Video encoding, cpu, mem, video ?

srgess

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Those day im doing lots of video encoding, because my friend ask me to backup his dvd and put them into divx. Im currently on a e6300 clocked to 2.2ghz, with 1gb DDr2 pc800 with vista x64. I am wondering what could boost my encoding time, dvd to divx, divx to dvd. Upgrading cpu or overclock it more, adding more ram, or video card because i have a 7300gs but i dont think so video card can boost performance, just not sure.
 

joefriday

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Before you go out and buy more ram, look in task manager to see how much available ram you have while doing this transcoding. If you're under 100MB, then more ram will help. You can also look specifically for how much ram your transcoding software uses by looking under the process list (look the the process using the majority of your CPU cycles). I'd be surprised if your program is using more than 300MB of ram. If you do happen to be short on ram, a quick boost in performance will be had by shutting down unneccesary programs while you're performing your transcoding.
 

InteliotInside

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More RAM and a better processor would help. If you went with a processor like the Q6600 or even the E6600, you should see a huge performance increase, thanks to large caches (For starters, the 4MB of L2 cache increases performance by 11% in DivX and other encoding tasks). If you can afford it, a quad will be your best bet.

Alternatively, you could try to overclock your E6300 or higher levels, but you'll run the risk of damaging your motherboard, and creating excess heat.
 
Since I do quite a bit encoding myself I say you need more processing power by either overclocking more or installing the E6600. The extra 2MB of cache alone will provide about a 10% increase in performance if you were to compare it to an E6400 of the same speed.

More RAM will help up to a certain point I suppose, but 1GB of it should be sufficient. I haven't notice much, if any, performance increase between 1GB and 2GB of RAM.

The GPU does not have any impact on encoding performance. Yes, ATI has what's called AVIVO for their cards that uses the GPU to do video encoding, but that is more or less proprietary. AVIVO is not compatible with any video encoding program. You can only use AVIVO through the ATI Catalyst Control Center and it provides you with very, very limited options. Worthless in my opinion, unless other commerical for freeware video encoding program can somehow make use of it.

The programs I use to encode are basically freeware stuff and they are not multi-threaded.
 

srgess

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Here some info i got for encoding Drunk Master DVD (60% compression) with Dvd Shrink.

Physic memory use: 60% to 70%
Page Files: 844/2943
24% proccessor use

Encoding time using aero and theme effet: 15 min, 23 second
Encoding time withou aero and theme effet: 15 min, 21 second
 
I don't really use DVDShrink. I mostly encode my all DVDs to DivX files so that I can store my movies on my HTPC.

Based on the info you provided DVDShrink isn't all that demanding on the CPU, but DivX encoding is since it changes the video format from MPEG-2 to DivX (MPEG-4). However, to the best of my knowledge, DivX is not yet compatible with Windows Vista.
 

srgess

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Yeah divx is compatible with vista. But right now im doing the convert to Xvid. with dvd2avi. Remain time = 2 hours 09min. Is that the normal time to encode a dvd to divx ?
 

tamalero

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Those day im doing lots of video encoding, because my friend ask me to backup his dvd and put them into divx. Im currently on a e6300 clocked to 2.2ghz, with 1gb DDr2 pc800 with vista x64. I am wondering what could boost my encoding time, dvd to divx, divx to dvd. Upgrading cpu or overclock it more, adding more ram, or video card because i have a 7300gs but i dont think so video card can boost performance, just not sure.

you have to download the DUAL CORE or QUAD CORE version of DIVX ( quadcore is comercial I think,the dual core is free )
that way you can encode with the dual core, cutting time by around 80%

I use the dual core version with my X23800+ and the speed diference is HUGE

Since I do quite a bit encoding myself I say you need more processing power by either overclocking more or installing the E6600. The extra 2MB of cache alone will provide about a 10% increase in performance if you were to compare it to an E6400 of the same speed.

More RAM will help up to a certain point I suppose, but 1GB of it should be sufficient. I haven't notice much, if any, performance increase between 1GB and 2GB of RAM.

The GPU does not have any impact on encoding performance. Yes, ATI has what's called AVIVO for their cards that uses the GPU to do video encoding, but that is more or less proprietary. AVIVO is not compatible with any video encoding program. You can only use AVIVO through the ATI Catalyst Control Center and it provides you with very, very limited options. Worthless in my opinion, unless other commerical for freeware video encoding program can somehow make use of it.

The programs I use to encode are basically freeware stuff and they are not multi-threaded.

I dont think it should be "worthless" at all..
Dont know what options are there
but if you could convert the stream of dvd into uncompressed video, and then run it via DIVX, it should be in general faster than using divx to compress right from the dvd.
 
The amount of time it take to encode a movie depends on the processor speed, the length of the movie, and the parameters you are using to encode your movie. For example:

1. What resolution are you using?
2. Are you using Force Film to drop the frame rate down to 23.9 which is what movies are filmed at, or are you using the standard frame rate of 29.7?
3. Are you doing the 1-pass or 2-pass method?

While I am writing this response I'm encoding Appleseed (anime) using only DVD2AVI as a test. The movie is about 105 minutes long and I'm averaging 70FPS. The total estimated time for the 1st pass is about 35 minutes.

Relavent info as follows:

E6600 OC'ed to 3.0GHz

Resolution: 720 x 384
Force Film for 23.9FPS
Demux Track 1 for AC3 audio
Bitrate 1200
Keyframe every 120th frame
2 pass method

The second will take about just as long as the first pass so I figure it'll take about 35 minutes to encode. That's an estimated 70 minutes to encode a 105 minute movie. Add in a couple of minutes to combine the video file with the AC3 audio track using a modified version of VirtualDub and I expect the total time for a final DivX file of the movie will take 72 minutes.
 
I should add that I'm am using version DivX 5.1m not DivX 6.

DivX 6 doesn't seem to work on both my PC and my laptop. I get some kinda DLL error, can't remember. My HTPC and the laptop had a fresh install of Windows XP at the time, so I'm really surprised DivX 6 didn't work on them.
 
but if you could convert the stream of dvd into uncompressed video, and then run it via DIVX, it should be in general faster than using divx to compress right from the dvd.

Not sure if converting the DVD to an uncompressed format and then converting it to a DivX is worth the time and trouble. Better to simply rip the DVD to the hard drive and then encode. It'll take up less hard drive space than uncompressed video. Also not sure if you would save any time at all.
 

srgess

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Not sure if converting the DVD to an uncompressed format and then converting it to a DivX is worth the time and trouble. Better to simply rip the DVD to the hard drive and then encode. It'll take up less hard drive space than uncompressed video. Also not sure if you would save any time at all.

Wich software do you use for that ?
 
Here some info i got for encoding Drunk Master DVD (60% compression) with Dvd Shrink.

Physic memory use: 60% to 70%
Page Files: 844/2943
24% proccessor use

Encoding time using aero and theme effet: 15 min, 23 second
Encoding time withou aero and theme effet: 15 min, 21 second

FWIW, I just finished recoding a movie (Charmed Season 5 Disk 5 if you must know :)) 60% compression with DVDShrink. Time on a QX6700 stock speed, 2.75GB memory available to XP was 31 min 44 sec using high-quality sharp preprocessing. Last night I recoded disk 4 (approx same size) on my old P4-2.56 GHz 512MB machine - started at 11PM and it finished around 2AM :).
 

srgess

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Oh yeah, i do transfers dvd to Hard Drive. But i do it with Dvd Shrink or Dvd Decrypter. But the part that mess me up is to transfers to Divx, i can do it with DVD2AVI but no sound for some reason. Divx Converter work partial, crash a lots with vista x64. I have tried autoGK but crashed mid end. I have not tryed other one.
 
DVD2AVI saves the sound as a seperate file.

1. Goto Audio and select Track 1 (that usually the English track).
2. Channel Format = Auto Select
3. Dolby Digital = Decode

If you are doing the 2-pass method of encoding then only do this for 1 of the 2 passes. Otherwise you will overwrite the wave file, not really a problem but there's no point in writing the wave file twice. To do this just go to Audio/Track Number = Don't process audio.

Well, gotta go.
 

srgess

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If i want to push my oc more, i need to change my ram brand. Because OCZ have problem with MSI 975x board. I guess i will buy a 2gb kit from an other brand.
 
If i want to push my oc more, i need to change my ram brand. Because OCZ have problem with MSI 975x board. I guess i will buy a 2gb kit from an other brand.

I recommend Corsair XMS RAM that's what I use with my MSI 975x Platinum mobo. I was initially going to buy OCZ RAM because it was a bit cheaper, but I've had good experience with Corsair RAM before, and OCZ has been having problem lately.

As for question regarding how to combine an AC3 file with an AVI (DivX) file you can use a program called:

VirtualDub_148_AC3


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If you want to talk more about video encoding then it probably better to start a new thread the Other Component section and PM me the link since it is not really a CPU topic.