Handbrake Results... 300% CPU???

[GotPro]

Hey guys...

I've seen some threads where some of the new Mac Pro owners are getting x% of the CPU usage out of Handbrake.

Mine is the 2.8 Quad 8800GT 2Gig Ram Setup.

I'm right at 300% CPU usage, when ripping a movie from a Ram Disk (to eliminate any hdd or dvd drive slow down issues for a pure speed test).

I'm getting about 300+ Fps on the 1st Turbo Pass and then about 150+ Fps on the second, slower pass on iPhone settings with DeInterlace on Fast.

Does this look about right? Pretty dang fast! Ripping off the DVD is disappointing :-( Only about 50-65 Fps... :-(

I need a faster *ripping only* dvd drive.

 

[rshanahan]

Hey guys...

I've seen some threads where some of the new Mac Pro owners are getting x% of the CPU usage out of Handbrake.

Mine is the 2.8 Quad 8800GT 2Gig Ram Setup.

I'm right at 300% CPU usage, when ripping a movie from a Ram Disk (to eliminate any hdd or dvd drive slow down issues for a pure speed test).

I'm getting about 300+ Fps on the 1st Turbo Pass and then about 150+ Fps on the second, slower pass on iPhone settings with DeInterlace on Fast.

Does this look about right? Pretty dang fast! Ripping off the DVD is disappointing :-( Only about 50-65 Fps... :-(

I need a faster *ripping only* dvd drive.

Interesting. I have just started the 'macmini-tv/media server' concept and started experimenting with DVD Ripping and have come up to the same wish as you. After reading your note I tested to see if it would be faster to just 'copy' the DVD to the a drive (I didn't create a ram disk, just dumped it onto one disk then ripped it to another disk). It took 20 or so minutes to copy to a drive, then yes, less time to rip, but all in all, no real reduction in the total time to rip)

I too experienced the same results as you (300% cpu, etc.). (2007 mp, 4 core 2.66, 9gb ram). We need a faster DVD drive.

I then set out on a search to find a faster DVD drive. No dice. Every one I found has a DVD-ROM read speed of 16x...arrgh. How is it that these new drives WRITE faster than they READ?????????

I did notice that my 2nd drive (sony/nec/optiarc from Newegg, $27) was actually a little faster than the Apple drive so I will probably use that to rip.

At least I was able to FINALLY get my mini to output dolby digital to my system, what a pain THAT was.

Rick

 

[GotPro]

Ahhhh... But therein is the issue... Ive been doing a little research on this from various sources... Its not the READ speed that is the problem... But the RIP speed has been handicapped on most drives... I've got a Mad Dog Multimedia drive I bought at MicroCenter that I'm going to try and see what happens... Reports claim its firmware does NOT cripple the RIP speed!

 

[GotPro]

The Combo Drive I had picked up several years ago that was sitting in my closet (surely isn't the fastest thing in the world) is a BKM52X16...

Ripping from it is MUCH faster... see attached picture.

Still not HDD speeds... but over 2x as fast as Apple's Superdrive...

From 50+fps to an average of 110-120fps!!!

 

[rshanahan]

The Combo Drive I had picked up several years ago that was sitting in my closet (surely isn't the fastest thing in the world) is a BKM52X16...

Ripping from it is MUCH faster... see attached picture.

Still not HDD speeds... but over 2x as fast as Apple's Superdrive...

From 50+fps to an average of 110-120fps!!!

sooo, maybe it was a good thing I have a cabinet full of old cd/dvd drives...hmmm guess I'll start digging!

Thanks for the suggestion and temporary (or maybe permanant) ripping solution!

 

[Canoehead2]

Use Mac the Ripper to Rip while you are encoding the previous Rip from the HDD. Also, you can run two instances of Handbrake at the same time in two difference accounts - since HB will rarely get over 400% of CPU use with one instanace (one can be ripping directly from the DVD Rom). For big projects I use my old PC (with two DVDs) to rip directly to an ESATA drive, and then use HB on that.