Lowering Encoding Time Using More than one PC?

[serrabastien]

Hi,

i was thinking about one possibility to lower the encoding time without having multi-proc PC but using more than one PC (like PVM does).
When we encode the steps are :
1 - demux audio/video
2 - encoding audio (1 or 2 audio files)
3 - encoding video
4 - mux
5 - burn

I have 2 PC (one 1,3 Duron and one 750 Duron) at home.
As we don't make multipass video encoding it's possible to encode one half part on one PC and the other to another one (using avisynth script) and then merge them before muxing. Considering the audio i often encode 2 langages so why not doing the same.

My dream is modifying ToK for example by adding one option giving the ability to put the name or @IP of two (3,4...) PC and ToK will use then to encode video and audio

I've seen that with Win2000 there's a command named
rexec to execute task on another PC.

What do you think about that ? It's just an idea, i don't really know how to do that but i'm sure it's not so difficult.

'Z

[MrTibs]

Actually, I was going to try encoding on one machine and frame serve to another. My scripts tend to be very slow since I'm going from a noisy analog source.

Of course if you had say 4 computers (yea I actually do), you could frame serve to each of them. With a little VNC to control them all and you have yourself a KVCD farm.

(Have I just geeked out?)

[serrabastien]

My idea is not frameserve from one PC to encode on another one but frameserve from one PC and encode one half of the video on it and the second one on the 2nd PC by sending a command that execute tmpgenc on the 2nd PC.

[Grantman]

I have 6 computers set up at home. Sometimes I use more than one to make encoding more efficient.

The first trick is to install all your tools such that the machines would be interchangeable. I use Avisynth switcher sometimes which adds another level of configuration.

I have set up standard directories that are identical on all machines for source clips (and audio), completed clips, TMPGEnc projects, scrips and so on. Now, if I copy video (or DVD2AVI) project files and audio files from one machine to another I can still use scrips or TMPEnc projects without changing references.

I am using Windows XP Pro on all the machines in this example. I use my laptop (via wireless network) to control each machine via Remote Desktop. This way I can sit on my deck and drink beer while I am setting up batches of encodes. (Wait... that is really not part of the setup... though I do think the right beer can help the quality of the end result!)

What I would like to see is a port of TMPGEnc that would use some type of basic grid computing. I would like a nice Linux setup for TMPGEnc that could use 4-5 processors to encode 2 hour movies in 15-30 minutes!

That would be almost as big a breakthrough as Kwag's templates.


Grantman