What do you convert and why?

[protokiller]

I always see in CPU benchmarks of video conversions and even knew a few people on other forums who had DEDICATED video converting boxes.... but what are they really converting and why?

Are you compressing DVDs to fit on a regular single layer disc?

Converting video files for something like a PSP or Ipod?

something else I seem to be missing?

I was just curious what you guys are converting since they are ALWAYS in benchmarks and I almost never need to convert anything....

 

[concrum]

I usually convert videos of our vacation to DVD. our camcorder is using miniDV. Converting videos from DV format to DVD would takes SOME time especially on slow CPU.

our videos usually fits on a single layer DVD, but if its a long video, we burn on a dual layer DVD.

when burning on dual layer, i usually convert the DV to maximum DVD quality. MAXIMUM!

But im not concern about converting videos anymore since Nvidia will launch CUDA that would help converting videos in no more than 30 minutes or even less. converting video through CPU is the thing of the past to me, but Nehalem 8-core chould change everything. i hope.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

I convert recorded television clips of local government for upload on Youtube. Without conversion some of the videos are too large for upload or they'll just plain take too long over a 512k upload.

 

[pasoleatis]

Probably the people that make movie, compress the clips when they give them away to the customers. Also they add effects, enhance the picture etc. Every time those effects are applied the movies must be decompress and then recompress.

PL

 

[Jake_Barnes]

The title of this topic has been edited by Jake_Barnes

 

[cah027]

I think the keyword here for your question is "encoding" . People need to change their video,and audio files via encoding them to a smaller format to fit the media or application they are being used in.

 

[dobby]

simply rip MP3's form CD is encoding (or conversion) from uncrompessed (well it is still sampled but in terms of compression) to a compressed media like MP3 or AAC.
converting video to a different format for a personal media device is conversion.

im never to bothered about quite how fast something enciode, because i expect to have to wait to convert its is a process at the end of the day, i look for real time process time increase, IE how fast the operating is working, opening application ect. and any befits in game, thing i really want to be as cloe to real time as possible.

you proberly do it more than you care to realise, hope this helps.

 

[pasoleatis]

I usually convert videos of our vacation to DVD. our camcorder is using miniDV. Converting videos from DV format to DVD would takes SOME time especially on slow CPU.

our videos usually fits on a single layer DVD, but if its a long video, we burn on a dual layer DVD.

when burning on dual layer, i usually convert the DV to maximum DVD quality. MAXIMUM!


But im not concern about converting videos anymore since Nvidia will launch CUDA that would help converting videos in no more than 30 minutes or even less. converting video through CPU is the thing of the past to me, but Nehalem 8-core chould change everything. i hope.

OFF TOPIC:

I think it is already possible to run programs made in different programming languges. It would be cool if the OS could use the ndivia card as an additional processor. The GPU is quite powerful item.

PL

 

[dobby]

OFF TOPIC:

I think it is already possible to run programs made in different programming languges. It would be cool if the OS could use the ndivia card as an additional processor. The GPU is quite powerful item.

PL

even more off topic:

well being a develop myself, that is why the .net frame work is so popular, becasue you can write in managed C++; C#; VB and i loads more, and they all get compile to CRL.

i know that many graphic solutions encode/decode them selfs, example; my hd4850 decode MP4 (inc HD) it self.

as for using the GPU to process, this is already starting to happen with ATi brook+ (inc CAL) and nVidia's Cuda. for those of you who fold at home, as i do, you will proberly of have noticed that you can run a GPU client and assuming you have a dedcent GPU it is much faster than MOST proccessors. as they have many streaqm processors meaning they can process Vector very fast. so where integer math is faster through a tradional CPU, floating point is muh faster through a GPU.

anywho, i think GPGPU (General Purpose GPU - i think?) will be great advance in modern computing.

 

[Wisecracker]

I convert OTA ATSC and cable HD '.tp' transport streams to reduce the file size around 75% to store on a media server for our personal use. I also convert suck-ass analog content because the DRM Nazis (and those ******* crooks who pirate and distribute intellectual property) are making it more and more difficult on those of us who are honest.

I also convert vinyl LPs to digital (Allman Bros. Live at the Filmore East, anyone? ).

Why? Because anywhere/anytime in my house I can stream the media content of my choosing from my library.

TC - Damn. That's as exciting as watching paint dry - lol. If we could only harness the hot air from those meetings ...

 

[MU_Engineer]

I rarely if ever transcode video as MPEG-2 is my preferred format and most of the video I encounter is MPEG-2 from my TV tuner card. The last I had to transcode anything is to be able to play some H.264-encoded video files (from a class) on my 1.06 GHz laptop. The CPU couldn't quite keep up with H.264 files but it had GPU assist for MPEG-2, so it played those very nicely.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Why? Because anywhere/anytime in my house I can stream the media content of my choosing from my library.
.

It's great, isn't it? I have a MythTV setup that does just that. It's pretty darn nice, especially since you can do playback from about any old crappy machine hooked to a decent monitor or TV and a network connection.

 

[protokiller]

Most of the music I get is already in MP3 format and I'll rip something off a cd about once every few months.

I'm going to be going on a long trip soon across a few states (From California to Colorado) in a CAR so thats going to take awhile so I guess I"ll need to load my PSP with some videos which will mean lots of converting on my end for a few days..

ah well dual core rocks, at least it won't interfere with my gaming!. (or hopefully at least much since the cores share l2 cache)

 

[amdfangirl]

I only encode videos to watch on my ipod or if I'm doing some heavy Premiere project... just compress it into 20MB... Its kinda hard to upload 1GB...