Handbrake Conversion Speed

[stevescotia]

Hi,

 

I am about to start converting my DVDs to H.264 and am using Handbrake. I have seen postings on the internet with people saying they are getting conversion speeds of 150fps and I seem to only be getting between 35-40, depending on the preset I use. I've tried the Apple Universal ones, Apple TV, Xbox 360 etc with very little difference in speed. The only time I get anywhere near the 150fps mark is when I am using the iPhone preset (but this is too low a resolution for me). I have Intel Core 2 Quad 6600, 4GB RAM, Snow Leopard and Handbrake 0.93. I've tried updating to latest 64-bit snapshot of handbrake which gave a small speed bump (maybe up to 50fps sometimes) but still nowhere near the speeds others seem to be getting. I am converting from VIDEO_TS folders on hard drive, not the original DVD.

 

My question is, am I getting fairly normal ballpark conversion speeds or should I be going way faster? All 4 cores seem to be pretty much maxed out when encoding. Can I just assume the figures I've seen are for converting to iPod/iPhone size? Just wondering what anybody else is seeing and since it's a Hack I'm running on I figured there would be more people here with comparable systems than normal Mac forums.

 

Thanks,

 

Steve

[noNix]

My system is slower than yours E5200 duel core (2.5GHZ) with 4GB of RAM

 

I am encoding a movie as I write this. My settings are: H264 (M4V) full size (anamorphic) 2 pass, with Decomb set to Default and Average Bit Rate set to 1800. The first pass is going at 75 - 85 fps, second pass is usually slower at 50fps or even less. Typically it takes 4 hours or so to encode a movie, so I set up a few in the que and let them go all night. Faster would be better, but even if it took 1 hour instead of 4 or 5, I would still set things up and then walk away so the lack of speed does not bother me that much. I see it as fast enough. This machine is however only used for watching EyeTV and Movies. it is not my main system.

 

EDIT

second pass is now going - average is 15.7 fps