[noopietom]

I sent my TiPB 500 MHz (the original, i.e. rev. A) for a superdrive upgrade. I was wondering how long it should take to encode into MPEG 2 format for DVD? Also, would extra 512 MB of RAM (going from 512 MB to 1 GB) significantly decrease the encoding time? Also, I'm considering buying DVD Studio Pro 2 when it is released. Will encoding be faster or occur at a better quality then iDVD 3? Thanks.

[Eug]

Originally posted by noopietom:
I sent my TiPB 500 MHz (the original, i.e. rev. A) for a superdrive upgrade. I was wondering how long it should take to encode into MPEG 2 format for DVD? Also, would extra 512 MB of RAM (going from 512 MB to 1 GB) significantly decrease the encoding time? Also, I'm considering buying DVD Studio Pro 2 when it is released. Will encoding be faster or occur at a better quality then iDVD 3? Thanks.

When you get your machine back, tell use what firmware you have. The firmware thread is here.

Also, if you can, please check out if DVD-RW or DVD-RAM works.

Does NE1 know if DVD Studio Pro/QuickTime Pro and iDVD 3 use the same MPEG-2 encoder? I can't remember off-hand.

In any case, your machine won't be terribly fast, considering it's only a 500 MHz - ie. half the speed of current PowerBooks, and current PowerBooks are no speed demons either for this kind of stuff.

[digi-j]

it will take many, many hours.

[noopietom]

Originally posted by digi-j:
it will take many, many hours.

Thanks for your replies. I was doin' some surfin' in the MacNN forums to see if I could find a more quantitative figure. I found of post by NeoMac who posted the following (Forums:Other: Digital A&V):

"For those of you interested in this stuff ...

The DVD encoding (MPEG2 encoding) ability of the Dual-1Ghz is impressive. At I walked in to an Apple Retail Store, they did a 'iDVD shootout' between a 933 and a Dual-1Ghz

The Dual 1Ghz encoded a 150 second clip in 105 seconds.

Roughly, 42 seconds per minute of DV. Smokin'!"

I decided to show off my Algebra I skills and do some ratios to find out roughly how long encoding should take based on this figure. Since the Dual G4 and the TiPB are both based on G4 processors, the ratio should be a good approximation (by the way are dual processors more efficent that a single processor - i.e. is a dual 1.43 faster than a single 2.86?). So here's what I figured out

1 min of raw video should take approximately 2 minutes and 48 seconds of encoding time.

Stated another way...

90 mintues oof raw video should take approximately 4 hours and 12 minutes .

These are just approximations. My upgraded TiPB should be back in a few days. I will post actual results when I get them.

[tr]

i've done this on my A03-equipped G4 450, but honestly, i don't know how long it takes. i usually just set it up, and then leave...like for work. i come back at the end of the day, and it's done. so, it probably takes a few hours, you're estimations sound correct.

eug, i think that iDVD uses a different codec than the qt one you get with DVDSP. it's like the iDVD codec is only available to iDVD, and not to qt.

what i'm really looking foward to is the new Compressor app in FCP4/DVDSP2 , which has 2-pass VBR. i hope it makes encoding simpler with higher quality.

tr

[k_munic]

@noopietom:

well, not quiet so easy to calculate: processor speed is of paramount importance. BUT: does your pb has level3 cache (=no, it hasn't)? how much level2 cache? what is the internal speed RAM? how fast is your hd?

secondly: mpeg compression is a very complicated thing, mainly, your computer has to "see" and calculate the difference between each single frames of a video. the goo' ol' example: 2h of a plain green surface has very little bits and is calculated in very less time; a highspeed action movie does need much longer....

some projects of mine (60min raw) needed more then 10h of calculating (Cube 450/832)

dvd authering is best done at night, when nobody disturbs your little brave machine ;-)

[noopietom]

Originally posted by k_munic:
@noopietom:

well, not quiet so easy to calculate: processor speed is of paramount importance. BUT: does your pb has level3 cache (=no, it hasn't)? how much level2 cache? what is the internal speed RAM? how fast is your hd?

secondly: mpeg compression is a very complicated thing, mainly, your computer has to "see" and calculate the difference between each single frames of a video. the goo' ol' example: 2h of a plain green surface has very little bits and is calculated in very less time; a highspeed action movie does need much longer....

some projects of mine (60min raw) needed more then 10h of calculating (Cube 450/832)

dvd authering is best done at night, when nobody disturbs your little brave machine ;-)

Thanks for the insight. I was wondering if upgrading my RAM would decrease the time significantly. Also, I plan on recording the DV and making the MPEG 2 files on a external, 7200 Firewire 2 drive. I was also wondering if k_munic was using DVDSP 1.5 or iDVD 3. I can't wait for DVDSP 2 to be released, batch encoding plus I could have waited and bought a much faster external DVD-R. Oh well, but I get to use iDVD! Thanks for the replies.

[xMetal]

unfortunately, I don't think that massive amounts of ram will make a big difference. The encoding process is basically pure computation. Obviously, you should have plenty of ram in the machine in general, but processor speed is probably of prime importance.

I just burned a 1:10 DVD on my 17" pbook and it took about 3 hours.