High Definition (TP) to Standard Definition Performance

[ddennerline]

I wanted to get a feel for HD to SD/DVD burning performance. I purchased VRD TV Suite for sole purpose of avoiding the tortuous Beyond TV HD OTA > DIVX > SD/DVD Burn Plugin sequence. Obviously, VRD shaves off serious amount of time because one less transcode is required. I can burn three one-hour shows because of no commercials, but it can take over an hour to get a completed disk from the time the “Create DVD” button is pressed. I am happy with the quality right now. My rig seems to move about ~22-25 fps. From what I can tell VRD take advantage of both cores.

Before I fork over some hard earned money, I was wondering if anybody:

• has conversion times in the 60-80fps
• knows if VRD takes advantage of the SSE4 instructions. I have read reviews that shows how new instructions really help video processing applications (Intel details Penryn performance, new SSE4 extensions)
• knows what the maximum number of cores VRD can effectively use?
• knows where the sweet spot for price/performance to create DVD. Obviously, I can buy an 2CPU/8-core system, but I may soon find myself holding a will work for food sign.
  

.

My Rig:
AMD Opteron 2.3GHz (overclocked) 265 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103550 )
2GB of DDR 500 Memory
WD Raptor SATA 10K drive
Theater Pro 650

Mode: Frame Accurate
Video output frames: 96345
Audio output frames: 108067
Processing time (secs): 4748
Processed frames/sec: 20.29
Actual Video Bitrate: 7.03 Mbps

Mode: Frame Accurate
Video output frames: 164339
Audio output frames: 171359
Processing time (secs): 5955
Processed frames/sec: 27.59
Actual Video Bitrate: 6.20 Mbps

[bkh]

One observation (not particular to HD) is that there is a huge speed improvement if you can take input from one hard disk and write output to a *different* disk. I don't have a careful measurement, but my subjective impression is that it is on the order of 4x speedup. This is understandable because each disk gets half the amount of data transfer (rather than reading+writing the entire video program), and less seek activity too.

[DanR]

has conversion times in the 60-80fps

I've seen 60 with SD, but the best with HD is closer to 25-30 FPS.

knows if VRD takes advantage of the SSE4 instructions. I have read reviews that shows how new instructions really help video processing applications (Intel details Penryn performance, new SSE4 extensions)

Not yet. Waiting for HCENC to support SSE4. When they do, we will.

knows what the maximum number of cores VRD can effectively use?

Currently 3 cores. Working on using more, but its not yet a high priority.

knows where the sweet spot for price/performance to create DVD. Obviously, I can buy an 2CPU/8-core system, but I may soon find myself holding a will work for food sign.

Currently 4 cores is the planned sweet spot for the next 6-9 months.

[laserfan]

I've been thinking myself that my 3.2GHz P4 is getting a little long in the tooth. If I want to upgrade, to reduce my processing time for editing and re-encoding, do folks here recommend the latest Quad core processors, or does most software still not take advantage of it?

Wondering if a Dual core might get me 90% of the way there (to Quad performance)? Any thoughts?

[bits]

I've been thinking myself that my 3.2GHz P4 is getting a little long in the tooth. If I want to upgrade, to reduce my processing time for editing and re-encoding, do folks here recommend the latest Quad core processors, or does most software still not take advantage of it?

Wondering if a Dual core might get me 90% of the way there (to Quad performance)? Any thoughts?

This site should answer your question.... http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

The quads seem to be way faster regardless of the software used!

[laserfan]

Nice link, bits--thanks! I guess it's indeed time for me to upgrade. My Northwood P4 isn't even on that extensive list!!! :o

[BaysideBas]

I've been thinking myself that my 3.2GHz P4 is getting a little long in the tooth. If I want to upgrade, to reduce my processing time for editing and re-encoding, do folks here recommend the latest Quad core processors, or does most software still not take advantage of it?

Wondering if a Dual core might get me 90% of the way there (to Quad performance)? Any thoughts?

April 20th some Intel Quads will be cut to less than 50% of the current price.

http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Inte...dule/5510.html

[laserfan]

Can't seem to get your link to open, but I have two emails this a.m. from Dell & Gateway that suggests the price cuts have happened already. At least, for Dell to be offering a Q6600 w/19" LCD for $699 does seem to be quite a drop.

I'll wait now for the dust to settle a bit on this, thanks!

[DanR]

I would certainly recommend a quad core. We are moving in that direction as well. For example, even today a simple QSF is primarily single threaded (not counting the GUI progress bar), but we already have it running in the lab with 2-3 threads with a possibility of adding one more.

We are also looking at all aspects of VRD/TVS and looking at how we can take advantage of more threads. Its not a trivial development effort, but each time we change something we look at how the supporting code can be better take advantage of more cores.

[halsboss]

Hmm, avisynth MT (code available) might stimulate ideas ? Code available I believe.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=94996