H264 or MPEG4 Encoding times


DXNMedia

DXNMedia

Moderator
Staff member
Been a while since I've done some research from Clubsnap, so here goes.

For the video professionals / editors working on file-based workflows, I'm trying to find out what are your usual render /encode durations to output an hour long, full res 1920x1080 video clip in H264 or MPEG4 compression.

Would be great if anyone can provide a rough list following the format:

Platform: Mac / PC
CPU: eg. 2.8ghz Quad Core
Editing software: FCP / Premiere / Avid / Vegas
Typical file duration vs encoding time: eg. 30mins clip take 2hrs.... etc

Am doing this study coz I found that anything above quad-core, doesn't quite improve encoding times, at least when using FCP / Compressor.

Thanks in advance for sharing.
 

Quad core i7 MBP on FCPX.
Editing natively in h264. Last project, converted a 10min segment to 1080p h264 took about 30mins or so.

Anyone tried those hardware accerators? Maybe one of those Matrox max mini unit can give accelerated 1:1 h264 encoding times?
 

my Mac Pro on 8GB Ram 1066, dual quad-core 2.4GHz. Render times are usually 1:1... occasionally slightly faster... using mpegstreamclip, handbrake, FCP, Compressor, or a combination of them.

And then the exhaust fan warms up real quick.
 

Cool! Thanks for sharing....keep more info coming in, especially from the PC users too.... :)

I noticed even with Westmere 8core also about 1:1 max....CPU monitoring shows that not all cores are used for encoding too, so I think H264 processing won't be able to go any faster than realtime.

Am really interested with Matrox's MAX technology in their devices....wondering if they'll do any justice to increase the encoding speeds. :)
 

yeah im pretty interested in the Matrox MAX thingy too. wonder if anyone has used them here.

One thing though, though not all cores are used, they do "alternate" at regular timings. odd numbers for a while, then the even numbers.
 

Yeah, I noticed the CPU cores do switch around a bit to take turns in processing.

The strange thing about the matrox Max technology is that most of the units are all capture/input devices...connected via Expresscard34, Thunderbolt or PCIe.... so I'm wondering how the encoding architecture comes in to help speed up the H264 encoding process. Especially when you use a non-fcp app like the compressor.... how is it gonna detect the MAX engine....

If I recall reading correctly, they're using the CUDA engine, so premiere pro users may already have accelerated H264 encoding natively.
 

Last edited:
interesting....i didnt know about this elgato solution... tempted to buy & try though. :)
Thanks for the info. :)
 

Compare to the Matrox, the price for the Elgato is very cheap. If you are still on FCP7, do give it a try and let us know the result : )
 

yeah, still stuck on the legacy FCP7.... dunno which path to move on towards, so meanwhile adopting the mindset of 'if it aint broke, dun fix it...' For H264 encoding now, I'm on realtime 1:1 with BMD hardware coz I'm dealing a lot with baseband video signals. HDSDI, SDI, etc...
If the Elgato doesn't bring enough value for me to go software encode, then no point also.

I can't find a local dealer that carries the Elgato too.
Mail order also can't ship to SG on their sites. Only B&H have, but gotta pay over US$40 for shipping.
May not be worth the trouble unless I need to get other things from B&H.

Wondering where are all the other premiere pro users with CUDA boards to share their encoding times. :)
 

I'm on iMac i7 2.8. FCPX 20GB ram

Editing Canon system's H264 direct without transcoding to Prores for all web distribution projects. I do transcoding only for projects that either screen on TV or Cinemas.

I'm not sure about the quad core but adding rams don't do much difference to render time. I think my bottleneck is the external HD now cause i don't place my RAWs on the internal HD.

Waiting for a fast yet affordable thunderbolt dual bay (The WD one has mixed reviews on speed) to come into the market cause firewire800 isn't cutting it anymore.
 

H264 is simply too processor intensive...nothing much to do with ram or drive speeds.
Drive speed comes in to play when you're dealing with Uncompressed footage, otherwise most FW800 or internal 7200rpm drives can handle DVCPro or ProRES422.....although it is strongly advised to use RAIDed drives.

What's your avg rendering time when working with H264 files and outputting for final delivery?
 

Fcpx rendering (per clip) strongly depends on the effects or layers of effects so that one is hard to say.

For export to web distribution h264 mov file. A 5min clip will take around the same amount of time to be exported (provided all background rendering are completed already)
 

Ah... Maybe that explains why mine is slow. I enable better performance meaning using proxy, so all the effects and color correction in proxy only. So when I finally do the final output in H264 1080p, it has to basically re-render every damn thing again! Is that how it works??
 

Yes & no.. it really depends on your sequence settings too.
If you're talking about using an intraframe based compression sequence (ie ProRES, DVCProHD), then yes, the render will be cached and used in your final output.
No when you're dealing with interframe based compression sequence (eg. H264, XDCAM, HDV...)

When your sequence is set to H264 output, your final render will need to go thru another pass of conforming because the frames will need to be reassigned according to the GOP structure.
 

used to sell laptops..

this guy bought an SSD based laptop from me, he told me that it cut his rendering time by more than half when compared to his macbook.

This was a couple of years back, but I believe it still stands - SSDs will help with rendering
 

Been reading a bit about hardware side of things and stumbled upon Bill Gehrke & Harm Millaard's Premiere Pro Benchmark: PPBM6 for CS6

It is designed to be a portable, repeatable, and easily reportable hardware evaluation tool. It will allow you to optimize your Premiere Pro hardware configuration and give you solid data for optimizing your existing system, upgrading your system, or for selecting a new cost effective configuration.

It tests system setup, CPU and cores, hard disk setup, video card and memory.
Click to expand...

Pretty interesting stuff. Read about the benchmark in this thread in the adobe/premiere/hardware forum: Adobe Community: What PC to build? An update...

Previous version (CS5):
Benchmark Results
Benchmark Results
 

Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
  • Locked
On Editing 5D Mk II Video
Replies
3
Views
2K
isaryan
isaryan
Back
Top