Encoding to .mp4 container with h.264 | Shall I get Core i7 or Xeon?

[idata]

We are a small scale media or video production company that do video encoding a lot, and business start to expand and we are looking for upgrading our hardware to reduce consumed time by encoding.

We are encoding a lot of videos on a daily base.

The source files are .TS and .MPEG-2.

Most of our clients now require encoding to .mp4 containers using .h264 and move atom to the beginning of the file to make it start playing or streamed as fast as possible instead of load the whole file first.

I've goggled and found some specific forum in video encoding like videohelp dot com and doom9 dot org and they helped me a lot to learn more about video encoding, and been advised to come here to ask about the hardware upgrading or recommendations.

After trying many encoders or converter clients we found that almost VidCoder or Handbrake is the best option compared to other ones like WinAVI or a like.

While VidCoder do amazing result for the quality and small file size but our only option with it is the consumed time for encoding.

If a file .TS or .MPEG-2 with an hour length, and encoded to .mp4 using h.264 it is being encoded in about 7 or 8 minutes, this is when we make the vidcoder process with real time high priority and make sure that is using 8 cores.

The current hardware is Intel core i7 2600k sandy bridge, with 16 GB Ram ddr3, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 2 GB.

So what kind of upgrade we may do to reduce the encoding time as low as possible?

Also does using Core i7 is like using the Xeon or there are a much differences?

Also does using a single processor motherboard is the same as using dual socket processor like xeon?

Please does using a motherboard like asus that support dual socket processor and then use two core i7 will be as the same as xeon workstation?

Thanks a lot for reading my question and hope to know what we should do to get a solution.

Regards,

WI

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

Since you are using the system for a dedicated task, if the software that you are running is designed to take full advantage of multi-core processors, then I would suggest having a server motherboard with 2 processor sockets and installing 2 Intel® Xeon® processors for that task.

If you do not want to spend much money, then you can install 2 i7 processors on your ASUS* motherboard, as long as they are fully compatible, please check with the motherboard manufacturer before purchasing any processor.

Regarding the i7-2600k, this is a 2nd generation processor.

We currently have the 3rd generation processors i5 and i7 located at:

http://ark.intel.com/ http://ark.intel.com/

But I would say that in order to have a noticeable increase in performance, you might want to think on Intel® Xeon® processors.

[idata]

Hello Adolfo_Intel,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

The software I am using is VidCoder 64-bit version.

I've realized that during using the VidCoder to do the encoding that almost all cores of the processors being used (this is what the task manager monitoring shows that almost all cores go up during the encoding process) which means that yes the application is using all available cores.

Regarding the Xeon, I am really interested to know your recommendations for a good suitable one, and does a workstation with a dual physical processor will be helpful like a Dual Core machine or it must be a quad core machine with 2 processors?

Please suggest and advise.

Thanks a lot for your time.

WI

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

In this case, the more cores the processor has the better performance you should notice.

So in this case the highest Intel® Xeon® processors that we have are the E7 family located at:

http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59139/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-Family/server http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59139/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E7-Family/server

Remember that you need to check with the server board manufacturer for compatibility information between the selected Intel® Xeon® processor and the particular server board.

[idata]

Thanks for your help.

Please it seems that I reported a wrong information regarding CPU usage.

Please I've recorded a video for the whole process and what system monitoring says as well in the attached video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXu06nC2Jw&hd=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXu06nC2Jw&hd=1

Choose HD quality.

I think that HDD maybe the reason for this slow performance if I am not mistaken.

So please tell me your opinion regarding this issue and shall I go for the SSD option 1st before go to xeon.

So what kind of a Motherboard I should stick to in case I will buy a SSD drive and does the brand vary or all are the same?

I will buy the biggest size of course which is 256 GB as far as I know.

Thanks a lot and too much appreciated

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

I saw the video that you sent, it shows that all cores are being used by the video encoder software.

So using a processor with more than 8 cores should increase the performance of the system since it will be doing the same task with more cores.

The SSD drive will allow the system to load faster the software into the system memory, however it will depend on the way that the software works, since usually this type of software runs on the system memory, but if the software needs to work with temporary files on the hard drive, then it will be a good idea to use an SSD, but you will first need to contact the software developer and ask them the way that the software works, and ask them if according to their own experience with their software, it will be having better performance when running from an SSD.

[idata]

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Please what is the correct technical question to ask the software developer because my English is not native and I am do not know exactly what I should say?

Thanks a lot,

WI

[Adolfo_S_Intel2]

You need to ask the software developer if the software handles all the data on the system memory or if it does work with temporary files on the hard drive.

Also ask them if working with an SSD drive will increase the performance of the software tool.

[idata]

Ok my friend, I will ask the software developer about this.

Thanks,

WI