Handbrake... Any Way to the iMac’s Full Power?

[BergerFan]

Whenever I use the latest version of Handbrake on my 2017 27-inch 5K iMac, I feel like it’s not using all the power at its disposal.

Projects don’t seem to be any quicker at transcoding than my previous 2012 Retina MacBook Pro.

Is there something hidden in the settings, or any are there any tricks and/or ‘hacks’ than can help speed things up?

 

[pl1984]

IME Handbrake utilizes all available resources that are available. Have you used Activity Monitor to see if all CPU cores / threads are being utilized? In my rMBP throttling, I assume due to heat, keeps all the threads from being 100% utilized. The same transcode on my Mac Pro has no issues with all threads running at 100%.

 

[cynics]

What settings are you using including encoder (ie veryslow, h265, CQ 24....) and how many frames per second does it seem to be averaging after 15-20 minutes?

 

[BergerFan]

What settings are you using including encoder (ie veryslow, h265, CQ 24....) and how many frames per second does it seem to be averaging after 15-20 minutes?

Typical output video is:
4K, 60fps,
H.264, 10k bitrate, medium encode, 2-pass, 5.1 Level high profile, avg FPS: 20.

 

[joema2]

Whenever I use the latest version of Handbrake on my 2017 27-inch 5K iMac, I feel like it’s not using all the power at its disposal.

Projects don’t seem to be any quicker at transcoding than my previous 2012 Retina MacBook Pro.

Is there something hidden in the settings, or any are there any tricks and/or ‘hacks’ than can help speed things up?

HandBrake on Mac does not use Quick Sync so it can be much slower and more CPU-bound than FCPX or Compressor at encoding the H264. There is unofficial HandBrake source code which does this, but you'd have to build it yourself:https://github.com/galad87/HandBrake/tree/videotoolbox

However in general a 2017 i7 iMac should be considerably faster at HandBrake CPU-only encoding of H264 than a 2012 MBP. You may not be using the same parameters on each one.

Using Apple (not 3rd party) products, probably the fastest way to encode a batch of H264 videos is using Compressor, single-pass. It produces very good quality and uses Quick Sync, so CPU load will be lower and encoding time much less.