What is the fastest/easiest way of resizing a x264 video?

[crystalfunky]

Hey everybody,

i'm using staxrip and i'm actually not a newbie but before i get some disturbing answers somewhere else i post here.

I want to resize a x264 video which is 4 and a half hours long.
It has full hd resolution and i want to resize it to 1280x720.

So i'm on my way with Staxrip, but it shows me that it takes 45 hours!!!!!

Is there something wrong, or does it really take that long?
Can i do it somehow different? Maybe another prog?

Thanx in advance!

[setarip_old]

Hi!

Try "multiAVCHD"...

[foxyshadis]

Sounds pretty normal to me, with an HQ profile and slower processor. Faster profiles or more CPU cores will speed up the encoding; if you can't afford a hardware upgrade or the wait, you'll have to use a lower quality profile.

[crystalfunky]

ok i've downloaded the multiavchd, but can you also tell me,
how i ONLY resize the video without changing anything else with this tool?
I looked in the tutorial, but can't find, what i'm looking for.
I found the window where i change the resolution.
but there are so many other options.
Can you help me please?

[crystalfunky]

found it already.

Thanx man!

[setarip_old]

found it already. Thanx man! You're quite welcome ;>}

[crystalfunky]

ok now i found it, but it takes sooo long.
Even with a file that is 25 min. long it takes more than 3 hours
I even selected 1 pass vhq just to try the difference between 2 pass vhq and 1 pass vhq.

Is there any other faster way to do this?

[Atak_Snajpera]

Is there any other faster way to do this?
buy Intel i7 980 ;)

[crystalfunky]

please stay serious

[asarian]

please stay serious
Buy Intel i7 980X Seriously. I just did too. You'll get 6 cores blasting away!

Either that, or use a lower quality profile. There's no secret insider profile that will make things magically go faster for you.

[crystalfunky]

any other prog maybe?

[asarian]

any other prog maybe?
Would hardly make a difference (if at all). All these progs are basically just a shell around x264, preparing avs scripts for it, and letting x264 run. So, if you find a substantially faster program, then that just means said program uses substantially lower-quality x264 settings. It's six of one, or half-a-dozen of the other.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yep.

If you want to take a 1080p file and transcode it to 720p as quickly as possible, you have a few options. What you choose depends on your bitrate goals. First and foremost, you should be using CRF instead of two pass VBR! This will cut your encoding time in half right off the bat.

If you have lots of space to spare, you can just use a very fast preset (aka --preset faster, veryfast, or superfast in ascending order of speed), and a higher bitrate than you might otherwise need. This is the approach I take when transcoding for my iPhone - I just encode to 480x320 using --preset superfast or ultrafast, and use a very high bitrate - typically in the range of 2mbps (or around crf 18).

If you absolutely MUST hit a specific file size (whyyy??), then you are pretty much stuck. Either use a fast preset and deal with the lower quality, or invest the time to use a slower preset.

If you haven't yet, just try using a really fast preset. Heck, try superfast. Ultrafast strips things down way too much for 90% of usage cases, but you might be surprised by just how GOOD superfast can look, compared to something like Xvid (or even going back in time to the DivX 3.11 days)!

Ultimately, if your computer can't deliver adequate performance, you need to upgrade it :)

The Core i7 CPUs are very powerful, and the i7 930 (for socket 1366) and i7 860 (for socket 1156) are both excellent bargains. On the AMD front, you can get a LOT of bang for your buck with a Phenom II X4 or Athlon II X4. If you're adventurous, you can unlock the disabled core(s) from an X2 or X3 to score some extra performance :devil:!

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=71&Itemid=1 explains further

Derek

[nurbs]

First and foremost, you should be using CRF instead of two pass VBR! This will cut your encoding time in half right off the bat.
That's stretching the truth a lot. Usually the first pass will be finished much faster than the second pass. Unless you are using --slow-firstpass or have some kind of bottleneck in first pass (slow avisynth script; decoder bottleneck; --b-adapt 2 & lots of b-frames) you won't come anywhere near cutting encoding time in half. I prefer CRF since I don't need a certain filesize and it definitely saves time but generally halving encoding time is an unrealistic expectation.

[Blue_MiSfit]

OK maybe I exaggerated a bit :) Still, even using the default fast first pass, that's a lot of time wasted!

[lilhobo]

if you are re encoding from HD source i cannot see why you need extra processing.

is it compareable to raster vs vector for images?