Help using Handbrake to compress blu ray files?

[Technique]

So i've damn near filled my 6TB hard drive and i've still plenty more to do ... that means some videos are going to need compressing (all these files are blu-ray MakeMKV rips).

My computer isn't the fastest at doing this which isn't a major issue because i can just set it up to do the job through the night.

 

To help advise as best as you can you'll probably need to know what i want to achieve and what i'm going to do with the file. If i miss anything out then just ask...

 

MY GOAL:

 

* I want to compress the file down from the original 20GB-40GB that it is. Not to a specific size but smaller without any noticeable loss in image & sound quality.

* I want subtitles to remain in the video file - finally figured out how to do this after some trial & error

* AUDIO - the audio currently comes through my TV speakers. It may well forever stay like that, i don't know. I've been looking in to soundbars for a while now and i hope to get one (but have other issues there - off topic) but it's no certainty. I may well move house in the future and have a 5.1 or a 7.1 setup. The latter two (5.1 & 7.1) are very unlikely but not impossible. The soundbar option is the one that there's actually a good chance of ........ my point is .......... i want to future proof the compressed file so that if i ever do get a soundbar (or indeed 5.1/7.1 setup) I can relax in the knowledge that my movie files can make the most of it rather than being like - damn i wish i'd converted those 300 video files that took me months a little differently.

Problem is ... i don't really understand the audio settings on the audio tab in Handbrake.

 

* The video files are stored on a specific hard drive on my PC and they are played on my TV in my living room via Plex.

 

So 3 key things really...

* Image quality - but i think my settings are suitable for my goal? So i'm not particularly worried here. Would just like someone to check.

* Audio quality & future proofing - i honestly don't have a clue.

* Image dimensions (we'll get on to that in a sec)

 

SUMMARY:

 

Fairly confident i'm right here. I've selected HQ on the right as a best of both worlds kind of thing - good quality without taking forever and creating a bigger file.

I note the size says 1920x800. More on that on the next screenshot.

 

DIMENSIONS:

 

I see the source as 1920x1080 yet the entered numbers by default are less. What is correct here? 1920x1080 or 1920x800?

In this example i actually changed the 800 to 1080 simply based on the reasoning i've heard of 1920x1080 but not 1920x800, that's all.

 

FILTERS:

 

I left these as default as i don't really know what they do.

 

VIDEO:

 

Now i actually left this as default when i converted my file in this example, however where the red arrow is, i've since read that i should change from Peak Framerate to Constant Framerate.

Correct? Or leave as Peak?

 

AUDIO:

 

Here's the problem where i've no clue. I don't really know what to select to achieve my goals. I don't know what codec, what bitrate, what mixdown.

I did a little reading but still don't really understand it. Based on this i changed the mixdown for one of the defaults to 5.1 channels.

Most my movies are English but some are in foreign language (Chinese martial arts movies). So not really sure what to select. I used this as an example since most are total English.

The reason there'll be so many options in that dropdown is because when ripping from MakeMKV i don't know which audio/subs to select as there's often many 'English' options. Based on this i just select them ALL. As a result as you'll know - i sometimes end up with that pointless audio of like the director talking over the movie.

 

SUBTITLES:

 

Confident i've got this down now...

 

So with those options i just mentioned to you (such as changing the image dimensions & not really understanding it) i ended up with this...

 

ORIGINAL MAKEMKV RIP:

 

CONVERTED HANDBRAKE FILE with altered 1920x1080 (instead of the default 1920x800):

 

As you can see, it is a wider file than the original. Leave as 1920x800?

 

I also noticed though that the audio files are different:

 

ORIGINAL MAKEMKV RIP:

 

CONVERTED HANDBRAKE FILE:

 

 

 

Sorry for the long post but wanted to give as much info as possible so that we don't have to play tennis before you're able to advise.

 

 

 

Oh and a final one before i finish. Nothing major but while i'm asking the others i just wondered about this one - on my PC many of the video files have like 'poster thumbnails' for the movie, yet the converted by Handbrake files do not.

Is there a way of changing this so that the converted files have the same thumbnail? If so, how? Like i said, nothing major, just me being picky.

 

[Technique]

Regards the Roku - I was looking on YouTube recently about using Plex on different hardware. Roku was one, there was the fire stick, the Nvidia shield and other things. 

My situation (TVs own app) wasn’t replicated in the test. 

 

The Roku didn’t seem to do too well. It wasn’t the worst (if memory serves that was the Amazon fire stick, not the fire tv but the stick). 

 

I forget the channel. I’ve watched a lot of bytemybits or whatever it’s called recently so that’s the only one I can remember. 

 

Sorry for the vague-ness. I’m on my phone, not my pc. 

 

So so I’ll google “mkvtoolkit” tonight then and that program should see me right for that problem file? Thanks. Things irritate me where I know others would let it go but then I appreciate I can be very particular shall we say 😂

[+BudMan MVC]

Not sure what "testing" they were doing - roku is an option, I have never had any issues with the stick, the box or my TV now that is roku..  But hey you want a firestick, or appletv or sling - go for it.. .All prob going to be better then some tv app.. They are normally horrible!  Which pretty sure I mentioned back at the start of this.

 

I can tell you for sure have problems with my sons firestick, his firebox much better.. Maybe he had old or bad one.. I just like the agnostic approach from roku vs amazon on the fires..  You can find reviews going both ways that is for sure..   I hear the fires are loaded with ads from amazon, etc. etc.

 

If the thing can play the media without buffering is the big question... Buy both, return the one you don't like..  They are not expensive!  Prob less than the led lighting you put your rig

 

https://mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html#windows

 

It is pretty much better than sliced bread

 

You just run the file through the multiplexer again - not going to transcode anything or loose quality and split the file where you want... So if you wan trim off the first 6 seconds just split after 6 seconds

 

[Technique]

Yeah i've only tried the Firestick and the TV app so far as that's what i already had. I don't expect much from the firestick as it's just a poor cheap stick. I'd expect the fire box or whatever it's called to do better and tests seem to back that up. Whether these tests have any bias in them or not i've no idea.

 

My aim at the moment is pretty much just to build my library. I'm nowhere near finished. I'll use the TV app when i feel like watching something for now but when i start to come to an end on the movies side of things i'll then consider playing with other options regards what actually plays the files.

10 hours ago, BudMan said:

They are not expensive!  Prob less than the led lighting you put your rig

Haha. Nice.

10 years ago i thought nothing of spending here & there. I lived with my parents. I'd splash cash on various mods for the car (subtle, nothing like Fast & Furious nonsense).

 

Since i bought the house i became so tight with money 😂

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i apologize in adv b/c i didnt read all of the replies. why not just change the avg bitrate on the Video tab? i used to use that all the time to find a suitable file size. You can then play around w/ "turbo first pass" and "2-pass encoding" to see what suits you.

[+BudMan MVC]

There is little need to transcode the files to a lower bitrate since the server can do that on the fly for devices/network connections that can not work with high bit rate... The only reason to pre transcode them would be if server can not keep up on the fly... They have a built in optimize feature in plex that you can do that with.. No need to do it with handbrake..

 

But yes if your having issue you need to drop the bitrate down.. To work with your devices/networks limitations

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

3 minutes ago, BudMan said:

But yes if your having issue you need to drop the bitrate down.. To work with your devices/networks limitations

i was assuming, based on the OP's 1st post, that the hard drive was filling up, so he needed to save space. Otherwise, you got it... let the software transcode for you.

[+BudMan MVC]

I think he is running into both, he needs/wants more space and also having buffering issues.. If I recall... This topic has really been going on for really really long time.. And has spawned multiple threads   Taking forever - but I do think he is getting it finally

[Technique]

YOU was the one who said the other thread was getting too long If I recall. Which I do

 

But yeah you're right. I do have some buffering issues but it's dependant on the title .... sort of. The vast majority of the movies i've tried work & work well.

 

Some can be a bit annoying where i'll be X-time in to the movie and it'll just randomly give me the 3 yellow dots and stop. I'll have to then go back to the movie in Plex and resume from where i was at with no explanation as to why that just happened. The PC didn't go to sleep or anything.

 

And then there's the even smaller number that just wont play without buffering a silly amount. Jackie Chan's Police Story was one such movie. I tried it a number of times with no joy. The bitrate was higher than most of my other movies. Then randomly one day it just played fine, or at least for my 10-15minute test. Have had issues with the Amazon FireStick too at times but we've already spoken about how that thing isn't necessarily the best device for Plex.

 

I think even with a new hard drive i'd like to shrink certain movies. My favourites would remain uncompressed but the rest could be shrunk. It saves space, both on the drive and potentially takes up 1 less slot somewhere along the line.

[+BudMan MVC]

To be honest I would prob shrink your "less" favorite movies.. So you can watch the ones you like best or more often in higher quality..

 

You should really test at what bitrate your happy with the picture with.. You might be surprised at how low you can go - I really don't see any problems with the quality at like 2.5Mbps for 1080p stuff.. But people have different expectations..

[DevTech]

3 hours ago, Technique said:

the other thread was getting too long

1. It is just digital bit's being stored on Neowin's hard drive. Threads can't get too long other than various abstract hang-ups in various non-digital brains.

 

2. A BluRay disk is already compressed from the factory. Any further compression won't just be a compression, it will be a TRANSCODE. Transcodes yield more digital artifacts and loss of data than a straight up compression. Any lossy transcode compression to save space will result in extra loss of quality. You can't really expect to ask people about that and get a coherent answer because the LOSS of QUALITY is SUBJECTIVE. You've already tested a lot of stuff. Trust your own eyeballs and hope they don't get more perceptive as this goes on, but that will also probably happen as you gain expertise with time.

 

3. An option you might not have considered is downsizing the original to 720p. That permits you to keep the bitrate higher and often in the end have a sharper better movie to watch. And solve the transmit bandwidth issue. Worth an experiment or two...

 

4. For some people, transcode artifacts in AUDIO are much more noticeable. Again subjective, depends on the EAR. Given the much smaller size of audio, the safe thing is just to pass through the original audio from the source.

 

5. @BudManis most likely correct about the human factor of waiting for encodes. You can plug in a more powerful GPU into your computer to speed up the encodes by a huge factor.

 

 

[+BudMan MVC]

1 hour ago, DevTech said:

Threads can't get too long other than various abstract hang-ups in various non-digital brains.

When a thread gets to be 20+ pages long its hard to try and back track and find comments, or for new users to read through the whole thing... Also the original question had been answered multiple times and it was getting on to all kinds of other subjects not related to the OP, etc.

 

Yeah I would never mess with downgrading the audio to be honest, there just not enough size there to actually worry about.. The only thing I would suggest is only put in the tracks you actually need... To be honest who wants the commentary track, and do you really need the french dubbed audio on an english movie, etc.  Maybe if your trying to learn french   But normally all of these extras that come with your optical media are not needed in your digital copy library.. If you need them you can always go back to the original, etc.

 

As mentioned - most likely one of the other threads if his box is having hard time transcoding on the fly - this is where the plex pass comes in handy so you can enable hardware transcoding.. its well worth the cost if you ask me.. Just by the life time, or pay for a month or 2 two to play with to validate that the hardware transcoding removes your issues, etc.

[Technique]

Is anyone able to advise on how a newer PC/CPU will speed up Handbrake conversions?

 

I've tried to Google some kind of answer and all i'm finding are 'benchmark figures' which may as well be in hieroglyphics. These numbers mean absolutely diddly squat to me. What does mean something is TIME. I've already given my PC specs and my conversions in HQ take 4-6 hours usually. One was like 10 hours. These are 20-30GB blu ray rips with English audio & subtitles.

 

I know it totally depends on what the specs are so i've just been on Facebook Marketplace to see what i can buy for around the £200-£350 mark. I was searching i5 and i7 since i read these are decent?

Intel Core i7 3770 Quad-Core 8 thread Turbo up to 3.90GHz (Base Frequency 3.40 GHz) 8GB DDR3 RAM Brand New 240GB SSD (Kingston or Crucial depending on stock levels) DVD-RW Windows 10 Professional

 

Windows 10 i7 6700k 6th gen Intel cpu (4.0Ghz 4 cores/8 threads) INTEL HD 530 graphics 4gb Ddr4 memory 500gb sata 6Gbps hdd HP 80 plus gold psu Intel stock cooler Exhaust fan Very clean, cool and quiet

 

Coolmaster Silent PC, with insulated case Intel Core i5 Processor 3.3Hz 8Gb DDR3 memory 1Tb Hard Drive AMD Radeon HD 6570 Graphics Card VGA, HDMI, DVI 6xUSB 2.0 2xUSB 3.0 DVD RW Drive Windows 10 Professional

processor -i5 4670k 3.40 Ghz HDD - 500 Gb Case - ATX Zalman Z3 Plus Power Source - 520W Atec Ram - 16gb Graphics card - gtx 750 Ti 2Gb Wifi Motherboard - Asrock H87 Killer Performance

 

I only copied and pasted the adverts.

 

 

What i'm wondering is what can one of these more modern PCs convert in? If we're talking of dropping my 4 hours to 3.5 hours then to me that's kinda pointless. If we're talking of going from 4 hours to 1 hour then that's different. I guess it'll be somewhere in between but i don't know what because these 'benchmark' figures mean nothing to me.

 

 

On 6/6/2019 at 12:36 AM, BudMan said:

To be honest I would prob shrink your "less" favorite movies.. So you can watch the ones you like best or more often in higher quality..

 

Not sure how i missed these posts but anyway...

Yeah i actually plan on doing that to be honest. It's something i'd decided on some time ago. There's movies in there that i may not watch ever again so they'll be compressed (or transcoded, or whatever the correct term is? They'll be Handbraked) but then there's others that i'll watch countless times more & i want to keep these in original quality.

 

On 6/6/2019 at 1:13 AM, DevTech said:

3. An option you might not have considered is downsizing the original to 720p. That permits you to keep the bitrate higher and often in the end have a sharper better movie to watch. And solve the transmit bandwidth issue. Worth an experiment or two...

 

I did for like 0.5 seconds.

I used to game and was a bit of a known player in a certain game. As such i had numerous gameplay videos & would upload to my YouTube channel. I tried out at various qualities and wasn't happy with 720p really so uploaded in 1080 so others could select the quality they wanted to view all the way up to 1080p.

 

On 6/6/2019 at 2:18 AM, BudMan said:

If you need them you can always go back to the original, etc.

 

If you remember, you'll know that isn't possible

Well, it is for some, but not the ones I'm currently doing.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

What are you running now?  You may have mentioned it (but I can't find it).

 

Can you use h.264 (Nvidia NVEnq) or h.264 (Intel QSV)?  

 

I'm using a 3770k and GTX 980ti

 

I've historically encoded with just the h.264 (x264) video codec but I've started to play around with the h.264 (Nvidia NVEnq) ... and the results look promising.  I could never get Handbrake to encode with QuickSync ... so whatever.

 

With h.264 (x264) encoding speed was between 15-30 fps....so it was taking about 2-3 hours per movie.  With h.264 (Nvidia NVEnq), in my way to early testing, I'm encoding on average about 180fps.  In other words, I encoded a 57 minute episode of The Pacific (my test file) in 8 minutes.  It took 1 hour and 15 minutes with h.264 (x264).

 

The NVEnq rip was a little bigger for comparable settings (about a gig or so).  Hard to discern the difference (if any) in video quality.  Though this comes with a caveat since I haven't watched a full NVEnq rip on my HTPC/TV (just my desktop) so there could be something I'm missing.

[Technique]

 

If you need info beyond that then just ask.

Oh, graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce GTX 460.

 

As for your second question, i don't honestly know.

 

 

My question is more coming from the angle of what could i get the compression time down to while using the settings that i'm using rather than the angle of what is the total fastest time i can compress a file in. The most important thing to me with this is compressing without noticeable loss of audio & video quality. If doing it in 8 minutes (i know yours was only an example) has me noticing some loss then it's not for me. If i have to take 4 hours then fair enough i take 4 hours. Like i say, the main thing is no noticeable loss. I'd just prefer it if it didn't take 4 hours to do but if it does then it's not the end of the world i guess.

[DevTech]

17 minutes ago, Technique said:

My question is more coming from the angle of what could i get the compression time down to while using the settings that i'm using rather than the angle of what is the total fastest time i can compress a file in. The most important thing to me with this is compressing without noticeable loss of audio & video quality. If doing it in 8 minutes (i know yours was only an example) has me noticing some loss then it's not for me. If i have to take 4 hours then fair enough i take 4 hours. Like i say, the main thing is no noticeable loss. I'd just prefer it if it didn't take 4 hours to do but if it does then it's not the end of the world i guess.

You seem to be unaware of GPU encoding which I mentioned previously. That is what he is asking you.

 

Your computer has TWO processors, the Phenom X6 and the NVIDIA GTX 460.

 

It turns out that GPUs are FAR FASTER at encoding video than a CPU. In your case, you should se a huge difference despite both components being from the dark ages...

 

If you just want to boost encoding speed, no need for a new computer, just a new video card.

 

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, Technique said:

Windows 10 i7 6700k 6th gen Intel cpu (4.0Ghz 4 cores/8 threads) INTEL HD 530 graphics 4gb Ddr4 memory 500gb sata 6Gbps hdd HP 80 plus gold psu Intel stock cooler Exhaust fan Very clean, cool and quiet

That most likely is you best starting point if you can immediately upgrade the RAM.

 

You can plug your NVIDIA GTX 460 into that until you get a budget to upgrade that later on.

 

OR

 

see if you can get a deal on a NVIDIA RTX 2070 for that budget

 

[DevTech]

28 minutes ago, Technique said:

while using the settings that i'm using

From a few post back you seem to be taking a BluRay of 30 to 60 gigs original size and compressing to 30 gigs at 1920 x 1080

 

You don't want to see a drop in quality but you are not really bringing anything to the table to achieve that.

 

BluRay standard already uses H.264 to compress the original video so when you decode H.264 and re-encode in H.264 you are doing a transcode which guarantees artifacts at almost any bitrate. You are forced to do a transcode because original un-encoded video is stored in Hollywood movie vaults.

 

The ONLY way to focus on quality in this process is to use a better encoder than the original. For practical reasons that would be only the modern H.265 codec which would actually permit you to reduce your size quite a bit. Being a more sophisticated encoder, the encode times could go up quite a bit. Worth a test, particularly if NVIDIA has a GPU H.265 encoder. @Jim Kis that available?

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Depends on the card...for example he is SOL with the GTX 460  which doesn't support NVEnc.  Pretty much everything from a 1050 and higher supports hardware encoding at h.264 and h.265.

 

Good ol' matrix here...

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

[Technique]

11 minutes ago, DevTech said:

From a few post back you seem to be taking a BluRay of 30 to 60 gigs original size and compressing to 30 gigs at 1920 x 1080

 

You don't want to see a drop in quality but you are not really bringing anything to the table to achieve that.

 

BluRay standard already uses H.264 to compress the original video so when you decode H.264 and re-encode in H.264 you are doing a transcode which guarantees artifacts at almost any bitrate. You are forced to do a transcode because original un-encoded video is stored in Hollywood movie vaults.

 

The ONLY way to focus on quality in this process is to use a better encoder than the original. For practical reasons that would be only the modern H.265 codec which would actually permit you to reduce your size quite a bit. Being a more sophisticated encoder, the encode times could go up quite a bit. Worth a test, particularly if NVIDIA has a GPU H.265 encoder. @Jim Kis that available?

 

 

Hmm not sure i'm with you on that.

 

First off i think the largest blu ray i've done has been like 30something. 30-35 perhaps. Most are in the 20-30 region, hence why i said 20-30 and not 30-60. Never seen a 50+GB blu ray before.

 

Just checked one i suspected would be one of the highest i've done - Avatar. Even that is 39.7GB. I've checked others and they barely scrape 30GB.

 

I get the impression you're saying blu-ray has already got loss of quality from the original - which is stored in the movie vaults as you say. Well as i can't see what is in those vaults then by default i'm not comparing to them, on account of i've never seen them. Obviously. I've seen the blu ray so to me that is the original. So when i say i don't want noticeable loss of quality i'm comparing it to the blu ray disc. I've done a few movies now with Handbrake and i don't notice a difference in quality. I know there must be one. You can't go from 30GB to 4GB without some kind of loss, but it's not one that my eyes and ears notice.

2 minutes ago, Jim K said:

Depends on the card.  Pretty much everything from a 1050 and higher supports hardware encoding at h.264 and h.265.

 

Good ol' matrix here...

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

So let's paint a picture for a second & say i get a new graphics card.

 

Using it to do the encoding - is that a default setting or something i'd need to manually set?

[DevTech]

6 minutes ago, Technique said:

Hmm not sure i'm with you on that.

 

First off i think the largest blu ray i've done has been like 30something. 30-35 perhaps. Most are in the 20-30 region, hence why i said 20-30 and not 30-60. Never seen a 50+GB blu ray before.

 

Just checked one i suspected would be one of the highest i've done - Avatar. Even that is 39.7GB. I've checked others and they barely scrape 30GB.

 

I get the impression you're saying blu-ray has already got loss of quality from the original - which is stored in the movie vaults as you say. Well as i can't see what is in those vaults then by default i'm not comparing to them, on account of i've never seen them. Obviously. I've seen the blu ray so to me that is the original. So when i say i don't want noticeable loss of quality i'm comparing it to the blu ray disc. I've done a few movies now with Handbrake and i don't notice a difference in quality. I know there must be one. You can't go from 30GB to 4GB without some kind of loss, but it's not one that my eyes and ears notice.

So let's paint a picture for a second & say i get a new graphics card.

 

Using it to do the encoding - is that a default setting or something i'd need to manually set?

Sorry, from @BudMancomments I thought you were making a super-high bitrate encode with a mild compression of something like 30 to 15 and eating up vast disk space as a result. I read that wrong.

 

So, BluRay FHD to 4 gigs is a lot of compression and if you are happy with that then H.265 might get you to 2 gig files but longer time to encode with your current setup. Worth a test though...

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

24 minutes ago, Technique said:

So let's paint a picture for a second & say i get a new graphics card.

 

Using it to do the encoding - is that a default setting or something i'd need to manually set?

Yea, it should.  When you have hardware that supports NVEnc you can enable it under Tools > Preferences.

 

So...right now your Handbrake looks something like ...

 

 

...when you enable NVEnc you can change your video codec to ...

 

(or H.265 Nvidia NVEnc)

 

...mind you ... these are the settings I've just been playing with and not necessarily a suggestion for you.  

 

As I mentioned earlier ... I encoded one episode of The Pacific using each of those settings.  With the regular x264 it took about and hour and fifteen minutes.  With the NVEnc it took under 8 minutes though resulted in almost a 1GB larger file.

 

 

The 17GB is the original makemkv rip obviously

[DevTech]

1 minute ago, DevTech said:

I get the impression you're saying blu-ray has already got loss of quality from the original - which is stored in the movie vaults as you say. Well as i can't see what is in those vaults then by default i'm not comparing to them, on account of i've never seen them. Obviously. I've seen the blu ray so to me that is the original. So when i say i don't want noticeable loss of quality i'm comparing it to the blu ray disc. I've done a few movies now with Handbrake and i don't notice a difference in quality. I know there must be one. You can't go from 30GB to 4GB without some kind of loss, but it's not one that my eyes and ears notice.

You probably don't want to read this post. But it never hurts to keep in mind that H.264 used by BluRay discs and H.265 are "lossy" encoders. DVD used a lossless encoder but of course was hindered by low resolution.

 

So audio, or video when you have a file encoded in a lossy format and you read that file then some amount of the decode makes a guess at the missing bits. So now, if you go to re-encode that video (a transcode) you are compressing both the original video bits along with the "guessed" bits. If your settings are different from what the movie studios used (and of course they are), then your guesses (i.e. the guesses your H.264 encoder is making) and their guesses can collide to produce strange "artifacts/glitches/noise/halo rings/etc"

 

So you want to watch out for that, but by being aware of this, you can remember to be careful not to string transcodes one after another. Always work with the most "original" copy that you can.

 

NOTE: in an attempt to be completely non-technical here some info here is less accurate than I'm comfortable with but so be it...

[DevTech]

I found this old post from 2012 on a GTX 460 GPU encode:

 

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/is-gpu-transcoding-still-inferior-quality-wise.371688/#post-4467337

 

"GPU encoding has come a long way, you just need to make sure you don't use outdated software.
Image on the left was done on CPU (2600k @ 4.5ghz) took 1:36 to do a 3min scene.
Image on the right done on GPU via CUDA (GTX 460) 0:58 same 3min scene."

 

So he went from 1.5 hours to 1 hour.

 

@Jim KGTX 980ti is many generations improved and can also use the NVIDIA specific NVENC encoder:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_NVENC

 

980 ti went to 1080 ti to 2080 ti - so it might be enough generations back to be a good price used?

 

[Technique]

Hmm interesting. I thought it'd be CPU power not GPU.

 

I was looking at what's available on the market now from where i generally buy my stuff (eBuyer.co.uk - that's eBuyer, not eBay) and things seem to have come a long way. I guess you should expect that in 9 years though.

 

There's plenty that i want but the issue is affordability. Budman mentioned at one point that that's nonsense and sure i could go and buy a new hard drive right now and build a brand new latest & greatest machine right now and rip through all this as fast as is possible today. I could afford it sure. The issue then is if my roof goes i don't want to be in the position where i say well i can't afford to repair it but at least i can use Handbrake more efficiently now. Or sorry dear but we can't do that holiday any more but my movies are covered so don't you worry.

 

So for now i may just play with the compression as is, suffer the time required & wait for prices to come down and money to build in the bank.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Here is the thing ... you can mess around with compression settings and the like ... but you're still gonna be sucking at 3-4 hours per encode.

 

If you aren't gaming on the system you can go with a cheap 1050/1050ti/1650 which will give you much faster encoding systems.  Remember that the NVEnc/NVDec are separate from CUDA cores ... basically it is a dedicated chip for the sole purpose of hardware encoding/decoding.  In other words, a 1080 will not be much (if any) faster than a 1050 at encoding.

 

Your speed increase would be among the families ... so the Pascals (1050 --> Titan X/Xp) will be "slower" than the Turings (GTX 1660 ---> Titan RTX).  I put slower in quotes because even a 1050 should be able to encode in minutes vs. hours.  For example, the 1050 should encode faster than my 980ti since it is Maxwell architecture.  

 

Note that the 1650, though a Turing card, uses a Volta NVEnc (the performance would be the same as the Pascal 1050, 1050ti, etc.).  Don't look at the GTX 1030 ... it can only decode ... not encode.

 

Sooo...maybe something like this for $137??  (oh, you're in England ... disregard below)

 

https://www.newegg.com/asus-geforce-gtx-1050-ph-gtx1050-2g/p/N82E16814126169?Item=9SIAET87V09857

 

...or you can look at ebay (or other vendors) for something cheaper if you want to go that route.

 

Clear as mud?

 

Reference:

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk#NVENCPerf

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

Edited June 9, 2019 by Jim K