Powerbook faster than Mac Mini???

[Snowy_River]

Okay, so I'm finding myself puzzled by this. I have a 1.67GHz G4 PB and a 1.66GHz CD MM. I've used both to encode a DVD project in iDVD, and I'm astonished to say that it seems that my PB is the faster of the two! I do know why, sort of, but it doesn't lessen my surprise.

I have menu meters so I can watch processor usage, and it seems that iDVD isn't very good at taking full advantage of both cores in the CD. So, it's more along the lines of a single 1.66GHz Core versus the 1.67GHz G4. And the results are that the G4 seems to outstrip it. Could this be in part because of the "Velocity Engine"?

Just wondering, and wanting to share my surprise with all of you.

 

[livingfortoday]

I've found that my 1.5Ghz Core Solo Mini encodes video in Handbrake about twice as fast as my 1.25Ghz G4 Powerbook. It also beats my dad's 1.6Ghz G5 by a small margin. So... yeah, is there anything different about your systems? RAM amounts? Hard drive speeds?

 

[Snowy_River]

Well, encoding with HandBrake, the MM beats my PB by a bit over a factor of 2. Here, though, HandBrake makes good use of both cores in the CD. For example, if I want to rip an episode or two of MacGyver to take with me on the plane (not wanting to lug the DVDs around with me), it would take my PB about 55 min to encode a 47 min episode in HandBrake, whereas it would take the MM about 23 min to do the same.

It's this iDVD performance that has really shocked me. Go figure...

 

[ero87]

hehe, "lugging a dvd" is a funny concept. what an age we live in!

 

[poorlytoldjoke]

The amount of ram you have and whether or not what the program you are using is running as a UB or under Rosetta would likely be the biggest questions.

Rosetta makes everything slow. Photoshop runs like crap under Rosetta. I cannot wait until CS3.

 

[Chundles]

The amount of ram you have and whether or not what the program you are using is running as a UB or under Rosetta would likely be the biggest questions.

Rosetta makes everything slow. Photoshop runs like crap under Rosetta. I cannot wait until CS3.

iDVD is a Universal Binary. Rosetta plays no part in the performance disparity.

Have you got the settings on the encoding bit set exactly the same? Because that would make a big difference.

 

[Snowy_River]

hehe, "lugging a dvd" is a funny concept. what an age we live in!

Really it's an issue with "lugging" around the disk carrier. It's just a nuisance. I'd much rather just have the videos on my computer.