compare myself to other system I have access to, same file, same encode, same setup, but different hardware. The AMD2000+ system with 512 DDR takes at least 12-15 hours. The P4 2.0 with 512 PC133-SDRAM takes 15-20 hours.

Get yourself a P4 (for the better SSE processing on video) and at least 512RDRAM. If you're just encoding for making VCDs or something, your encoding will be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Never slower than real-time, sometimes twice as fast or more. I do that only occasionally. DVD is why I have my system.

-Tex

[jjpslu]

Hi,

BACKGROUND:
I've been successful in ripping/burning directly from DVD to DVD through DVD Decrypter, but even after troubleshooting according to numerous guides on this and other forums for VCD How To's, I've consistently been experiencing CONSTANT system crashes/reboots while attempting to create a simple DVD to VCD project while using the following programs:

PREFERRED PROGRAMS:
DVD Decrypter, DVD2AVI, TMPGEnc, or DVDx

FILMS USED:
Exit the Dragon - Enter the Tiger, Saving Private Ryan and Ice Age

ISSUE #1:
Ripping to my HDD with DVD Decrypter or SmartRipper is flawless, but my system totally crashes/reboots in the middle of (<30 min into)DVD2AVI, DVDx, or TMPEnc.

ISSUE #2:
Even after trying all of the prescribed remedies on this forum (Options / Environmental Settings / VFAPI plugin / increasing DS MM File Reader priority, installing DivX, Xvid, encoding to a different hard drive, uninstalling all other apps, reinstalling different versions, etc.), I'm still receiving the notorious "file unsupported..." error as well.

l've not been able to successfully load both a video and its corresponding audio file to date, even after what I believed was possibly a "successful" DVD2AVI .d2v and .wav project on one occasion.

STEPS TAKEN:
I have reformatted my HDD - averaging 2x per week now, reinstalled XP Pro and nothing else except DVD Decrypter 3.1.4.0, SmartRipper 2.41, DVD2AVI 1.77.3, EZDVD2VCD 1.4, WinDVD Platinum, TMPGEnc 2.59.47.155 and DVDx 2.1, but am still CONSTANTLY experiencing PC crashes/reboots!

PC PROFILE:
EMachine T4150 - 1.5g P4 Intel 845, 1gSDRAM, 400MHz bus, Form Factor Micro ATX, 100GB HDD (40+60), 32mb nVidia TNT2 M64 AGP, HP DVD200i, WinXP Pro SP1.

Monitoring my system's performance , while running any of the above programs, shows fluctuation between 97%-100% CPU usage, until it crashes/reboots, with absolutely no other application running at all.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I'm now VERY desperate and am beyond sanity, as I have been trying to solve this for over 3 weeks now!

Unfortunately, I'm leaning towards my crappy components as the culprit to my CONSTANT crashes, but I was hoping that someone out there had similar experiences, subsequent solutions and wouldn't mind saving a disenchanted Newbie from totally giving up on his exciting new hobby!

Thanx for any and all assistance!

John
jjp1@optonline.net