Video Encoding XP Or Vista?

[Ricey]

I have two new fairly good pc one is a dule core and the other is a quad core both have vista on them at the moment and i like it but my main reason for having a computer is for encoding dvd and dvb streams too xvid. Im just looking for some help on what would be better (faster) for encoding too xvid should i stick with vista or go back too xp?

Cheers any help would be great.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

There is absolutely no benefit from going with Vista for video encoding, as encoding speed is primarily CPU-limited ;)

Unless you want a bloated OS with a lot of nice-looking but useless bling-bling, you will be fine with WinXP or even Win2k.

Better safe your money for a faster (quadcore) CPU, really...

[linyx]

XP, Vista absolutely sucks for everything.

BTW - You should consider using x264 instead of xvid since it uses your multiple cores more effectively.:)

[Blue_MiSfit]

Oh come on you two...


There's at least one very good reason to use Vista over XP when it comes to encoding (if you multitask AND use fft3dgpu, ever): Much better GPU memory management.

With XP, if you are running an encode with fft3dgpu, and want to do anything else with your GPU at the same time (play a game, watch a movie, whatever), it's easy to run out of video memory which can A) cause all kinds of bizarre problems with your video / game B) crash encoding entirely.

Vista handles this with ease, at least in my case. I quite regularly encode HD video with fft3dgpu, and play WoW at the same time.

Q6600, 4GB of RAM, 8800gt, and Vista x64 works like a dream for me.

Now, as to the OP's specific situation:

I think sticking with Vista would be the simplest thing to do. Any gains you might achieve from switching to XP would be minimal, if everything. Also, please use x264 and not Xvid unless you need compatibility with "MPEG-4 ASP only" devices. x264 is simply better on every single count.

My example clearly doesn't apply in your case, but I challenge anyone to show benchmarks where Xvid and or x264 are meaningfully different in terms of performance on otherwise identical systems :)

Oh, and if you use Vista, do make sure you're using SP1, and have all the updates installed. Vista was a really useless pig without SP1. Make sure your drivers are all updated as well.

~MiSfit

[LoRd_MuldeR]

He was talking about Xvid and he didn't mention anything like fft3dgpu. He also did not say that he's going to use any GPU accelerated encoder :p

So my statement stands: Encoding is currently CPU-limited. The the OS has nearly zero effect on encoding speed. And hence there's absolutely no reason to go Vista!

This may (or may not) change when we finally see a competitive GPU encoder, which we did not see yet...

[CruNcher]

and we wont see that soon at least not with the same feature set as x264,as this is only marketed for Professional use currently www.rapihd.com
also there are rumors that the new Nvidia Driver starting with version 180.xx will give an approximately 10x transcoding boost by more efficienty useing the GPU

[Ricey]

i have a quad core cpu but i kinda liked xp better so il just give it a try and see, suppose thats the best way to find out whats better.

cheers lads.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

i have a quad core cpu but i kinda liked xp better so il just give it a try and see, suppose thats the best way to find out whats better.

cheers lads.

There's absolutely no reason why you couldn't fully utilize your Quadcore on WinXP ;)

But unfortunately the multi-threading in Xvid sucks and most likely there won't be any future improvements in Xvid.
However x264 offers excellent multi-threading support. On a Quadcore you'll get 4x speed of a single core!

[Blue_MiSfit]

He was talking about Xvid and he didn't mention anything like fft3dgpu. He also did not say that he's going to use any GPU accelerated encoder :p

So my statement stands: Encoding is currently CPU-limited. The the OS has nearly zero effect on encoding speed. And hence there's absolutely no reason to go Vista!

This may (or may not) change when we finally see a competitive GPU encoder, which we did not see yet...

Absolutely.

He said his machine has vista on it already, so I said "why bother changing it" :)

~MiSfit

[Sharktooth]

i'd change it just to get rid of vista... plain and simple... it sucks.
if you plan to learn something, get linux and start playing with mencoder, ffmpeg, avidemux, ecc.
it's guaranteed to be faster (even at encoding) than whatever version of windows you may try, expecially if you install a 64bits version and use a 64bits x264...

[deets]

i have this laptop with XP and the main media PC in front of me with vista 64. what's better? neither. for encoding it makes no difference, everything works on both without a hitch. I wouldn't lose any sleep about switching back or forward.

I personally went for vista 64 on the main PC for the extra ram benefits and the potential increases in future software which is native 64 bit.

I tried GOS and originally I liked it, but soon ran into issues when i wanted to use a wifi adapter etc. so i gave up :)

[Sharktooth]

coz gOS is not a good linux distro for "production" and it has not a great harware support. the ndiswrapper is what you need for your (probably?) unsupported wi-fi card. however, the difference is there is no 64bits x264 for windows while there is for linux and the speed difference is not negligible.

[delacroixp]

i have a quad core cpu but i kinda liked xp better so il just give it a try and see, suppose thats the best way to find out whats better.
This may truly be a case of being able to 'have your cake and eat it too'.

When I started programming at university we neither had much beauty (card readers and printout for Input/Output) nor speed (a Sperry UNIVAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC) shared amongst 100's of users).
Admittedly it was a very exclusive club with most people not even having access to an electronic calculator.
With that said, Vista allows you to have the best of both worlds ... ie, beauty and speed.
It's a little bit more bloated, complicated and complex than our horse-drawn-buggy and oxcart back then but hey ... that's progress for you.

It's a Farrari to go.


It's all good !
:):devil::D
Pascal

[fleon]

coz gOS is not a good linux distro for "production" and it has not a great harware support. the ndiswrapper is what you need for your (probably?) unsupported wi-fi card. however, the difference is there is no 64bits x264 for windows while there is for linux and the speed difference is not negligible.

Since I have a quad core I think I wanna try linux x64, I tried mandriva like 2 years ago and it didnt got installed(i dont remember why) I have read that it is difficult to get used to it, but i still wanna try it what distro do you recommend me? in it I also wanna try the 64bits x264, is there a gui you recommend for it?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

in it I also wanna try the 64bits x264, is there a gui you recommend for it?

MeGUI should run on Linux via Mono.

[Sharktooth]

@fleon: if you're new to linux, i'd recommend a distro that's easy enough for newbies.
keep in mind, if you want the latest version, you will have to build x264 bins and its dependecies by yourself (that may sound scary but it's not hard at all).
that said, i think linux mint, pclinuxos or ubuntu could be a good start. once you become familiar with linux, you may think to move to something more performing or customizable (like slackware, arch, gentoo, etc) but that requires some more "knowledge"...
regarding GUIs, handbrake is the most user friendly. but there are others as well (for example, automen (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=142436) or tons of mencoder GUIs...). however i prefer the commandline tools (like mencoder, ffmpeg, etc) coz they are more customizable and give the user more control...
the commandline may seems scary, but once you use linux on a daily basis you'll understand it is really much better than any GUI.

[fleon]

@fleon: if you're new to linux, i'd recommend a distro that's easy enough for newbies.
keep in mind, if you want the latest version, you will have to build x264 bins and its dependecies by yourself (that may sound scary but it's not hard at all).
that said, i think linux mint, pclinuxos or ubuntu could be a good start. once you become familiar with linux, you may think to move to something more performing or customizable (like slackware, arch, gentoo, etc) but that requires some more "knowledge"...
regarding GUIs, handbrake is the most user friendly. but there are others as well (for example, automen (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=142436) or tons of mencoder GUIs...). however i prefer the commandline tools (like mencoder, ffmpeg, etc) coz they are more customizable and give the user more control...
the commandline may seems scary, but once you use linux on a daily basis you'll understand it is really much better than any GUI.

Ok right now I am in Ubuntu, it recognized all my hardware but since as i said i am new to this i dont know too much about the softwares, so wich are the equivalents to coreavc, ffdshow tryout, mpc hc(with vsfilter) in ubuntu? any other must have program you recommend?

About x264, I have no idea in how to build x264 bins and its dependecies but you said it's easy so could you please explain it to me so I can do it?

Mmm I think I will try handbrake, but i also maybe i will try a command line tool later, but just to be clear(maybe will sound stupid) but in the command line I copy the lines of the profile of x264 that I wanna use, I change the input and output, paste them there and then it's good to go right?

[burfadel]

Just stick with what you got, if you buy a new computer in my opinion you should get a Vista x64 licence, but I don't see any reason in changing licences at the moment. This is especially true since Windows 7 (its really 6.1, a heavily revised Vista) is supposedly coming out next year. Windows 7 is supposed to handle multithreading better, which will benefit on the Nehalems that can run 8 parallel threads (4 cores with hyperthreading). This may benefit encoding only through the balance of thread affinities to system resources, resulting in a reduction of speed penalty through processes taking cpu time away from x264... hope that makes sense!

A little off topic, but still somewhat relevant Winodws 7 apparently will resolve the speed deficiencies of Vista and that it supposedly can run fine on a 512mb RAM system! I noticed that after installing a hotfix the other day that updated explorer.exe to version 6.0.6001.22232, the memory used by explorer.exe under the task manager dropped from a typical 45k approximately (I asked a couple of other people with x64, theirs was the same, one was 52k), down to 8.4k! (may even be fractionally faster) - although the benefit won't be like that normally, it goes to show the potential of Vista SP2 and especially Windows 7. This will have a slight positive impact of performance of x264 on low memory systems, and if processes are made more efficient less cycles will be stolen from x264 (and with Windows 7 the benefit of that plus effiency)!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Windows 7 is supposed to handle multithreading better, which will benefit on the Nehalems that can run 8 parallel threads (4 cores with hyperthreading).

Neither "Windows 7" nor any other OS can magically make any applications mutli-threaded that aren't multi-threaded from the very beginning.
Whether an applications benefits from multiple cores or not depends on the application itself. Also how many cores an application can use again depends on the application itself.
As for x264, it is already able to use at least four cores (as the Core i7's have*) at 100% on existing WindowsXP or Linux, so there's no need for Windows 7 here.
If at all, Windows 7's own services have been optimized for multiple cores. Which might help to speed-up Windows as a whole, but won't give any speed-up for video encoding!
I wouldn't expect too much from Windows 7. Most likely "upgrading" from Vista to Windows 7 will be as useless as going from Windows XP to Vista is right now.
In case my new PC came with Windows 7 pre-installed (which it certainly won't ^^), I'd give it go though...

(* the Core i7 does simulate 8 "logical" cores via Hyperthreading, but in fact it only has 4 "physical" cores. You can't think of it as an 8 core processor! All that Hyperthreading does is: It slightly helps to improve the usage of each physical core.)

[burfadel]

Neither "Windows 7" nor any ther OS can magically make any applications mutli-threaded that aren't multi-threaded from the very beginning.
Whether an applications benefits from multiple cores or not depends on the application itself. Also how many cores an application can use depends on the application itself.
As for x264, it is already able to use at least four cores (as the Core i7's have*) at 100% on existing WindowsXP or Linux, no need for Windows 7 here.
If at all, then Windows 7's own services have been optimized for multiple cores. Which might help to speed-up Windows as a whole, but will not give any speed-up for video encoding!

(* the Core i7 does simulate 4 "logical" cores via Hyperthreading, but in fact it only has 4 "physical" cores)

I didn't write it very well! The benefits of the improved multitasking is Windows itself, not the apps running underneath it. Apparently Windows itself isn't currently well programmed for running on multiple cores. The affect I was referring to was the way multithreading affects process time of system services that steal time from x264...

It also means running x264 in the background, there should be less process time stolen from x264 through improved efficiency!...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

It also means running x264 in the background, there should be less process time stolen from x264 through improved efficiency!...

I'd expect that benefit in the ~0.1 fps range, if at all.

[Sharktooth]

or even less. when a software is so bloated, filled with completely useless crap (and not only services!), coded with feet, badly designed, buggy, etc... you cant make miracles.
it's just a miracle it works!

@fleon: for common apps and to begin, have a look here: http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-8.10
about media applications, there is no coreavc (yet), but mplayer and VLC are your friends. you can play almost every video with them and on linux they're damn fast.
have a look at this (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=92726) thread for building x264 (remember to install the build-essentials package).
you can even build your own mplayer so to optimize it for your system... that requires some more skill and patience, but will be still easy enough once you realize what to do (and that will be one of the first reasons to move to some other kind of distros...).

[Avenger007]

or even less. when a software is so bloated, filled with completely useless crap (and not only services!), coded with feet, badly designed, buggy, etc... you cant make miracles.
it's just a miracle it works!
That sounds like a description of Crysis when it first came out (later patches helped somewhat), lol. :p

[Sharktooth]

"Crysis"... the name says it all... ;)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

"Crysis"... the name says it all... ;)

Yup. FarCry was awesome at the time when it came out. But after I checked out the Crysis demo, I was really disappointed.

It didn't run anywhere near to "smooth" on my Q6600 + 4 GB RAM + Radeon X1950 XT with full details. And when I lowered the details, it really looked poor...

</offtopic>

[fleon]

@fleon: for common apps and to begin, have a look here: http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-8.10
This seems like I great guide I'm reading it right now thanks


have a look at this (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=92726) thread for building x264 (remember to install the build-essentials package).
Well, in the link you gave me there isnt some instructions on how to build x264 in ubuntu x64 and it's dependencies, sorry but it's like almost 3 years since I havent touched any programming system, the last time was visual basic 6, so I dont know how to do this, as you said it's easy for you, so could you please teach me how?, and then I will do it myself everytime

you can even build your own mplayer so to optimize it for your system... that requires some more skill and patience, but will be still easy enough once you realize what to do (and that will be one of the first reasons to move to some other kind of distros...).
MMm yes I view the site of mplayer and it's pretty weird for me, for my knowledge in programming, so there is some kind of guide or something to build it optimizing it for my distro, or it is too difficult I will use vlc inestead, but the vlc h264 decoder is good in linux? I ask this because in windows I have some problems with some videos that dont play right in vlc

[Blue_MiSfit]

@Sharktooth:

How do you playback 25mbps 1080p H.264 on Linux?

~MiSfit

[Sharktooth]

the same way you do in windows but without video card assisted decoding :p

[burfadel]

Have a read of the following, straight from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959233/

Apparently Vista utilises only one core for boot purposes! That function was assumed to allow the setting of 1 core instead of 2 or 4 for debug purposes, but its set to 1 by default. This is only for boot and not for functioning of Windows. It applies to both multiple core and/or multiple CPU's. I'm not sure whether quad cores allow 4 to be set under that setting, but any speed increase for the boot would be interesting to know!

[Blue_MiSfit]

@Sharktooth:

But, which software decoder do you use? libavcodec? Isn't that too slow / not sufficiently threaded to handle 25mbps 1080p?

~MiSfit

[Sharktooth]

there are some patches for libavcodec for multithreaded decoding.

[RunningSkittle]

I can confirm that 4 cores are available with the boot option on a Q6600.

Setting to 4 cores results in about 4 second faster boot. (1min 24sec down to 1min 19sec)

Dont set to 1 core, it seems that limits the number of cores the OS sees. Task manager shows one graph :(

[burfadel]

I can confirm that 4 cores are available with the boot option on a Q6600.

Setting to 4 cores results in about 4 second faster boot. (1min 24sec down to 1min 19sec)

Dont set to 1 core, it seems that limits the number of cores the OS sees. Task manager shows one graph :(

Yeah that sounds right :) Setting lower than the number of cores there could lead to Windows only showing the number of cores you selected! Windows boots with only 1 core, then once windows is loaded (I'm not sure at what point), the rest of the cores are enabled, or at least thats kind of how it works according to the article...

According to the article, it was essentially a 'stuff up', its not a compatibility thing since the article mentions nothing of that. I recommend setting it to the maximum number available for your computer to allow Windows to use all the cores from the beginning of boot, and not just from when Windows has finished loading.

It is good to see it makes some benefit with boot! I noticed a couple of seconds difference myself.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

there are some patches for libavcodec for multithreaded decoding.

Here are a few numbers:

E:\HD\Crowd Run 2160p UHD CRF22 x264-CtrlHD.mkv

[ffdshow r2301]
User: 7s, kernel: 2s, total: 10s, real: 80s, fps: 50.0, dfps: 6.2
User: 8s, kernel: 1s, total: 9s, real: 87s, fps: 50.8, dfps: 5.7
User: 7s, kernel: 2s, total: 9s, real: 79s, fps: 50.2, dfps: 6.3

[ffdshow-mt r2307]
User: 8s, kernel: 0s, total: 8s, real: 37s, fps: 61.8, dfps: 13.4
User: 8s, kernel: 0s, total: 8s, real: 37s, fps: 61.5, dfps: 13.5
User: 7s, kernel: 0s, total: 8s, real: 37s, fps: 62.5, dfps: 13.5

[DivX H.264 Dec Beta-3]
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 28s, fps: 122.1, dfps: 17.4
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 3s, real: 28s, fps: 126.0, dfps: 17.4
User: 3s, kernel: 0s, total: 4s, real: 28s, fps: 125.0, dfps: 17.3

[CoreAVC Decoder 1.8.5]
No numbers available, because CoreAVC refuses to play this file

Looks like ffmpeg-mt is on a good way :cool:

[Blue_MiSfit]

Not bad - especially considering that's a 2160p file!!

I assume that means real-time 1080p24 at BluRay data rates. In other words - you could play a BluRay remux without any need for hardware acceleration or CoreAVC through MPlayer or VLC - assuming the MT patches were applied.

Very cool.

~MiSfit

[CruNcher]

also libavcodec has basic error correction CoreAVC has none yet not so sure about DivX (but based on Elecard/Mainconcepts core it should be able to compensate small block errors too) :)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I just read an article about a first (none public) test version of Windows 7 ("Milestone 3") and to my surprise it seems there actually is one improvement: Windows 7 will support MPEG-4 ASP (DivX/Xvid), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), AAC and MP4 natively. That's definitely not a reason to upgrade - you can have the same functionality through OpenSource software on WindowsXP or even Windows2000 - but it's at least an improvement for the average user. Finally the answer to "What video formats are supported on a Windows machine without additional software?" won't be "MPEG-1 and Cinepak" anymore :p

The reduced install size of ~5 GB (Windows 7) instead of ~10 GB (Vista) is still far away from being acceptable, but at least it's a first step to the right direction...

[delacroixp]

Windows 7 will support MPEG-4 ASP (DivX/Xvid), MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), AAC and MP4 natively.

The reduced install size of ~5 GB (Windows 7) instead of ~10 GB (Vista) is still far away from being acceptable, but at least it's a first step to the right direction...
About time !

UNIX® (http://www.unix.org/) (history (http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/)) and Windows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows) are the two greatest operating systems of the 20th century. It is unlikely that we will see another major OS in our lifetime ... the expense is just too great (it's like undertaking a manned trip to Mars).

Bigger is better and OS's are only going to grow even more. Brute force programming is often more wholistically efficient than clever routines like recu (http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-recurs.html)rsion (http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javatips/jw-javatip62.html?page=1) which can be difficult to modify, maintain or even understand. For each super (http://blog.tomevslin.com/2006/05/why_a_great_pro.html) programmer (http://codebetter.com/blogs/eric.wise/archive/2005/11/21/134929.aspx) there are countless clunkies.
However, a project like Windows needed more than just a one_man_band superhero to get the job done.


It's all good !
:):devil::D
Pascal