Network Video Encoding

[jimarick]

I believe that a program should be developed that allows the user to make use of all the processing power that they have at their hands from different networked machines, in order to encode for instance a large avi file into a dvd compatible m2v format with multiple passes.

By this I mean that someone should develop a piece of software that allows the main computer where the user is stationed (SERVER) to interface with other networked computers (also running the encoding software). The Server would send part of the original avi to one networked computer (CLIENT) and then another part to another Client etc... depending on how many networked computers there are. The amount of data it sends to the client machines would depend on their individual processing power. So a slower 1ghz machine may get 200mb of the avi and a faster 2ghz machine may get 400mb. This way the total time for the process could be better estimated. Once completed the clients could send the encoded data back to the server where it was put together.

The program could be an alteration to an existing piece of enclding software such as CCE or maybe contain a new encoding engine completely.

It ust occurs to me that people at the moment are not able to take full advantage of the total amount of processing power that they posess. For instance, I have in my house 4 computers (belonging to different individuals. 2 of which are 2ghz machines and two with about 1ghz of processing power. In total I have about 6Ghz of processing "power" which I believe cpuld be put to much better use and maybe triple the encoding speed!

With the internet expanding and broadband becoming ever more popular I am sure that in the future individuals will be able to utulise a VAST amount of computer power from individuals who, (when not using their machine) allow others to use their processor to perform calculations over the internet, to speed up many operations such as video encoding. Already people can download a screensaver which connects to the internet and analyses data collected from the SETI satelliete dishes looking for extra-terrestrial signals.

If there is software available which does such a thing for video encoding at the moment, or you know of any in development please do tell me about it, and please reply with any comments on the feasibility of my idea.

James Ricketts

[DaveEL]

see Virtualdubmod and Vidomi

DaveEL

[int 21h]

DaveEL: He wants to encode to MPEG-2, not to AVI, those two programs will only do the latter :(

jimarick: If you did use an existing program like CCE, what would the 'server' do once one workstation got done, and was waiting on the other workstations? There are issues with using an already established encoder like CCE, because for this type of a project, you'd want something that would appear nearly transparent on the workstations (otherwise someone mucking around might accidently cancel the encoding on that workstation, etc.)

There is only one product I could find that might do something even remotely close to what you're asking, and that was 'Cleaner Central': http://www.dvdirect.com/shop/product.asp?sku=DSR2004

Other than that, I think you're on your own :( The real problem is as far as I'm aware, there aren't any both high quality and fast MPEG-2 encoders in the public domain.

[daiyam]

I'm developping a network encoder.
It can encode in rv9, but I search informations on Nandub/Xvid stats file structure for encode in xvid or divx.
It takes a Avisynth script for input.

I will send more informations when I can use stats file because without this function, my encoder is avoidable.


PS: Soory for my English ;-(

[jimarick]

I see your concerns int 21h. The server would just continue to run the program and would show a log file of which machines were still encoding and which had finished, and a simple progress bar.

Also it wouldnt be very hard to hide the CCE encoding window using an API call, leaving it invisible incase anyone planned on "playing" with it.

I was thinking of trying to develop a small program which interacted with maybe virtual dub to split the original AVI and CCE which encoded it. However I dont really have the time! :)

James

[k2au5]

For a similar purpose I successfully tested avs2avi on Condor HTC-software (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/) but so far only on a single machine.

[bilu]

@k2au5

I've seen Condor site, seems that in the Windows port can only do the same as Vidomi since it can do remote calls: split the VOB and encode separately. Of course this will affect 2-pass encodings...

Bilu