Request: High priority for FFMPEG in config.xml

[pvruser]

I'd love to have an option to up the TASK PRIORITY of ffmpeg.

my CPU cant support live TV without upping task priority of the GBPVR and recordings are also choppy. that was easy to solve since the config.xml has the option to raise service priority. everything works fine now for SDTV live and recorded shows and divx files on my 2500+ athlon XP.

however transcoding the HDTV 720p or 1080i into the 480i doesnt work real time (MVP catches up after a minute or so). i'm thinking that above normal for ffmpeg would fix that part.

Thanks a lot and keep up the great work!

[zehd]

I'd love to have an option to up the TASK PRIORITY of ffmpeg.

my CPU cant support live TV without upping task priority of the GBPVR and recordings are also choppy. that was easy to solve since the config.xml has the option to raise service priority. everything works fine now for SDTV live and recorded shows and divx files on my 2500+ athlon XP.

however transcoding the HDTV 720p or 1080i into the 480i doesnt work real time (MVP catches up after a minute or so). i'm thinking that above normal for ffmpeg would fix that part.

Thanks a lot and keep up the great work!

Yes transcoding a High Def vid is going to be tougher than a 512x384 HD Torrent avi transcoding to mpeg...

But it worries me that you have to adjust any priorities at all. I have a much lesser system than yours and I run Live TV just fine, using default priorities...

While developing ZProcess, I saw a trend where several people with powerful computers were not able to transcode well on-the-fly. It usually always turned out to be conflicting to competing processes. Upping the priority is not the answer. Finding out what is 'stealing' your CPU and stopping that should be....

ZProcess can be setup up to raise the priority of ffmpeg, but I hesitate to offer that, and in fact am planning on removing that option from the future releases because almost all of the problems people face with transcoding IS too high a priority.

I have a Athlon 1800+ 2100+ and Sempron 3100+ all smoking along with only default priorities.. It can be done..

And one more side note... I know that if you did decide to use ZProcess to transcode on the fly, I would need to make some adjustments. I don't have anything to work with to test, but I'll bet it won't work out of the gate...

[pvruser]

Yes transcoding a High Def vid is going to be tougher than a 512x384 HD Torrent avi transcoding to mpeg...

But it worries me that you have to adjust any priorities at all. I have a much lesser system than yours and I run Live TV just fine, using default priorities...

While developing ZProcess, I saw a trend where several people with powerful computers were not able to transcode well on-the-fly. It usually always turned out to be conflicting to competing processes. Upping the priority is not the answer. Finding out what is 'stealing' your CPU and stopping that should be....

ZProcess can be setup up to raise the priority of ffmpeg, but I hesitate to offer that, and in fact am planning on removing that option from the future releases because almost all of the problems people face with transcoding IS too high a priority.

I have a Athlon 1800+ 2100+ and Sempron 3100+ all smoking along with only default priorities.. It can be done..

And one more side note... I know that if you did decide to use ZProcess to transcode on the fly, I would need to make some adjustments. I don't have anything to work with to test, but I'll bet it won't work out of the gate...

some time ago i wanted to upgrade my computer because it used to boot up in 5 minutes. then i found out that my antivirus and firewall were scanning each other and i reduced the loading time to 30 seconds or so

the only thing i see now in the task manager is the ffmpeg running at 90-98% of the CPU and from time to time some other process popping up like firefox or similar. so there's basically nothing conflicting that i can see.

however i'm wondering about your ffmpeg settings. i'm pretty sure they can be further optimized. mine looks like this:

<MVPFFmpegTranscodeCmdLineNTSC>-y -i "{SOURCE_FILE}" -b 4000k -me zero -intra -ac 2 -ab 128 -r 29.97 -s 352x240 -f svcd "{DEST_FILE}"</MVPFFmpegTranscodeCmdLineNTSC>

the original one was going for less than half a minute. with this one i can transcode 720p for more than a minute and 1080i for about 30 seconds.

should i try to install the ZProcess? i'm thinking that's only adding another layer/overhead to the software since that ends up calling ffmpeg anyway but i can try that if your setup works that way.

your Athlon 1800+ 2100+ and Sempron 3100+ are smoking with hidef realtime transcoding or with normal avis?

Thanks!

[zehd]

some time ago i wanted to upgrade my computer because it used to boot up in 5 minutes. then i found out that my antivirus and firewall were scanning each other and i reduced the loading time to 30 seconds or so

the only thing i see now in the task manager is the ffmpeg running at 90-98% of the CPU and from time to time some other process popping up like firefox or similar. so there's basically nothing conflicting that i can see.

however i'm wondering about your ffmpeg settings. i'm pretty sure they can be further optimized. mine looks like this:

<MVPFFmpegTranscodeCmdLineNTSC>-y -i "{SOURCE_FILE}" -b 4000k -me zero -intra -ac 2 -ab 128 -r 29.97 -s 352x240 -f svcd "{DEST_FILE}"</MVPFFmpegTranscodeCmdLineNTSC>

the original one was going for less than half a minute. with this one i can transcode 720p for more than a minute and 1080i for about 30 seconds.

should i try to install the ZProcess? i'm thinking that's only adding another layer/overhead to the software since that ends up calling ffmpeg anyway but i can try that if your setup works that way.

your Athlon 1800+ 2100+ and Sempron 3100+ are smoking with hidef realtime transcoding or with normal avis?

Thanks!

Regular ~512x ~288 16.9 HD Torrent AVIs...

I don't do HD on-the-fly transcoding because I don't have a sample to play with. I would have to adjust some parameters and offer a profile that would work well. I believe that I should be able to transcode the HD with my systems. (strongly believe)

I know what you say about having another layer of software, but that's not what ZProcess does. In many ways, it's like a batch file. It works for a millisecond doing some calculations and loading parameters for the transcode and then it calls the transcoder just like a batch file does. Except it does have the ability to set with different priorities.

I won't be able to make this work, or be sure I can offer you support until I have a couple of samples...

You said that '...ffmpeg running at 90-98% of the CPU and from time to time some other process popping up like firefox or similar.'... now why would you have firefox or something similar, running? When I mean competing processes, I mean everything..... Seriously. I have a reg file that turns off tonnes of services and suggestions to kill just about all startup programs... I even use a memory tweak that forces Windows to use more RAM than swap file.... The computers purr...

I do program and surf on my PVR, but I only started running 'competing' processes once my system was working right....

There is still a strong possibility that the HD transcode is just too intensive, for our systems, but I would seriously look a clearing out the processes first...