[luvaboi217]

I'm using ffmpegx on a powerbook 667. Encoding seems to take forever, much longer than it would to even watch the avi. Is there anyway to speed this process?

[mbryda]

MPEG4 takes a LOT of time to compress. On an iMac G4/800 it's about 2-4x source length at the same resolution...

[Uncle Skeleton]

well, the original question seems to be about mpeg-1 encoding, which does take a long long time. mpeg-4 encoding doesn't have to take that long. 3ivx is mpeg-4 compliant, and I encode at about 50-60 fps at half-frame (320x240) on my dual 1ghz. it's about 20-25 fps at 640x272. (saying the same res as the source is a meaningless statement unless you know the source res)

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Uncle Skeleton:
well, the original question seems to be about mpeg-1 encoding, which does take a long long time. mpeg-4 encoding doesn't have to take that long. 3ivx is mpeg-4 compliant, and I encode at about 50-60 fps at half-frame (320x240) on my dual 1ghz. it's about 20-25 fps at 640x272. (saying the same res as the source is a meaningless statement unless you know the source res)

Doesn't FFMPEG also do MPEG4?

I was using 3ivx, keeping the source resolution the same, which is very relevant, as the program has to rescale every frame (30 per second) to the output resolution. Which of course adds time.

I was doing full screen (7xxxX3xx) compressions from a DV camcorder capture using 3ivx at high quality settings resulting in ~700 Megs per 1 hour.

[Kanaeaupuni]

encoding is not always real-time.

it also depends on your source, some sources encode to certain formats longer than others

[Ken_F2]

Encoding is one of the few areas where processor performance makes a big difference. MPEG encoding is one of the key reasons why we need faster PowerPC processors. The IBM 970 should certainly help in this regard.

The fact that most current Macs, because of their processors, are effectively limited to low-resolutions (like 320x240) for usable DIVX and MPEG4 encoding is quite laughable. On the PC, people are encoding DVD video to DIVX at full resolution at twice real time (~50fps) on the latest P4 processors, and more than 4x real time (100-110fps) at 320x240. You know it's bad when a PC can make a DIVX recording of a 90 minute DVD movie at full resolution in 43 minutes (or 320x240 in 20 minutes), whereas a new iMac takes 300 to 400 minutes to do the same thing.

On PCs, as you read over on the AVS Forum, people are re-encoding MPEG-2 HDTV to MPEG4 and WM9 at 1280x720 and 1920x1080 resolutions, with very few people using resolutions much lower than 720x480 MPEG4/WM9 for DVD rips. Yet on the Mac, such things are uncommon, if not unheard of because you're looking at several orders of magnitude difference in encoding time for PCs vs Macs.

[luvaboi217]

man, all this info you guys are telling me is making me depressed about making vcd's on my pbook. Its taking me awhile to make a mpeg1---i think its mpeg1--I just want to be able to watch some cartoon episodes i have. Thanks for all the help.