I need to get some specs for certain encodes.

[surma884]

Hello Everyone,

I am planning to build a quad core machine. The reason is that I have PS3 and I want to stream my movies to it through TVersity. I have some High Level profile (5.1) movies that need to be transcoded to 4.1 level to be playable on my PS3. So I need to know if the machine I buy will be fast enough to encode 1080p movies realtime. I am planning to buy the AMD Phenom II 955 3.2Ghz quad-core.

Can some of you give me the specs on how fast (fps) you can encode a 1080p x264 video from 5.1 to 4.1 on your quad-core machine? I doesn't have to be the same processor that I am planning to get. I just need to get some ballpark estimate and I can figure out the math.

The best thing would be to use MeGUI and set the bitrate to 5000kbps to 8000kbps. I'm not looking for best quality and/or compression because I'm just watching it and not converting it permanently.

If someone from the AMD side and someone from the Intel side do the tests for me that would be great.

Thanks.

[kemuri-_9]

it seems like you're close to asking for the meaning of life.

there's a variety of settings you can do to an encode to make it go from super fast to super slow.

be specific if you want proper figures.

[surma884]

I was hoping you guys could test it with what you know about it. Since I will be transcoding it live, it would have to be 1pass and between 5000 to 8000 kbps to keep the bandwidth in check. Here's what MeGUI says for the PS3/Xbox360 profile:

program --profile high --bitrate XXXX --level 4.1 --b-adapt 2 --direct auto --trellis 2 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --ipratio 1.1 --pbratio 1.1 --vbv-bufsize 24000 --vbv-maxrate 24000 --qcomp 0.5 --me umh --merange 12 --thread-input --output "output" "input"

Thanks

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I get roughly 12 fps for "--preset medium" (x264 defaults) at "level 4.1" and "--bitrate 5000" on my Core2 Quad Q6600. I was using a 1080p AVC source (a scene from 300) with CoreAVC CUDA decoder.

With "--preset fast" I get around 20 fps, which probably still is too slow for real-time processing. With "--preset veryfast" I can get 30-40 fps. And "--preset ultrafst" exceeds 60 fps.

[RunningSkittle]

something else you might be interested in:
http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/

[surma884]

@LoRd_MuldeR: I think with the 3.2ghz quad core I will be able to get 24fps since you get 20fps with your 2.4ghz. All of my movies are 24fps so that won't be a problem.

@RunningSkittle: I used it a few months back, but was taking too much CPU on my desktop. Other people use the desktop so it wasn't feasible. With the new PC it may work out nicely.

Thanks guys. Now I will just wait for the 3.4ghz to come out then buy the 3.2ghz with the price drop.

[popper]

I get roughly 12 fps for "--preset medium" (x264 defaults) at "level 4.1" and "--bitrate 5000" on my Core2 Quad Q6600. I was using a 1080p AVC source (a scene from 300) with CoreAVC CUDA decoder.

With "--preset fast" I get around 20 fps, which probably still is too slow for real-time processing. With "--preset veryfast" I can get 30-40 fps. And "--preset ultrafst" exceeds 60 fps.

OC LoRd_MuldeR if Only AVIdemux 2.5 just had a x264 360 H@Level4.0 and Level4.1 ref=3 AAC=2 compliant *-fixed.Mp4 Auto default high spec 360/ps3 scripts included along side the existing low spec apple and zune scripts selections some day soon...,then much of this 360 and to some lesser degree even the PS3, problem would go away, as we could then simply run our most watched content through that future AVIdemux script before hand, shame theres no easy "dir watch" functionality in there though to make it even simpler to stack up content for re/trans/En coding etc by placing a copy in the set dir.

right now for fun and to see what it turns out like, im AVIDemux'ing an AC3 5.1,H@L5.1,ref=5 manually set to constant Quantiser (single Pass) 18 and H@L4.1 ref=3,AAC=2 .mp4 across the 1 gig LAN, on the idle core2 quad Q8200 @stock 2.33 machine and getting an average of 28fps+ to the local harddrive... it started out at 40fps.

i dont expect it to be great quality compared to the original as the filesize has really dropped off from 4+ gig original to what looks like its going to be around 2.5 gig. [edit] turned out at 2.2gig and 360 1080 watchable but quite degraded as i thought, we need better defaults there for 360/PS3 playback for sure.

but at the end of the day we dont have, and no one seems interested in, providing a simple, Fast, large FIFO app to take existing high spec AVC/AAC/AC3 content and just simply recode any high ref content to a generic max ref=3 10Mbit/s ,L4.0/4.1 AVC,AAC=2 that can then be played on the 360 and PS3 without to much data loss, and thats a shame.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

@LoRd_MuldeR: I think with the 3.2ghz quad core I will be able to get 24fps since you get 20fps with your 2.4ghz. All of my movies are 24fps so that won't be a problem.

See:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/amdphenomiix4955_042209194837/18897.png

[surma884]

See:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/amdphenomiix4955_042209194837/18897.png

Yeah, I saw that a few weeks back, but didn't pay much attention to it because the test was for 720p. I'm not sure what settings they used for it, but either way I'll play the waiting game.