[bighead]

I'm looking for something that will let me convert 720p-resolution Matroska H.264 video down to iPod res without taking 4-6 hours for a 20-minute file. I tried Perian and ViddyUp, which functioned well enough but was SLOOOOOOOOW. I tried ffmpegX, but same result. It was dog slow, but was getting the job done. Any folks out there have any other experiences that are better than this?

As a side note, it didn't look like either solution was threaded well enough to use more than one core on a dual core Mac Pro, and I've been skeptical of PowerPC performance being any better. I'm going to try shortly. Again, function is not the problem. It is performance I'm looking for.

I'm almost at the point where I'd build a barebones non-Mac running a UNIX-like OS to do the work if that software/hardware combination will get the job done better/faster. If anyone has any useful pointers in that regard, I'd appreciate it as well.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Try VLC?

[bighead]

Well, as is typical, I think I've answered my own question.

VisualHub seems to work QUITE well on my PowerBook, by relative standards. On maxiumum quality, it looks to be taking ~4h for a 20 minute clip, which would ideally be MUCH faster on a newer Intel box.

Looks like it is using ffmpeg, though. Any ideas as to why this would be so much faster than ffmpegX on a Mac Pro?

[bighead]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Try VLC?

Convert, not just play.

[TETENAL]

Elgato Systems

[bighead]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Elgato Systems

I read through the reviews, and it looks fast, but maybe 2x the file size?

I suppose it might just be asking for too much: fast encode times and small filesizes with nice software.

[TETENAL]

I'm not using this product myself, but I can't see why it would create 2x the file size. The file size depends on the data rate and the data rate seems to be user selectable. So the file size is what you want it to be.

[Uncle Skeleton]

VLC has a "Streaming/Export Wizard" in the File menu