Pause script in Gordian Knot

[erbuk]

I have a Gordian Knot script compressing a tv-series that has been re-cut into 3 hour episodes. It takes my computer 18-20 hours to compress one episode.

I have tried using fast deinterlace and that make it run faster but I don't get the same quality as with other filters.

My question:
Is there a way to pause the script, turn off the computer and continue the next day. I have scanned through the documentation, faq, and this forum but I can't find the answer (I'm probably blind or stupid).

[Solo]

Ouch!!! Firstly you need to upgrade your PC.
The answer to your question is no.
You can have individual jobs in VirtualDub and use the job control
to manage them, but once encoding has started "pausing" is not an option.
You could lower VirtualDub's priority to "idle" if you want to use
your PC for something else, but if your PC takes 18-20 hrs for
3 hour episode I doubt it will have the resources to do anything
else while encoding.
What is the reason that you want to switch off your PC at night
anyway? Allot of people encode during the night so that when you
wake up your jobs are done, hense the option in VirtualDub to automatically shutdown your PC after encodings done.
Infact your PC should always be left on. Switching your PC on and off
can result in "chip creeping".

[erbuk]

Thanx for the reply :)

It's not a very slow pc (Athlon XP-1500, 256MB DDR and 7200rpm disks) and I can't remember that it has been this slow before. But then I have always used fast deinterlace (or no deinterlace at all) and DivX5. Now I use field deinterlace, noisereduction and XviD.

The source is a very old TV-series so the video-quality on the DVD is not very good. If I use fast deinterlace and no noisereduction it's faster but I don't get the same quality (not a big difference, but noticeable)

The reason to switch off the pc is simply that it's in the bedroom. But since it's not possible to pause I will do as you say and run it during the night on another pc :cool:

[Solo]

Been there! Noisy fan on the CPU keeping you awake hey.
Sorry I attacked your PC. With those spec's and even the heaviest filters it still shouldn't take that long!
Maybe if you did allot of passes for each yes.
Perhaps you should post the script you are using.

[erbuk]

Yes, and I'm a very light sleeper :p

I have just deleted both the script and the vobs (and probably some things I shouldn't delete) from the Athlon-pc. But it was a simple 2 pass XviD. Each pass took nine hours to run.

I'm installing Gordian knot on my living room-pc right now. So I will return with the script if I have the same problem there.

[N_F]

If you're running XP (and perhaps 2000?) you can put your computer in hibernate mode. This will save down the RAM to a file on your harddrive and when you start the computer the next day it will load the file to memory and continue where it left off.

I also have my computer in the bedroom and I quite often use this method if I'm in the middle of a job and want some peace and quiet so I can go to sleep.

[Solo]

Cool. Thanks for the advice. Will try that sometime. However, since I
moved to a bigger place my PC has it's own room now so the noise is no longer an issue. Also disabled hibernation to gain extra disc
space.

[erbuk]

I tried that, by misstake, once and it didn't work out. Nandub crashed when I fired up my pc again. But maybe the new virtualdub mod is more stable than nandub. I will give it a try. :)

[N_F]

Well, I've never done it with Nandub, but it works with early versions of VirtualDub and of course the latest too.

[jggimi]

And it is the "noise reduction" filter(s) that are slowing things down. The temporal analysis of multiple frames is the root cause.

By the way, the usual recommendation is to use fast deinterlacing only when the final vertical size is 1/2 the resolution of the original, or less. Fast deinterlacing effectively selects only one field in a frame, and resizes it. So you lose 1/2 the detail when you select it. But it's fast. :-)

[erbuk]

Originally posted by N_F
Well, I've never done it with Nandub, but it works with early versions of VirtualDub and of course the latest too.

Yes, you are right. Just tried it and it works :)

[erbuk]

Originally posted by jggimi
And it is the "noise reduction" filter(s) that are slowing things down. The temporal analysis of multiple frames is the root cause.

By the way, the usual recommendation is to use fast deinterlacing only when the final vertical size is 1/2 the resolution of the original, or less. Fast deinterlacing effectively selects only one field in a frame, and resizes it. So you lose 1/2 the detail when you select it. But it's fast. :-)

Ok, I don't remember if I have tried a run with field deinterlace and no noice reduction. I will try that.

What about the new ones, Bob and TomsMoComp. Are they better or worse than Field and/or fast deinterlace? (I can probably find out with a search, but if anyone is willing to reply then I'm very thankful).