6 hours for 42min Ep - MediaFork - A Faster Way?

[HelixOmnimedia]

Hello,

How long should it take to encode a 42 min TV Show in H.264 encoding with MediaFork?

Should it really take 6 hours! That's 6 full 24 hours days to do I season of a TV Show! There has got to be a faster process.

Any ideas

THANKS

 

[grahamtearne]

What machine do you have (specs) and what settings are you ripping at (you said H.264, but what quality setting?)

Also as with any program like this running intesive programs at the same time will slow down the process a great deal.

Hello,

How long should it take to encode a 42 min TV Show in H.264 encoding with MediaFork?

Should it really take 6 hours! That's 6 full 24 hours days to do I season of a TV Show! There has got to be a faster process.

Any ideas

THANKS

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

What machine do you have (specs) and what settings are you ripping at (you said H.264, but what quality setting?)

Also as with any program like this running intesive programs at the same time will slow down the process a great deal.

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: PowerBook5,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
CPU Speed: 1.67 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB

MediaFork Setting

File Format: MP4 File
Codecs: H.264
Framerate: Same as source
Encodeer: x264 (h.264 Main)
Average Bitrate: 1500
2 Pass Encoding: NO as it'll take 12 hours for 42min episode.
Source: 720x480
Output: 720x400

 

[imacdaddy]

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: PowerBook5,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
CPU Speed: 1.67 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1 GB

MediaFork Setting

File Format: MP4 File
Codecs: H.264
Framerate: Same as source
Encodeer: x264 (h.264 Main)
Average Bitrate: 1500
2 Pass Encoding: NO as it'll take 12 hours for 42min episode.
Source: 720x480
Output: 720x400

It's time to dump your ppc powerbook and upgrade. My iMac G5 (2.1GHz w/ 2.5GB RAM) will take about 4-5 hours with 2-pass encoding for a single tv episode under those encoding settings.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

It's time to dump your ppc powerbook and upgrade.

I'm saving my money, I'm going to upgrade to a MacBook Pro when the new OS is released, and hopefully they'll be a update to the specs. Just have to wait, save and see.

 

[JSZ0]

h264 @ 1500bps is a lot to ask from a G4. I don't know exactly how long it should take but without any SIMD instructions (Altivec or SSE) it's definitely in the ballpark. If you decrease the bit rate you might be able to drop it down near the 4-5 hour mark.

 

[mrgreen4242]

h264 @ 1500bps is a lot to ask from a G4. I don't know exactly how long it should take but without any SIMD instructions (Altivec or SSE) it's definitely in the ballpark. If you decrease the bit rate you might be able to drop it down near the 4-5 hour mark.

Agreed that that's a long process on the G4, but the G4 does have Altivec, so I'm not sure what you meant by that.

In any case, at over 1kbps I think that MPEG4 looks about as good as H264 for DVD resolutions. I'd recommend you try that and see how it looks and also see how long it takes (hint: should be like 3x faster)!

 

[FleurDuMal]

I'm saving my money, I'm going to upgrade to a MacBook Pro when the new OS is released, and hopefully they'll be a update to the specs. Just have to wait, save and see.

Although a lot faster on an Intel Mac, it's still quite a slow process. On my Macbook everything was done pretty much in real time (i.e. a 2 hour film would take 2 hours), if not a little bit more. Given that I ripped using double pass, it actually took twice as long.

It's also worth bearing in mind that future editions of Mediafork/Handbrake are going to have chapter functionality, as well as 5.1 AAC (I think), so it might be worth holding off the converting process for a while. I just ripped my entire collection a few months ago, and am now regretting it as I really want chapters. It took months to do as well!

 

[imacdaddy]

It's also worth bearing in mind that future editions of Mediafork/Handbrake are going to have chapter functionality, as well as 5.1 AAC (I think), so it might be worth holding off the converting process for a while. I just ripped my entire collection a few months ago, and am now regretting it as I really want chapters. It took months to do as well!

Same here. I ripped a dozen of my collections and now have stopped until mediafork/handbrake gets updated.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

Agreed that that's a long process on the G4, but the G4 does have Altivec, so I'm not sure what you meant by that.

In any case, at over 1kbps I think that MPEG4 looks about as good as H264 for DVD resolutions. I'd recommend you try that and see how it looks and also see how long it takes (hint: should be like 3x faster)!

Hey thanks for the advice.

I just tried the same settings but with MPEG4 instead of the H.264 and yes it was a lot quicker, 1hour30min for 42min episode... the only noticeable different is that the picture is a lot darker in the MPEG4 file.

Other than that, which is annoying, and a lot darker when playing though the AppleTV, the MPEG4 coding is a lot quicker.

 

[Multimedia]

8 Core Mac Pro Will Be Fastest Way

I'm saving my money, I'm going to upgrade to a MacBook Pro when the new OS is released, and hopefully they'll be a update to the specs. Just have to wait, save and see.

If you really want to be able to encode fastest, you're gonna have to spring for an 8 Core Mac Pro. I know I know handbrake only uses 2-3 cores. But with the 8 core you can run 3 or 4 encodes simultaneously before starting to hose the system. Plus Toast 8 will use all 8 cores to encode DVD Images.

I never use H.264. Have you read my tutorial on how I encode all my TV shows from EyeTV?