Where's the bottleneck?

[caymandrew]

Previously I was using a macbook air to render some image sequences into 1080i video (timelapse). QTP7 would max out the 1.8 i7 until the process was complete. I recently upgraded to a mac pro with a 3.46 hex xeon and 16 gb ram. While rendering the exact image sequence I did on the air, the pro is only using 7.84% of the processor and the speed does not seem much improved??

Is the data transfer rate my bottleneck now?

Thanks.

 

[paulrbeers]

Previously I was using a macbook air to render some image sequences into 1080i video (timelapse). QTP7 would max out the 1.8 i7 until the process was complete. I recently upgraded to a mac pro with a 3.46 hex xeon and 16 gb ram. While rendering the exact image sequence I did on the air, the pro is only using 7.84% of the processor and the speed does not seem much improved??

Is the data transfer rate my bottleneck now?

Thanks.

Is the process only using 1 CPU? Your hex w/ hyperthreading would technically appear as 12 CPU's to the OS. 100 / 12 = 8.25%. Whatever you are using to render, does it have multi-threading turned on?

 

[DisMyMac]

Cupertino.

 

[caymandrew]

Is the process only using 1 CPU? Your hex w/ hyperthreading would technically appear as 12 CPU's to the OS. 100 / 12 = 8.25%. Whatever you are using to render, does it have multi-threading turned on?

OK - forgot to copy the raw files from my sdcard to internal. I was hoping that would fix it but it only made a marginal impact. Now its using 14% while rendering:

 

[goMac]

You're using 186% of the CPU according to the process list, which is pretty normal for QT Pro. QuickTime Pro which isn't really built to handle that many CPUs.

I've never used Compressor for image sequences, but a glance at Google says it can also compress image sequences, and I know that program runs much better on multicore machines. It used to be part of Final Cut but Apple now sells it individually on the app store.

 

[derbothaus]

It's the software. Use something multithread aware like Compressor or Handbrake. This is why users prefer high clocked Mac's versus multi core Mac's.

 

[ixodes]

It's the software. Use something multithread aware like Compressor or Handbrake. This is why users prefer high clocked Mac's versus multi core Mac's.

Excellent point.

 

[goMac]

It's the software. Use something multithread aware like Compressor or Handbrake. This is why users prefer high clocked Mac's versus multi core Mac's.

Sure. Users that are using something really old like Quicktime 7. QTPro hasn't been updated since what... 10.4? The encoder OP is using is about 7 years old. It was written for dual processor G5s and G4s.

Using better software will produce dramatically better encode times on a large number of cores machine than a multicore machine.

 

[caymandrew]

Sure. Users that are using something really old like Quicktime 7. QTPro hasn't been updated since what... 10.4? The encoder OP is using is about 7 years old. It was written for dual processor G5s and G4s.

Using better software will produce dramatically better encode times on a large number of cores machine than a multicore machine.

Thanks guys this makes sense. However, I'm using QTP7 because of its ability to take a folder or jpegs and render them into a video, something handbrake does not do. Does compressor? I didn't see this feature in the list and don't want to buy it to find out. I'm doing timelapse video. Thanks.

 

[goMac]

Thanks guys this makes sense. However, I'm using QTP7 because of its ability to take a folder or jpegs and render them into a video, something handbrake does not do. Does compressor? I didn't see this feature in the list and don't want to buy it to find out. I'm doing timelapse video. Thanks.

Compresor page says yes, with the disclaimer I've never used it.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/compressor/

"Image sequence support
Import Targa, DPX, TIFF, PSD, or PNG image sequences and transcode them with any Compressor setting. You can even include an audio track when you encode."

 

[caymandrew]

Compresor page says yes, with the disclaimer I've never used it.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/compressor/

"Image sequence support
Import Targa, DPX, TIFF, PSD, or PNG image sequences and transcode them with any Compressor setting. You can even include an audio track when you encode."

Thanks! I'll try it out. $49 seems much more reasonable than $999 for After Effects CS5 - Which does utilize all threads, and holy s&*t, that's the render time I was looking for! thanks guys!