Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

rMBP vs Mac Pro video conversion?

C

Crzyrio

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 6, 2010
1,615
1,238
Hey,

I understand they are two completely different categories but what would be the speed difference in a regular Handbrake conversion?

The reason I ask is because I will have access to a MacPro soon while owning a rMBP.


The Macpro will require some travel time and booking in advanced so would be nice to know in advanced the benefits if any :)

Thanks
Rio
 
What software are you using? What are the specs of the Mac Pro? Does it have an SSD? RAID? Fibre?

Depending on what software you're using (FCP 7 vs. Premiere vs. MPEG Streamclip), your performance will very greatly as some programs see 2 cores of an 8 core machine, some see all 8.

Transcoding from and to an SSD is much faster than transcoding from and to a spinning drive.

Lots of factors.
 
CaptHenryMorgan said:
What software are you using? What are the specs of the Mac Pro? Does it have an SSD? RAID? Fibre?

Depending on what software you're using (FCP 7 vs. Premiere vs. MPEG Streamclip), your performance will very greatly as some programs see 2 cores of an 8 core machine, some see all 8.

Transcoding from and to an SSD is much faster than transcoding from and to a spinning drive.

Lots of factors.
Click to expand...

Hey Sorry,

Lets just say I use Handbrake, it uses as many cores as it can get, and the MAC PRO will have a Standard HD.

Mac Pro specs -> QUad Core Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz. and the rMBP is the standard base model
 
rMBP Handbrake conversion

Using Handbrake (normal preset) on my 15" rMBP I've just converted a 1.42 GB .avi file to .m4v in about 2.5 minutes while surfing in Safari.
 
your going to get some extra speed because you're not writing to the disk your reading from I assume. My quad with a 3570 which has a QPI than the 3565 Apple uses has a GB of 11,300ish

I wouldn't go out of my way to use the MP but it'll be cooler and quieter doing the job
 
miclar1 said:
Using Handbrake (normal preset) on my 15" rMBP I've just converted a 1.42 GB .avi file to .m4v in about 2.5 minutes while surfing in Safari.
Click to expand...

Thanks! That is fairly quick

GermanyChris said:
your going to get some extra speed because you're not writing to the disk your reading from I assume. My quad with a 3570 which has a QPI than the 3565 Apple uses has a GB of 11,300ish

I wouldn't go out of my way to use the MP but it'll be cooler and quieter doing the job
Click to expand...

You have lost me, I am not sure I understand.

Would you be able to convert a small file and tell me how long it takes and size of file? just to get an approximation
 
Crzyrio said:
Thanks! That is fairly quick



You have lost me, I am not sure I understand.

Would you be able to convert a small file and tell me how long it takes and size of file? just to get an approximation
Click to expand...

I can't remember how long it takes to handbrake stuff anymore.

The two computers are of similar power it will take as long to do it on a quad MP as it will on your MBP. The extra power of you MBP will be countered by having a scratch disk.
 
GermanyChris said:
I can't remember how long it takes to handbrake stuff anymore.

The two computers are of similar power it will take as long to do it on a quad MP as it will on your MBP. The extra power of you MBP will be countered by having a scratch disk.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!

Probably wont be worth my time doing the mac pro then
 
On my QC-i7 rMBP I can HandBrake a 1080p 10Mbps mkv in about realtime. I.e. it converts at about 24-28fps, 1h of movie in about 1h.
 
priitv8 said:
On my QC-i7 rMBP I can HandBrake a 1080p 10Mbps mkv in about realtime. I.e. it converts at about 24-28fps, 1h of movie in about 1h.
Click to expand...

My old QC-i7 2011 15" MBP converted a 1080p mkv to 1080p m4v using Handbrake at 18-20fps.

I'm shocked the new Haswell DC-i7 13" rMBP did the same file at 8-11fps. I even tried Bootcamp using QuickSync and it did 11-13fps.

Am I doing something wrong?
 
shortcut3d said:
My old QC-i7 2011 15" MBP converted a 1080p mkv to 1080p m4v using Handbrake at 18-20fps.

I'm shocked the new Haswell DC-i7 13" rMBP did the same file at 8-11fps. I even tried Bootcamp using QuickSync and it did 11-13fps.

Am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

Dual core sucks.
 
shortcut3d said:
My old QC-i7 2011 15" MBP converted a 1080p mkv to 1080p m4v using Handbrake at 18-20fps.

I'm shocked the new Haswell DC-i7 13" rMBP did the same file at 8-11fps. I even tried Bootcamp using QuickSync and it did 11-13fps.

Am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

This tends to be where you'll feel the dual-coreness of your dual-core processor the most, unfortunately.
 
shortcut3d said:
My old QC-i7 2011 15" MBP converted a 1080p mkv to 1080p m4v using Handbrake at 18-20fps.

I'm shocked the new Haswell DC-i7 13" rMBP did the same file at 8-11fps. I even tried Bootcamp using QuickSync and it did 11-13fps.

Am I doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

No, that looks about right. With Handbrake, you can pretty much do the math based on the number of cores. My quad will do the same type of encode at about 24fps. Drop it down to two cores, and it's about 12fps. At three cores (good balance between performance and temperature), it's about 18fps.

At least this is true for 1080p or any work that would normally peg every core to 100%. If you're just dropping something down to iPod resolution, one core is usually plenty.
 
The 15" rMBP was just too big for the wife, even though it was lighter than the 15" MBP. Sad.

I was hoping that QuickSync would have a huge advantage. Unfortunately, for 1080p encodes it seems to just shifts the workload from CPU to iGPU. This would be great if QuickSync was available in OSX where all my productivity apps are. In bootcamp, its a single purpose encoding machine.

I'm interested to know more experiences with QuickSync on Haswell.
 
Your MBPR will be extremely toasty when encoding. I've been using mine for editing 4k video and it gets extremely hot. It reaches 93c - 100c before the fan starts kicking in. I have to manually set the fans using SMCfancontrol or it'll stay at 90c to 105c. I'm not sure how accurate the readings are, but I assume they are using the same sensor info from the system and should be within 2-3c difference.

Get a MP if you plan on doing it long term.
 
shortcut3d said:
The 15" rMBP was just too big for the wife, even though it was lighter than the 15" MBP. Sad.

I was hoping that QuickSync would have a huge advantage. Unfortunately, for 1080p encodes it seems to just shifts the workload from CPU to iGPU. This would be great if QuickSync was available in OSX where all my productivity apps are. In bootcamp, its a single purpose encoding machine.

I'm interested to know more experiences with QuickSync on Haswell.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I glossed over the word "bootcamp" in the previous post and thought you were expecting a QuickSync boost in OSX. You're right, though. You should be getting better. Are you using a nightly build of HandBrake? I don't have Windows installed in any of my Macs, so I'm probably not going to be much help. Maybe a driver issue?

----------
Celedral said:
Your MBPR will be extremely toasty when encoding. I've been using mine for editing 4k video and it gets extremely hot. It reaches 93c - 100c before the fan starts kicking in. I have to manually set the fans using SMCfancontrol or it'll stay at 90c to 105c. I'm not sure how accurate the readings are, but I assume they are using the same sensor info from the system and should be within 2-3c difference.

Get a MP if you plan on doing it long term.
Click to expand...

Great for professionals, but a Mac Pro is overkill for handbrake.

A $400 mATX build with an i5 Quad would be plenty for a dedicated HandBrake machine. Windows would provide the desired QuickSync and OpenCL acceleration and probably give better frame rates than a Mac Pro anyway. Of course, HandBrake also runs on Linux, but no QuickSync.

But yes, on a MBP, handbrake is a compromise between heat and speed. Again, on my Quad, three cores seems to be the sweet spot. I have to wait an hour for something that I could do in 45 minutes if running at full bore, but I'm not on the clock when doing this and just don't care that much. And it keeps the temps in the low to mid 80s.
 
I was using the nightly build and QuickSync option enabled in the preferences.

My previous Handbrake results were comparing Bootcamp performance. I just did an encode under OSX and the speeds (18-20fps) are much closer to the older 2011 QC MBP. Once the processor is hot things slow down to the 10fps range.

Does retina scaling impact performance?

I also notice fps are higher coming out of waking the display, then drop.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back