Speeding up Video Encoding

[UaVaj]

not sure where the bottleneck is. but editing/encoding 1080p 60hz video takes forever.

specs: i7-3770k, 16GB, Z77 MB, Vertex4 128GB.

what is the typical bottleneck? what can be done to speed this up a little?

some considerations:
1) oc cpu
2) oc ram
3) add more ram
4) go raid 0

 

[smitbret]

not sure where the bottleneck is. but editing/encoding 1080p 60hz video takes forever.

specs: i7-3770k, 16GB, Z77 MB, Vertex4 128GB.

what is the typical bottleneck? what can be done to speed this up a little?

some considerations:
1) oc cpu
2) oc ram
3) add more ram
4) go raid 0

What is "takes forever"? The bottleneck for video encoding is almost 100% CPU almost 100% of the time.

I think you may need to add:
5) change .h264 settings
6) adjust expectations

Video encoding with .h264 is time consuming even with the best processor. To do it with decent settings on a BR Rip is measurable in hours not minutes.

 

[Papa Hogan]

What is "takes forever"? The bottleneck for video encoding is almost 100% CPU almost 100% of the time.

I think you may need to add:
5) change .h264 settings
6) adjust expectations

Video encoding with .h264 is time consuming even with the best processor. To do it with decent settings on a BR Rip is measurable in hours not minutes.

What are some typical times after expectation adjustment?

 

[Charlie98]

Just for reference... encoding a 2-hour DVD to MP4 through Handbrake with my 2500K (@ 4.1GHz) takes about 8 minutes on normal settings, and leaves me with a file anywhere from 1GB to 3GB, usually.

What kind of performance are you seeing, OP?

 

[UaVaj]

this is my first time doing any video editing. when I built this machine beginning of this year. purchase an i7 cause video editing might be in the near future.

fast forward to yesterday. basically trimming a 1.5GB 1080p 60fps mp4 video down to 1.2GB. trimming some of the dead time off. same format.

did not measure the actual time, however it was long enough that I had to go do something else and come back.

wanting to narrow down what is causing the slow down. need to upgrade that hardware or all hardware.

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option 1 is upgrade hardware. sound like need a faster cpu first. then may raid 0 some ssd. then more ram. correct order?

option 2 is upgrade software. is there such software that just cut n paste (as long as it is the same exact format) without encoding the whole video.

 

[jolancer]

I havn't encoded since xvid days, but i assume the process is similar/the same just different software and formats.

and if that statement is correct. your doing it wrong. If your just trying to cut scenes out, you shouldn't be re-encoding. In the past all you had to do was direct-stream copy with the scenes you wanted out cut from key start frames, which took only the amount of time it takes to copy and paste the file.

If your re-encoding an already encoded video, its going to take longer. just like trying to compress a file in an already compressed format. you won't get much out of it and it will look like crap.

sorry I'm not familiar with todays video editing software. but since you took no time to even look. I wouldn't be saprized if you also did not take the time to install your drivers correctly, so perhaps you just need to take the time to properly install your stuff aswell.

to direct stream copy out cut scenes you don't need any cpu power at all.

like i said i maybe outdated but.. doom9.org and videohelp.com i think use to always have all the neccessary software

EDIT:

What are some typical times after expectation adjustment?

since no one more qualified answered you yet... his statement was probably correct but left open for some interpretation because time probably varies a lot depending on 1) the type of video, ex-film vs animation 2)your computer specs 3)your desired output quality... A long time ago when i ripped DVD's I'd leave it on overnight. These days with faster machines it maybe faster but if your shooting for top quality from a BD 1080p no animation source to an optimal ratio of quality and size to output file, I can imagine it taking similar overnight time.

 

[UaVaj]

jolancer. chance are I may be doing it all wrong and is taking longer than typical.

even so. would like it to be faster than what it is currently. unless this spec is already near the top (for non business video editing).

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not even sure what the computer was actually doing. this was with window movie maker. task was simply trimming dead time off the video.

can only imagine the slow down of a more complicated video editing task.

 

[glugglug]

If all you are doing is cutting scenes out, use AviDemux with the Video and Audio settings on "Copy" rather than configuring audio/video codecs for encoding. It will be limited by your HDD probably to around 20-30s per GB.

If you are reencoding to make the file smaller without removing scenes, the beta versions of Handbrake support QuickSync on Sandybridge, Ivybridge and Haswell. I forget the codec name you have to pick something like H.264 QSV. The quality won't be as good as the non-quicksync recode for the same bitrate, but it will probably be more than 10x faster.

 

[UaVaj]

most of the time it should be just trimming scenes and adding in scenes. all from the same camcorder so the format is the same across. 1080p at 60fps w/ stereo sound.

like to keep it "as is" to retain quality. space is not a problem. if need more space. hard drive are dime a dozen.

camera is a sony AS15 and records in mp4 format.

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back to improving the speed of editing/encoding. given the current hardware specs. what component(s) would you video guru recommended upgrading?

unless the current spec is already near max for non business usage. and as smitbret stated in post #2. have to adjust my expectation.

 

[Torn Mind]

First you must see what is going on with the hardware. Fire up task manager to see how the CPU is being used. Not sure about the hard drive, but there might be something under Resource Monitor or something. Or if you're using Win8, Task Manager does show disc usage.

 

[smitbret]

I'm not sure AVIDemux works with modern codes, does it. If you're shooting HD video, you are most certainly shooting in raw or h264/avc. If you are using Windows Movie Maker you are probably completely re-encoding to VC-1 in the wmv format. I haven't looked at WMM in so long, though, there may be a chance that it outputs in .mp4. What was the destination file type?

There's just not enough info here to give a good answer. For instance, I can re-encode a 2 hour movie that comes off of a 1080p Blu-Ray rip in 1.5 hours or 18 hours. It depends on settings like reference frames, Trellis, Motion Estimation, etc. Also, is it 2-pass or CF encoding?

Honestly, this is probably the wrong place to ask. Doom9 is a solid place, but is a bit of an elitist community and they can be a little condescending if you don't come in with your A game. www.videohelp.com is a little friendlier, but you'll still need to explain what you're starting with and what you hope to end up with.

 

[smitbret]

Ultimately, it will come down to less aggressive settings or faster CPU. Your HDD only comes into play with mux/remux operations not encoding and then it's a measurable difference in seconds between an SSD and a RAID 0 setup if at all. You have plenty of memory.

 

[mfenn]

There's just not enough info here to give a good answer. For instance, I can re-encode a 2 hour movie that comes off of a 1080p Blu-Ray rip in 1.5 hours or 18 hours. It depends on settings like reference frames, Trellis, Motion Estimation, etc. Also, is it 2-pass or CF encoding?

This.

OP, to answer your question directly: it's almost certainly your CPU. If you want to make your exact process faster, you need to go Socket 2011 and get a six-core.

However: your current expectations might be unreasonable. If you expect to encode a 1 hour video in 5 minutes, then sorry that just isn't going to happen. You can make things much faster by changing encoding settings. There's no real "magic" here, you just have to learn what tradeoffs you get from each setting.