Encoding speed question.

[Gohan]

First off I apologize if this has been asked a million other times before but a search of the forum didn’t turn up any results.

I’m thinking of buying my first ever Mac but need something cleared up first.

At the moment I have a P4 2.6c@3.45ghz, 1024mb PC3500, 9800 Pro etc.. Main use for this PC is web browsing, gaming and most importantly video encoding. I have a budget of around £1100 so I only have 3 choices the eMac, iMac and iBook.

I don’t intend for the mac to replace my PC just coexist with it. Obviously I don’t expect a 1gig G4 to compete with my P4 but I would like to know how the G4 1gig would compare in the area or ripping a DVD to Divx/Avi. What would you estimate the G4 speed as in terms of an equivalent P4?

Cheers, Ryan

 

[Powerbook G5]

A dual 1 GHz G4 is pretty good with encoding. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised to see it come reasonably close to the Pentium times since the dual processors and altivec enhancements really add muscle to it. I haven't done any video encoding myself, but I know with audio, my PowerBook running at 1.25 GHz can encode in iTunes much faster than my sister's 2.4 GHz P4 Toshiba laptop.

 

[~Shard~]

I have a 1.25 GHz G4 iMac and for what it's worth, video encoding is pretty fast on my machine. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to, but I would expect that it is at least comparable to your P4 system. Faster? Probably not, but comparable and acceptable, yes. Plus, besides the raw encoding time, there are a couple other factors to consider as well, such as the ease of use of the system, the stability/reliability of the OS (UNIX/Free BSD based), and the actual video apps out there. You'll probably save time in general using a Mac, due to its ease of use, and will enjoy using it more than your PC - but that's just my opinion.

 

[Powerbook G5]

Plus if you have dual processors, you could be doing a lot to keep productive while you are encoding since you have a whole other processor to use.

 

[Lanbrown]

I would suggest you look at the magazine Macworld. They did a Mac to PC comparison. They tested three Macs to three PC's. One of the tests was MPEG-2 encoding. In a lot of cases the same software couldn't be used. You will want to look for the December issue.

 

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
Plus if you have dual processors, you could be doing a lot to keep productive while you are encoding since you have a whole other processor to use.

Not if the application can utilize both processors. If the software were compiled to support only one processor then that would be true. If the software were capable of using both, then both would be running the process at hand.

 

[Horrortaxi]

I can always do 2 things at once with my dual 1gig PowerMac. If I'm encoding a movie, encoding mp3s, or burning a disk I can use all my other apps without any kind of performance hit.

 

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by Horrortaxi
I can always do 2 things at once with my dual 1gig PowerMac. If I'm encoding a movie, encoding mp3s, or burning a disk I can use all my other apps without any kind of performance hit.

The software from Apple can use two processors, which is evident in that the dual machines can accomplish the task much quicker then a single processor machine. When the software can utilize both processors, if you ask it to do another task, then you most certainly do take a performance hit. The difference in your scenario is that the other applications probably take a miniscule amount of processing power and thus looks like you do not take a hit, but in reality you do.

 

[Gohan]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like there going to be fast enough for what I need