MacPro - iDVD encoding/burn times

[diamond3]

I guess this is really for any computer, I would just like to see the difference mainly between a new iMac and Macpro. I kind of brought it up in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/255816/ but there weren't numbers from the macpro.

my iMac g4 1.0ghz 512mb, 10.3, ilife 06 etc.

What i made: a 2 hour movie (made in imovie with no transitions, 2 titles) iDVD menu without scene selection.

Time to encode, compress and burn: 9 hours (everytime)

I am hoping some other people will post there times up here, especially the mac pro.

Just try to include the computer setup, mac osx, length of movie and time to burn please.

 

[diamond3]

I just stopped in at our local apple store (not an official one) and asked them about encoding on the iMac vs. the Mac Pro. They said for a 2 hour movie with the iMac would take about 3 hours but the Mac Pro would be about an hour. Doe s this sound right?

 

[trainguy77]

Well i have been doing DVD burning and i have noticed iDVD doesn't use all your CPU which is annoying when doing the encoding and such. I even have RAM left. I am not sure about times for 2 hour movies though.

 

[diamond3]

I am up for any times really that you could give me. Just explain though what is in it, how long etc. Just to give me an idea. I though an hour sounded almost too good. How much of your cpu does it use? I was thinking about maybe doing two at a time also.

 

[trainguy77]

Well as i recall it would use as little as %50 at some points. At other points in the encoding it would be using %150 It was taking it about an hour and a half to encode a movie that was 50 minutes long with ALOT of transition, plus about 30 minutes of menu videos.

 

[diamond3]

ok, I was thinking about 2 hours for a 2 hour movie. It's our home videos and they aren't edited or anything like that so it doesn't have to deal with transitions.

i also was wondering about instead of a new project as "Dv" what if I did it as mpeg4 since they aren't high quality to begin with being videos? This would decrease the encoding time right?

 

[paxx]

Just try to include the computer setup, mac osx, length of movie and time to burn please.[/QUOTE]

I've got a Mac Pro 2.0 with Lite On 20x DVD superdirve added, X1900, and 2gb ram. I found burning a 1 hr home made imovie with some titles added to video, no transitions, and chapter markers took about 3 1/2 to 4 hrs to encode & burn. the encoding hangs up at the audio encoding stage and gives you the twirling umbrella of death while it continues to work. this unfortunately is well documented by apple and needs to be fixed by them.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988

Very frustrating to have the video encoded in 1/2 to 3/4 hr and wait over 3 hours to encode the audio. the burn time on this disc is under 4 minutes with this lite-on drive. I hope Apple gets their act together with the next version of iDVD.
Paxx

 

[hogmog]

the encoding hangs up at the audio encoding stage and gives you the twirling umbrella of death while it continues to work. this unfortunately is well documented by apple and needs to be fixed by them.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988

Very frustrating to have the video encoded in 1/2 to 3/4 hr and wait over 3 hours to encode the audio. the burn time on this disc is under 4 minutes with this lite-on drive. I hope Apple gets their act together with the next version of iDVD.
Paxx

Is this typical with iDVD (in iLife 06) on a Mac Pro? The Apple document is not particularly helpful so it would be useful to get some more feedback on this issue and the original post. Looking to purchase a Mac Pro with the Final Cut Express offer but will be wasting my money if Paxx's issue is widespread and not fixed. The Apple store guy's suggestion of 1hr to encode 2 hr DVD is much more appealing! Currently having to wait 6 hrs on G4 1.67 power book with 1.5 gig.

 

[paxx]

Is this typical with iDVD (in iLife 06) on a Mac Pro? The Apple document is not particularly helpful so it would be useful to get some more feedback on this issue and the original post. Looking to purchase a Mac Pro with the Final Cut Express offer but will be wasting my money if Paxx's issue is widespread and not fixed. The Apple store guy's suggestion of 1hr to encode 2 hr DVD is much more appealing! Currently having to wait 6 hrs on G4 1.67 power book with 1.5 gig.

Unfortunately the answer is yes. I have done a lot of searching on Apple's forums and found that the problem is related to iDVD from iLife 06. Apparently Final Cut Studio, with it's DVD Studio Pro, does not have this problem, but FC express, since it uses iDVD to burn still has the problem. The problem is related to iDVD. Older versions of iDVD are apparently faster at burning than the most recent. It really ticks me off that Apple can't or won't take care of this.

Wish I was the bearer of better news.

check out the Apple discussions http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa and search the iDVD and FC pro discussion groups

Paxx

 

[astarling06]

I experience the same long times when I use my Macbook Pro CD 2.0 using iMovie and then iDVD to encode and burn. It takes even longer when I'm converting my old VHS tapes to DVD not to mention it takes up an extreme amount of hard drive space. I ended up buying an external hard drive to put the iDVD projects on while waiting the requisite 4-6 hours to encode and burn. The audio hang up is the same thing I experience. It just sits there and does nothing for an hour or two.

 

[diamond3]

The funny thing is on my imac G4, the audio encoding maybe takes an hour total. Thats just a guess. It will do the beach volleyball for a little while but it eventually gets going.

I am sure they will fix this problem with the new release of ilife 07. Hopefully it will be coming out soon.

I just did another movie (99min) today on a g5 2.1ghz w/ilife 05 and it took 3 hours maybe 3.5 hours to complete. It also did the beachvolleyball thing for a little while at the audio encoding.

 

[JonathanBTripp]

encoding time

Funny thing I can say ... for me it depends on the video the create. I have some converted dv files (formerly avi or mpg) and these take about 2 hours for 1 hour of video. However on a dv video direct from my camcorder, a 1 hour dv video took 9 minutes to encode.

Mac PRO - 2.66 Nehalem, 3gig Ram, 2 - 640 gig HD, 2 - 1tb HD, GT120 Video.