PPC fast enough for today? I say no... Not for DVD encoding

[orestes1984]

I set up just a basic DVD folder encode on Handbrake 0.94 with Apple TV settings on my dual core G.5 2.3ghz Xserve, just to see what would happen. 7hours later .

For comparison I also have my Dual Core i5 2.3ghz MacBook Pro encoding a DVD folder using the same settings in Handbrake o.98 will take 1.5 hours.

To DVD encoding, my Xserve says no apparently . Real world comparison? My MacBook Pro is a bit more than 4.5 times faster for the same CPU clock if we look at time it takes to complete a task.

But this is not accurate, as it does not take into account disk access time, lets look at frames per second where my Xserve is chugging away at 11frames per second and while I'm typing here my MacBook Pro is ticking over 25 frames per second.

Anyway, I am likely to convert 3 or 4 DVDs with Handbrake on my MacBook while doing other tasks while my Xserve will do just 1 with the only thing open being Handbrake in the same time.

Ok, so I have a few DVD folders left to convert and this will make the process a little bit faster, it's the tortoise and the hare, but if I had to do this all with my Xserve? It would take 2 or 3 days for what is going to take 8 hours.

This is an interesting comparison for what a machine with two 2.3ghz physical cores gets you in 2005 from Apple vs. what a machine with two 2.3ghz physical cores gets you in 2011 from Apple. 6 years is an eternity in computer technology.

I do wonder though, can I make this task faster by installing a SATA2 controller? I need to do some more research as to how the drives connect to the motherboard in the Xserve.

I guess with some longer data cables routed to the PCI slots rather than the opposite side of the board where the SATA ports are I could do it. After doing some inspection here.

http://d3d71ba2asa5oz.cloudfront.net/43000231/images/qt42600k4rdnk.jpg

But how much difference would it make and how much of this problem is CPU related.

 

[666sheep]

dual core G.5 2.3ghz – 7hours.

Dual Core i5 2.3ghz MacBook Pro 1.5 hours.

I do wonder though, can I make this task faster by installing a SATA2 controller?

But how much difference would it make and how much of this problem is CPU related.

SATA 2 won't help. It's CPU thing because CPU does main job. Even RAMdisk won't make it faster. If you have enough RAM to create one on Xserve - test it yourself.

 

[orestes1984]

SATA 2 won't help. It's CPU thing because CPU does main job. Even RAMdisk won't make it faster. If you have enough RAM to create one on Xserve - test it yourself.

I have an SSD in it, I'm currently doing a conversion on a platter disk though. I didn't want to dirty up my SSD. I'll test it after this encode finishes though.

 

[666sheep]

Also, keep in mind that MBP CPU uses HT. So you have 4 cores available and used, even if 2 virtual ones are running at half speed of physical ones, HB makes a good use of it.

 

[SkyBell]

My eMac will take a good 9-10 hours to encode 1 hour of a DVD from Handbrake. I'm doing one right now - Three - 1 hour episodes of a TV show. On Day Three now, almost done with it. Which is perfectly fine with me, I have no desire for it to go faster; ripping DVD's is not really a huge priority of mine, I have all the time in the world to do it.

But I suppose for most people, this isn't an acceptable rate... I say they should slow down and be patient.

 

[goMac]

An i5 is clock for clock way faster than a G5. The Core Duos were clock for clock faster even.

So this isn't unexpected.

Intel also added Altivec features to their architecture, so even when you take into account special processing on the G5 it doesn't really matter.

 

[orestes1984]

Also, keep in mind that MBP CPU uses HT. So you have 4 cores available and used, even if 2 virtual ones are running at half speed of physical ones, HB makes a good use of it.

True, I don't consider hyperthreading really CPUs though even if Intel does it well.

OK... 1 encoding fihished and now I will see what happens if I go from my platter disk to my SSD.

 

[Starfighter]

Why don't you download them instead? I guess you have your reasons, but I have been curious on this for a while now - why some people convert their whole DVD collection, a process that takes months for someone with a big collection, when it can all be downloaded in a few hours. I mean, a DVD rip even for personal use is as illegal as a downloaded .avi, right?

 

[orestes1984]

That depends which country you're in... for both questions.

In Australia DVD copying is technically illegal but not really enforced. For private use VHS/PVR recording of TV broadcasts is quasi-legal.

In Australia we still also have this funny thing called ADSL2+ with a 24mbit theoretical limit and long analogue phone lines that stretch for many kilometres meaning that people often get less than 1/4 of that theoretical limit if they can get it at all. Cable internet is also not prevelant outside of the capital cities. We are only just starting to roll out a fiber-optic network.

In Australia we also have download limits as well and when you start downloading H.264 movies you can eat up your 200gb download limit in a matter of days. Some people buy a lot less data than this per month as well on their internet plans.

 

[GermanyChris]

my quad did a blu ray in 8..7 seems awful slow

 

[orestes1984]

my quad did a blu ray in 8..7 seems awful slow

Your quad has twice the CPU power though.

 

[GermanyChris]

Your quad has twice the CPU power though.

and a blu ray rip is 40gb and a dvd rip is 7ish

 

[orestes1984]

and a blu ray rip is 40gb and a dvd rip is 7ish

And 1 G5 CPU is nothing fast let alone 2... I don't know, I'm doing the conversion on 1 disk. I'm only doing it to see how slow it is, or whether its usable.

It's not really useable for anything other than serving files.

 

[GermanyChris]

And 1 G5 CPU is nothing fast let alone 2... I don't know, I'm doing the conversion on 1 disk. I'm only doing it to see how slow it is, or whether its usable.

It's not really useable for anything other than serving files.

I still think theres something else going on, that just doesn't seem fast enough..

Maybe it is the conversion on the same disk, I don't do that..

 

[orestes1984]

I still think theres something else going on, that just doesn't seem fast enough..

Maybe it is the conversion on the same disk, I don't do that..

It's probably the fact that I'm converting to the same disk at the moment and also the fact that the disks are only SATA 1, not SATA 2.

This had me debating whether I should put a SATA2 card in this machine, but... I don't really use it enough in ways that require more throughput than SATA 1 can provide.

The slowest link is 100mbit ethernet which is a lot slower than SATA1 and with its current configuration it serves data to my Apple TV just fine and also sends data across the network just fine at Gigabit speeds which is also slower than SATA 1.

As a file server I don't need it to be any faster than what it is, it is already to much of a computer for the job it does if I'm being completely honest.

 

[GermanyChris]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1341757/

Here is my handbrake thread on my DP 2.0 I was getting 70-90fps on the DP

----------

It's probably the fact that I'm converting to the same disk at the moment and also the fact that the disks are only SATA 1, not SATA 2.

This had me debating whether I should put a SATA2 card in this machine, but... I don't really use it enough in ways that require more throughput than SATA 1 can provide.

The slowest link is 100mbit ethernet which is a lot slower than SATA1 and with its current configuration it serves data to my Apple TV just fine and also sends data across the network just fine at Gigabit speeds which is also slower than SATA 1.

As a file server I don't need it to be any faster than what it is, it is already to much of a computer for the job it does if I'm being completely honest.

see my above post

 

[orestes1984]

I think that is newer settings designed for larger file outputs on HD devices like the Apple TV, I wouldn't be game enough to state that as a fact.

I don't need to rip on my G5 when my MacBook does it just fine in the background. As I said I could do everything I'm doing on my G5 with a far slower machine. I could be using a NAS device if a jailbreak for ATV3 was released.

As it stands I could be doing everything I'm doing with a Yikes G4 and a couple of PCI cards, just a basic machine that can run 10.5.8 and iTunes, I could do the same on an Atom based computer as well I guess. The G5 is a bit of an overkill because you don't see many Xserves for sale these days particularly in Australia and so I bought it.

My Xserve is not a computer I use for daily purposes and I don't see it as ever being designed that way so it's just fine with me if it doesn't handle ripping duties as other computers on my network handle the task better.

 

[drorpheus]

Dude something is not right with your setup. For a normal 1hr 45min dvd rip on my dual 2.3 g5 not dual core, takes about 1hr 20min (getting 38 fps), stretching it to 720p takes about 2hr 30min to 3hr, stretching it to 1080p takes about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. Either your dvd drive is burning out, you have next to no ram, or your hard drives are super slow, because it should not be taking 8 hours. Converting an iTunes video 30min tv ep, takes about 1hr 20-45 to stretch it to 1080p.

I have only 4gb of ram in and 2) 1tb WD Black in RAID 0 w/no RAID card.

 

[California]

Dude something is not right with your setup. For a normal 1hr 45min dvd rip on my dual 2.3 g5 not dual core, takes about 1hr 20min (getting 38 fps), stretching it to 720p takes about 2hr 30min to 3hr, stretching it to 1080p takes about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. Either your dvd drive is burning out, you have next to no ram, or your hard drives are super slow, because it should not be taking 8 hours. Converting an iTunes video 30min tv ep, takes about 1hr 20-45 to stretch it to 1080p.

I have only 4gb of ram in and 2) 1tb WD Black in RAID 0 w/no RAID card.

I set up just a basic DVD folder encode on Handbrake 0.94 with Apple TV settings on my dual core G.5 2.3ghz Xserve, just to see what would happen. 7hours later .

For comparison I also have my Dual Core i5 2.3ghz MacBook Pro encoding a DVD folder using the same settings in Handbrake o.98 will take 1.5 hours.

To DVD encoding, my Xserve says no apparently . Real world comparison? My MacBook Pro is a bit more than 4.5 times faster for the same CPU clock if we look at time it takes to complete a task.

But this is not accurate, as it does not take into account disk access time, lets look at frames per second where my Xserve is chugging away at 11frames per second and while I'm typing here my MacBook Pro is ticking over 25 frames per second.

Anyway, I am likely to convert 3 or 4 DVDs with Handbrake on my MacBook while doing other tasks while my Xserve will do just 1 with the only thing open being Handbrake in the same time.

Ok, so I have a few DVD folders left to convert and this will make the process a little bit faster, it's the tortoise and the hare, but if I had to do this all with my Xserve? It would take 2 or 3 days for what is going to take 8 hours.

This is an interesting comparison for what a machine with two 2.3ghz physical cores gets you in 2005 from Apple vs. what a machine with two 2.3ghz physical cores gets you in 2011 from Apple. 6 years is an eternity in computer technology.

I do wonder though, can I make this task faster by installing a SATA2 controller? I need to do some more research as to how the drives connect to the motherboard in the Xserve.

I guess with some longer data cables routed to the PCI slots rather than the opposite side of the board where the SATA ports are I could do it. After doing some inspection here.

http://d3d71ba2asa5oz.cloudfront.net/43000231/images/qt42600k4rdnk.jpg

But how much difference would it make and how much of this problem is CPU related.

I thought Xserves were dual processor, not dual core?

Maybe one of your processors isn't working? (I have no idea, just guessing here)

Because that kind of work even on a 2.5ghz dual processor G5 didn't take that long.

Yes, I was right, Xserve was DP, not Dual Core. Which one do you have, anyway?

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/xserve/index-xserve.html

 

[thorns]

What's the point of stretching low-res material to HD resolutions?

 

[orestes1984]

I thought Xserves were dual processor, not dual core?

Maybe one of your processors isn't working? (I have no idea, just guessing here)

Because that kind of work even on a 2.5ghz dual processor G5 didn't take that long.

Yes, I was right, Xserve was DP, not Dual Core. Which one do you have, anyway?

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/xserve/index-xserve.html

Whether or not the cores are located on 1 CPU or 2 CPUs its still equivalent. It's just a way of shrinking technology.

2 CPUs with 1 core on each CPU or 1 CPU with 2 cores, it's the same thing.

Dude something is not right with your setup.

My computer is perfectly fine... Although I should perhaps reformat the disk as it's been in that many different computers and the partition map is MBR and not APM it shouldn't make a difference at all. I will get round to that when my next drive module comes in the mail so I can put a new hard drive in.

The only thing wrong with the Xserve is the crappy VGA video card and the lack of Quartz Extreme but that doesn't affect disk performance.

 

[California]

Whether or not the cores are located on 1 CPU or 2 CPUs its still equivalent. It's just a way of shrinking technology.

2 CPUs with 1 core on each CPU or 1 CPU with 2 cores, it's the same thing.

The reason I asked was AFAIK, you can run a G5 Dual Processor (not Dual Core) on one of the processors if the other one fails.

Pretty sure on the DC models this is impossible. So I was wondering if one of your proc. had failed, because I can render quicker than that on a Powerbook G4

 

[Subish]

Dude something is not right with your setup. For a normal 1hr 45min dvd rip on my dual 2.3 g5 not dual core, takes about 1hr 20min (getting 38 fps), stretching it to 720p takes about 2hr 30min to 3hr, stretching it to 1080p takes about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. Either your dvd drive is burning out, you have next to no ram, or your hard drives are super slow, because it should not be taking 8 hours. Converting an iTunes video 30min tv ep, takes about 1hr 20-45 to stretch it to 1080p.

I have only 4gb of ram in and 2) 1tb WD Black in RAID 0 w/no RAID card.

I'm getting about same results as above with my G5

Now I usually use Mac The Ripper to rip the dvd and then use Handbreak. I just do that because I can queue up a bunch of things to encodes. I usually do about 5-10 at a time but since it is not my main machine I'm not really worried about it. I avg between 2-3 hours per each one.

my set up:
Power Mac G5 2.3DP with 8 gigs of Ram and a 1Tb HDD.

 

[orestes1984]

The reason I asked was AFAIK, you can run a G5 Dual Processor (not Dual Core) on one of the processors if the other one fails.

Pretty sure on the DC models this is impossible. So I was wondering if one of your proc. had failed, because I can render quicker than that on a Powerbook G4

The processors are working fine, they both show up in activity monitor and system profiler.

 

[JCstudios]

My PowerBook G4 take over 10 hours to encode a HD mp4 files.

It's just way toooo long.

I'm stressed.