Does anyone have a dedicated encoding box?

[jmichael99]

I was considering building a box just for encoding. right now im using my file server which is an old p4 setup. Im encoding bluerays at 1.5-2fps. so an encode takes around 15-24 hours. Sure it doesnt bother me since it just sits in the corner but Im encoding more and more recently so I was thinking of a new box.

Anyone have some specs?

I read an i7 setup would get me 7fps. I was considering amd just for the price being cheaper

also if i get a dual or quad or even 6 core setup can I encode more than one movie at once without a performance hit?

[Deleted User 11865]

7 fps on a Desktop i7 (i.e. 4 or 6 cores) means you'd be using very slow settings (probably slower than whatever gives you 2 fps on a Pentium 4).

I get 7-10 fps for most BD sources (no scaling, so 1920 by 800 to 1080 pixels depending on source) on a 2.8 GHz i5-760 (4 cores) with settings between the "slow" and "slower" x264 preset. A similarly-clocked i7 would be 10-20% faster.

For video encoding with x264, you'd probably want an Intel 6-core, with the next best thing being an Intel Quad-core i7 or an AMD 6-core.

With normal settings, x264 should still be able to use all your cores (up to 6, maybe 8) reasonably efficiently so running two instances may not improve encoding speeds significantly (in any case, the WinGUI has experimental multi-instance support or you could launch two CLI instances manually).

[Aureleus]

What about a Duel CPU setup for a dedicated Encoding PC ? I"ve been thinking about doing that lately, you also may want to think about a PC with 2 CPUs for heavy encoding, just a thought though an figured I'd add my 2 cents worth.

[jmichael99]

i think dual cpus would be out of my price range but i will look into it.. it would be a few months before i save up the cash for this anyway

im leaning towards an amd setup i think for cost savings

[tlindgren]

What about a Duel CPU setup for a dedicated Encoding PC ? I"ve been thinking about doing that lately, you also may want to think about a PC with 2 CPUs for heavy encoding, just a thought though an figured I'd add my 2 cents worth.

Dual socket means you need to have a more expensive motherboard and more expensive CPUs. To make matter worse there's limits on how many cores will be used for encoding, x264 is one of the programs that handle many cores best but there are still limits. Exactly how many can be used depends heavily on which settings and what source you use but 8 real cores probably won't be much faster than 6 identical cores and beyond 8 the gains are minuscule so having 12-24 (with two AMD Magny-Cours!) cores doesn't really help with one encode.

You can run multiple encodes at the same time to use all those cores but you're likely to get far more encoding done using the same amount of money and a bunch of smaller single socket boxes instead. If I were doing it I'd probably go with Intel Core i5-2500K and some mild overclocking but the AMD 6-core CPU may be a viable (but not faster) alternative. A lot depends on budget (in this case we've already established it's BIG) and what deals you can get. Of course, for maximum single box encoding performance you'd go for a 990X Extreme but you pay a lot for the privilege.

[TedC]

See my post here for the performance boost I saw when switching to a core i7 950:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=18054

[fearsjohn]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-big-b ... -review/15
i like there reviews they are fairly accurate. in the link he test the cpus using handbrake. now it might not be your settings but it is the same settings used between all the cpus tested so it will compare the cpus pretty nicely.

[jmichael99]

thanks for the 2 links. both gave me alot of info

Ted, you got your system for around 1500, i think i could get that price down a good because i dont need windows or a videocard since it will run headless, just use the onboard to get everything installed and im good to go using windows RDP

but ill look into building something similar to what you have.

Right now i have 24 movies pending and i cant really add any more since my harddrive is almost full

[match]

I recently purchased a new pc a little while back that has an i7 860 Quad Cord (8 "cores" with hyperthreading)/Turbo Boost @ 2.80GHZ and 8gb of DDR3 Ram. I use the following advanced settings (with crf of 18.5) for standard dvd's and get around 17-22fps. I thought that was pretty good considering the fairly high settings. The i7 packs a punch.

ADVANCED
Ref Frames: 8
Mixed References: on
B-Frames: 8
Adaptive B-Frames: Optimal
Direct Prediction: Automatic
Weighted B-Frames: on
Pyramidal B-Frames: on
Motion Estimation Method: Uneven Multi-Hexagon
Subpixel Motion Estimation: 9
Motion Estimation Range: 64
Anaylsis: All

[thompson]

Motion Estimation Range: 64

That's just barely this side of being sane. I bet you'd see no perceptible difference @ merange=24, but you'd see a pretty significant speed boost.

[match]

I know it's probably overkill. But I don't mind maxing out the options as long as the speed is acceptable. It can't really hurt anything, right? To rip a 1hr30min movie in less than 3 hours is fine by me. Say I could shave 1 or 2 hours off of that by changing that value. Sure, I could encode more movies in less time. But in all actuality, that wouldn' really save me time as I have no need to encode (say it took it down to 2 hours for one movie) 12 movies a day. So you see, there is not much for me to gain by lowering that value.

[Deleted User 11865]

I know it's probably overkill. But I don't mind maxing out the options as long as the speed is acceptable. It can't really hurt anything, right?

But you're not maxing out the options. You're maxing out one option beyond its usefulness. Time spent on merange 64 instead of 16-24 would be better spent on trellis 2 or subme 10.

[match]

Oh, I forgot to put on there that I do have Trellis on 2 (at least I set it to Always...I think that's 2). Not sure why I missed that.

But you're not maxing out the options. You're maxing out one option...

Well...maybe you didn't see the other settings. merange was not the only option maxed out. I am open to maxing out subme instead of merange. However, if I remember correctly Subme used to only go up to 9. 10 wasn't even an option not too long ago. Would that also be "maxing that setting beyond its usefulness"? I am open to maxing out the one over the other. However, I am curious about the usefulness of subme 10. Do you know how much gain in compression it has over 9? Because I just experimented and merange 64/subme 9 gives me around 15-20fps. Merange 24/subme 10 goes down to 8-14fps. So there is about a 30-45% loss in speed...a pretty big loss in speed. Once again, I don't need to encode a ton of movies every day, so I would consider it if it makes a big difference. I don't see many other options that I could make higher. Raising reference and/or b-frames could break compatibility and exhaustive or transformed exhaustive knock down the speed to like 3-4 fps...i've tried it and didn't see a difference. Even though I don't need to encode a ton of movies a day, there is a point where it's just not worth it.

What would a very good merange value be? I see the default is 16, and then it recommends higher for HD material. What would the highest be that is recommended?