I have asked before about program to convert video formats

And I appreciate the help, but now I want to know what everyone thinks is the fastest. its taking a 1.6 gig file about 2 1/2 to 3 hrs to convert a mp4 to a mpeg. I have a fairly fast computer I just don't think it should take this long. Any help is appreciated.

I have used "Freemake" in the past with good results. Even on my older computer (dual core @2.66 GHz w 4 Gb RAM) I could convert a full 2 hour movie in about 45 minutes... give or take...

Without a doubt 'handbreak' is the best program i have found for squishing down a video file and preserving quality.

AVS Video Converter 8.4 takes me roughly 1.5 hours to convert a 1.44 Gb mp4 to mpeg. I am positive of this because I just converted a movie of that size solely so I could respond to you lol

Thanks for the answers, I will try all 3 programs and let you know how each one does for me. I still have about 100 movies of different formats to convert so I can make them into DVD's that will play in an old standalone DVD player.

Just to add my computer specs I have AMD 4100 quad core processor running at 3.6GHz
and 8 GB memory

Many of the programs seem to only use one core of the cpu, I discovered this a while ago when confronted with the same problem.
If your on windows then press Ctrl Alt Delete all at the same time, when the window pops up click the tabs to show cpu usage. I bet you'll see that one core is at 100% while the rest of them are almost idle.

OP. Look for a converter that uses Cuda (thats if you have an nvidia card). If you find one it'll use the graphics card to do the conversion and it'll take just a few minutes instead of hours!!!

reply to post by VoidHawk


I do have a gt430 nvidia card, thanks I will look into that.

Do I have to watch the video if I use a converter that uses Cuda? I know that has something to do with the video card. I also have nvidia chipset on my motherboard will that help?

catt3
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

I do have a gt430 nvidia card, thanks I will look into that.

Do I have to watch the video if I use a converter that uses Cuda? I know that has something to do with the video card. I also have nvidia chipset on my motherboard will that help?

edit on 3/25/2014 by catt3 because: to ask a ?

I switched to Linux a while back so cant remember the name of the converter I used on windows, however, is used cuda, and when I used it all four cores worked at 100% as they tried to feed the data fast enough to my video card. Movie that were one and a hald hours took about three minutes to convert.

Found it in on my old drive. Its called - Bigasoft Total Video Converter.

VoidHawk
Many of the programs seem to only use one core of the cpu, I discovered this a while ago when confronted with the same problem.
If your on windows then press Ctrl Alt Delete all at the same time, when the window pops up click the tabs to show cpu usage. I bet you'll see that one core is at 100% while the rest of them are almost idle.

OP. Look for a converter that uses Cuda (thats if you have an nvidia card). If you find one it'll use the graphics card to do the conversion and it'll take just a few minutes instead of hours!!!

Most commercial software written for Windows isn't optimized for multiple processors. My machine is dual boot Win7/Fedora 20... Win 7 rarely uses more than just the one core (quad core Xeon); Fedora 20 is nearly always tasking all 4. I rarely use Win 7 at all, simply because the Fedora Linux is much faster and far more reliable... I only have Win 7 loaded to play stupid games, and my Photoshop CS2 won't run in Linux... otherwise I would be Windows free...

In reply to VoidHawk & madmac5150 I haven't tried to use linux since about 2005, I had a lot of problems with drivers at that time and I tried different flavors, Is linux any better now?

madmac5150

VoidHawk
Many of the programs seem to only use one core of the cpu, I discovered this a while ago when confronted with the same problem.
If your on windows then press Ctrl Alt Delete all at the same time, when the window pops up click the tabs to show cpu usage. I bet you'll see that one core is at 100% while the rest of them are almost idle.

OP. Look for a converter that uses Cuda (thats if you have an nvidia card). If you find one it'll use the graphics card to do the conversion and it'll take just a few minutes instead of hours!!!

Most commercial software written for Windows isn't optimized for multiple processors. My machine is dual boot Win7/Fedora 20... Win 7 rarely uses more than just the one core (quad core Xeon); Fedora 20 is nearly always tasking all 4. I rarely use Win 7 at all, simply because the Fedora Linux is much faster and far more reliable... I only have Win 7 loaded to play stupid games, and my Photoshop CS2 won't run in Linux... otherwise I would be Windows free...

edit on 25-3-2014 by madmac5150 because: Mutant albino giraffe kills 3 in drive by shooting... film at 11

I use Linux Mint. As you say, it makes full use of all four cores, is much faster too. I use cs2 as well so I installed virtual box that has a copy of xp for running cs2 and a few other win progs.

catt3
In reply to VoidHawk & madmac5150 I haven't tried to use linux since about 2005, I had a lot of problems with drivers at that time and I tried different flavors, Is linux any better now?

Drivers?? What drivers? LOL
I installed Linux Mint, didn't need to intall anything else, everything worked as soon as the install finished. The only think I've had a problem with is my ols steam powered printer, but it didnt like working on windows either.
Linux (at least mint) is now imo better than windows. It wasnt long ago that I'd have bashed anyone who said that

reply to post by VoidHawk


I will give linux another try this week and see. I do hope and I am sure it is better than it was. The older I get the more I want things to be easier.

catt3
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

I will give linux another try this week and see. I do hope and I am sure it is better than it was. The older I get the more I want things to be easier.

I was also turned off of Linux for awhile for that exact reason... finding drivers that worked completely sucked. It's a much different animal now. I have used recent releases of Fedora, Ubuntu and Red Hat and all have worked amazingly well. I haven't tried Mint yet, but I have a spare machine that is going to be my guinea pig for Mint later this week...

madmac5150

catt3
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

I will give linux another try this week and see. I do hope and I am sure it is better than it was. The older I get the more I want things to be easier.

I was also turned off of Linux for awhile for that exact reason... finding drivers that worked completely sucked. It's a much different animal now. I have used recent releases of Fedora, Ubuntu and Red Hat and all have worked amazingly well. I haven't tried Mint yet, but I have a spare machine that is going to be my guinea pig for Mint later this week...

If you like to tinker with your desktop then get the KDE version. Just about everything can be configured pretty much however you want it to be.

VoidHawk

madmac5150

catt3
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

I will give linux another try this week and see. I do hope and I am sure it is better than it was. The older I get the more I want things to be easier.

I was also turned off of Linux for awhile for that exact reason... finding drivers that worked completely sucked. It's a much different animal now. I have used recent releases of Fedora, Ubuntu and Red Hat and all have worked amazingly well. I haven't tried Mint yet, but I have a spare machine that is going to be my guinea pig for Mint later this week...

If you like to tinker with your desktop then get the KDE version. Just about everything can be configured pretty much however you want it to be.

KDE has long been my favorite desktop... Gnome is OK, but tends to get unstable for some reason... never quite figgered that one out. I also use LXDE; got that loaded on my server... thanx for the tip tho I definitely will use the KDE spin...

catt3
And I appreciate the help, but now I want to know what everyone thinks is the fastest. its taking a 1.6 gig file about 2 1/2 to 3 hrs to convert a mp4 to a mpeg. I have a fairly fast computer I just don't think it should take this long. Any help is appreciated.

I used to use Handbrake, but prefer AppGeeker now, seems to run a little faster on my computers. You might give that a try.

Here is the mp4 to a mpeg instruction found in its site:

www.appgeeker.com...

if you get stuck just let me know.

reply to post by catt3


MP4's are slow as molasses to convert on any given day, at least that's been my experience using many different programs in the hopes of speeding up the process.

I now just avoid downloading in mp4 format as much as I possibly can and instead, opt to download in .flv or .avi format... it just saves a ton of time. I can convert and burn an .flv (or .avi) in less than half an hour, whereas an mp4 will take a minimum of 1-2 hours each and every time.

My favourite convert and burn program (it does it all in one fell swoop), it's 100% free and easy to use:
DVD Flick


Edit to add: And yes, a 1.6 gig mp4 file (that's a big file) will take 2-3 hours to convert with just about any program you try... No surprise that it's taking that long - especially if you opted for "high" quality encoding rather than "normal" quality encoding. There's only a minimal difference between "high" and "normal" encoding video quality (to the point it's not even noticable), but it'll easily double your convert/burn time. So you might want to check your settings in the program you're using.

I have found the free cuda video converter works best for all formats for me. I joined video help.com to help in creating a dvd from converted files but no one there helps much. A long time ago I used tmpgenc dvd author to make dvd's and I still have just wondering if anyone knows of any program like it. I like to make my own menus and create chapters not based on a certain amount of time.
I am going to install a flavor of linux tomorrow so I might not be online much. but any suggestions about dvd authoring software would be appreciated.

One other suggestion for software to use for video conversion XMedia Recode.
www.xmedia-recode.de...

This is the only one I like and I have tried the other three that have been suggested but this is the one that gives me the control I like and yet is simple and as quick or quicker than the others.