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20 hrs to Handbrake?!

S

SuperDaveInLA

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 3, 2008
8
0
Hollywood, CA
Hi everyone. I'm getting my :apple:TV in the mail this week, but I've been snooping on this forum for the last 3-4 months. I've just been reading what everyone likes/dislikes and everyone's ripping process...and I had to get one.

I decided to get a jump start and start burning dvds and converting for atv before the I even got the unit. I MTR-ed a movie, and then Handbraked it. (decided that I'd just use the Handbrake :apple:tv preset before I start tweaking things)

I was SHOCKED and a little concerned when I was handbraking at a blazing 2fps. I knowww I may not be running the optimal system here (1.67ghz Powerbook G4 w/ 1.5gb ram) but I thought maybe 4-5 hours per movie. Is there anything I can do (besides buying a mbp) to up the speed so it doesn't take 20hrs?!

At any rate, I love gadgets, and have been on a tight budget, so I am still extremely excited I'm getting something new to play with. I just hope someone can suggest a remedy.

Thanks!
Dave
 
Making sure you have the latest version of QuickTime installed can help a little with your encoding, but really the best bet to speed up your encode times is new hardware. Encoding video is very, very processor intensive.

Regards,
Michael
 
Encoding to H.264 is one of the most processor intensive things you can do. If you encode to say mpeg you will get MUCH faster encode rates (probably 5 times the rate, I have a similar computer to you and have tested this).

The best way to speed it up is to spend $100 and buy an Elgato Turbo.264. It is a USB dongle that is a dedicated H.264 encoder.

It could probably take your encode times down to 3 hours. If you don't believe me, read this review.
 
With a G4, your probably getting 1 to 1.5 fps using h.264 with Apple TV preset. There is no way to speed this up. If you use ffmpeg you will get a dramatic increase in speed. You lose 5.1 and lose the high quality output of h.264 though. Not even a G5 can speed things up that much with h.264.
 
yippy said:
Encoding to H.264 is one of the most processor intensive things you can do. If you encode to say mpeg you will get MUCH faster encode rates (probably 5 times the rate, I have a similar computer to you and have tested this).

The best way to speed it up is to spend $100 and buy an Elgato Turbo.264. It is a USB dongle that is a dedicated H.264 encoder.

It could probably take your encode times down to 3 hours. If you don't believe me, read this review.
Click to expand...

Good tip, but you won't get 5.1 DD or subtitles or chapter markers. I have one of these and its nowhere near the quality of HB. It can't do a double pass so your files will be larger and not as clear.
 
As the others have said, the only good way to speed up encoding times but still keep the good quality and features of H.264 is to get new hardware. The good news though is that any of the Intel Mac's out right now will encode much quicker than your Powerbook. Even the low-end mini should do at least twenty or thirty frames per second.

My Macbook, now about equivalent to the base model in terms of processing power, gets about fifty frames per second with H.264 encoding.
 
yippy said:
Encoding to H.264 is one of the most processor intensive things you can do. If you encode to say mpeg you will get MUCH faster encode rates (probably 5 times the rate, I have a similar computer to you and have tested this).

The best way to speed it up is to spend $100 and buy an Elgato Turbo.264. It is a USB dongle that is a dedicated H.264 encoder.

It could probably take your encode times down to 3 hours. If you don't believe me, read this review.
Click to expand...
That won't help Handbrake but it will with many other encoding projects that involve Quicktime.

I barely get a few frames faster then realtime using the AppleTV setting unless I'm using my quad core.
 
Im running on a G4 iBook and let me tell you I feel your dvd ripping pain. I decided that if I want to rip a dvd, I'll just drive 10min to my moms and use her Intel iMac. Takes the time down to like 45min or so I think. I know being on a PPC mac is pretty rough now days. Don't know what else you can do besides get new hardware or just tough it out. I can't wait for my next Mac though. I'll probably get a Mini or an iMac.
 
drumpat01 said:
Im running on a G4 iBook and let me tell you I feel your dvd ripping pain. I decided that if I want to rip a dvd, I'll just drive 10min to my moms and use her Intel iMac. Takes the time down to like 45min or so I think. I know being on a PPC mac is pretty rough now days. Don't know what else you can do besides get new hardware or just tough it out. I can't wait for my next Mac though. I'll probably get a Mini or an iMac.
Click to expand...

You can encode a movie in handbrake in 45 minutes? Wow.
 
mallbritton said:
Making sure you have the latest version of QuickTime installed can help a little with your encoding,
Click to expand...
Handbrake has nothing to do with Quicktime for encoding. In fact you would not even need quicktime on your system to use HandBrake.
 
I went out and bought an iMac -- I needed it for other projects, but knowing what I did about H.264 encoding, I opted for the 2.8 with 2 GB RAM since I planned to use the iMac for multiple purposes. With video encoding, more and faster is better.

While my decision was difficult due to my finances at the time, I decided that it was time to upgrade. I haven't regretted it for a moment.

You really have several choices:
1. Tough it out. These times are normal for encoding considering the hardware you're using.
2. Purchase something like a Mac Mini. It will at least bring you into the realm of acceptable performance. These are "affordable."
3. Save up and take the plunge -- an iMac or, even better, a Mac Pro.
 
SuperDaveInLA said:
Hi everyone. I'm getting my :apple:TV in the mail this week, but I've been snooping on this forum for the last 3-4 months. I've just been reading what everyone likes/dislikes and everyone's ripping process...and I had to get one.

I decided to get a jump start and start burning dvds and converting for atv before the I even got the unit. I MTR-ed a movie, and then Handbraked it. (decided that I'd just use the Handbrake :apple:tv preset before I start tweaking things)

I was SHOCKED and a little concerned when I was handbraking at a blazing 2fps. I knowww I may not be running the optimal system here (1.67ghz Powerbook G4 w/ 1.5gb ram) but I thought maybe 4-5 hours per movie. Is there anything I can do (besides buying a mbp) to up the speed so it doesn't take 20hrs?!

At any rate, I love gadgets, and have been on a tight budget, so I am still extremely excited I'm getting something new to play with. I just hope someone can suggest a remedy.
Click to expand...

h.264 encoding just takes a long time, but it gives the best possible results. You may notice that your Powerbook is still absolutely usable during these twenty hours (Handbrake uses very little memory and doesn't put any pressure on the hard drive either, and it runs at lowest priority), so the only inconvenience is that your fans will be making noise, and you can't go away from your charger for very long time.

BTW. I have a 733 MHz Quicksilver Mac, which isn't used much anymore except as printer server. At one time it has been handbraking DVDs for two weeks with no interruption. Didn't hurt it at all.
 
I ripped a DVD using Handbrake using AppleTV preset and got 60fps average.

You need a better CPU...maybe time to upgrade?
 
Yep. It's hardware, my friend. Just a minimal Quad 2.8 Mac Pro (~$2100) will give you around ~220+ fps.

I know it's a chunk of change... BUT... your machine simply wasn't designed to do those types of tasks.

IF you are going to be doing a LOT of encoding... it's soooo worth it if you can swing the $$$.
 

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gnasher729 said:
h.264 encoding just takes a long time, but it gives the best possible results. You may notice that your Powerbook is still absolutely usable during these twenty hours (Handbrake uses very little memory and doesn't put any pressure on the hard drive either, and it runs at lowest priority), so the only inconvenience is that your fans will be making noise, and you can't go away from your charger for very long time.

BTW. I have a 733 MHz Quicksilver Mac, which isn't used much anymore except as printer server. At one time it has been handbraking DVDs for two weeks with no interruption. Didn't hurt it at all.
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure why you'd say that... yes, memory footprint is very low... but CPU utilization is sky high. It basically takes over the entire machine...

Check out my Activity Monitor / CPU... it's sucking up ALL the cycles... and if I had 8 cores I'm sure it would use all of them too!
 

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Reading the responses here, it seems I made a mistake by paying for VisualHub. I usually end up staring at the screen for 1+ hour for the AppleTV preset.
 
supercooled said:
Reading the responses here, it seems I made a mistake by paying for VisualHub. I usually end up staring at the screen for 1+ hour for the AppleTV preset.
Click to expand...
VisualHub is a great program for transcoding video from one format to another but it's not made to convert a DVD to MPEG-4/h.264.

Handbrake and VisualHub are two great programs but their purposes are different.
 
whoa tahts avery long time for handbrake-ing something, i ve backed up alot of movies and nver taken that long
 
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