Why so resource intensive?

[Luvpeaceguru]

I don't get it I'm afraid. I'm encoding a Video_TS folder from a standard DVD at 100% quality (1.0 on the quantizer). 720 x 576 resolution, just trying to get to avi what's already there. I think I'm on the third or fourth pass and my Core 2 Extreme 2.93Ghz has been maxed out on both cores for hours!!

Is this right?

[Dark Shikari]

PROTIP: You don't need three or four passes ;)

[jeffy]

Post your logfile!

[ilovejedd]

Question, since he's using constant quantizer, is there even a need for second-pass?

And wouldn't 100% quality give you a file larger than the original DVD itself?

[decayd]

yes, anything more than one pass using cq is a waste of time.
and yes 100% is very likely to give a file larger than the original, 75-80% is more than adequate.
Also is you let AGK crop the black bars, leaving them most likely wastes more time.

[bidmead]

Black bars from a digital source (ie, noise-free) should cost hardly anything in terms of compression processor cycles or file space. I tend to avoid cropping them because this can mess with the AR. Eg, if the input is some weird AR black-bordered up to 16:9 your output device (eg projector) may not know how to restore the correct AR if you remove the borders.

(Incidentally, AGK has a problem with DVDs. The dot-file that tells AGK not to strip the borders can't get written to the DVD source directory (unless you've made a soft copy of the DVD), so AGK always autocrops, which is a drag. Unless this has been fixed since I last checked).

Apropos resource-saving, does anybody know why AGK creates a physical output file on pass 1 of a 2-pass crunch? On a UNIX system the first pass should be redirected to /dev/null. On a Windows system this can be achieved by naming the output file nul.avi.

--
Chris