I have set the system to leverage SMP for all 4 CPUs. The conversion runs very quickly until about 85% complete and then becomes VERY SLOW. I can convert the first 85% in 10 minutes and the remaining 15% will take another 40 minutes.

Is this just how it runs or am I missing something.

Thanks for your time and reply.

Sequoyah

To: sequoyah

Hello,

Actually, conversion process consists of two parts - decoding/encoding video ( 85%), which is fast, because it uses all 4 CPU's, and creating output file on hard drive (15%), which is not multithreaded process and depends on hard drive speed. As far as I know, our developers have already created some updates to optimize the second part. The updates will be added in the next version of AVS Video Converter and allow to create output file 10-20% faster.


Best regards.

I also have same experiance converting from video_ts to AVI format the first 85% percent goes quickly around 40 minutes or so then the last 15% takes an additional 4 plus hours sometimes 6 hours or more for complete conversion on a 90 minute video.

Tracy

To: Tracy ruddy


Hello Tracy,

Could you please specify what profile with output settings you select when convert to AVI?

Do you open only VIDEO_TS.IFO file for conversion?

Best regards.

To: Vlad


I have tried almost all profiles when converting to Avi have changed nothing just using the presets that came with the program and still the same result also have changed some setting to match a previous converting program i use to use and the result is still the same over 5 hours to conver a 90 minute video.
Yes the only file opened is the Video_ts.ifo file. I can Use The Same File And Convert To MP4 in 40 minutes or less sucessfuly I cant figure this out the demo worked fine , I have even completely uninstalled previous converting programs in case of a conflict and did a clean install of AVS which solved an audio compress.dll error i was getting but not the unusally long conversion time when converting to avi .

thanx for any assistance

To: Tracy ruddy


It's quite strange that all profiles take the same time for conversion. Usually, HD Video profile takes a lot of time, is you convert to high definition video, but not other presets.

Could you please specify your PC configuration - Operating System, Processor, Ram, HDD?

Greetings

Today I decided I would look at the disk activity in the last portion (15%) of the process from save file to completed DVD.
I used a 60 min mpg file and the time for first 85% was 6 minutes. The last 15% was 18 minutes. The total time was 24 minutes. This is 3 times faster
total time than when I first did the test.

I had to download the Editor again because I had removed it not thinking I would use it in this computer. Ant then I see it is a new version. (167)
The download page still shows 166.

However the problem is still the same. The CPU runs 80% during first part and 3% at end. The disk transfer rate is 30MB/sec in first
and drops to 8MB/sec in second part. The Disk Queue Length is less than 1 always.

I can live with the better total time but would like to see more efficiency in last 15%.

Thx Dave

To: Tracy ruddy


Hi.
One of the profiles I used is " Creative Zen Vision W ( mpeg4, 1800 kbps, 720x480 ) did not change anything first 85% around 60 minutes the last 15% 5 hours to complete.
My computer is an Acer Aspire E380 Windows Vista Home Premium sevice pack 2. Processor AMD Athlon 64 x2 dual core processor 5000+ 2.6 GHz
Ram 2.00 GB 32 bit operating system, 320 GB hard drive.
Thanx

EyeMGr8:

The CPU runs 80% during first part and 3% at end. The disk transfer rate is 30MB/sec in first and drops to 8MB/sec in second part. The Disk Queue Length is less than 1 always. I can live with the better total time but would like to see more efficiency in last 15%.

Please note the above post submitted by Vlad. We'll do our best to optimize the conversion process within future releases of AVS Video Converter.

To: Tracy ruddy

What if you try to convert another file, not DVD, for ex. AVI or any other, do you notice the same problem?
If you take another DVD movie and try to convert it the same way as before, does the problem persist?

If you convert your video from the disc directly, you can try copying the DVD to your hard disc first and then convert the video from HDD. This would accelerate the conversion process.

In case this still does not help, please attach a screenshot of the Advanced window of the program (File Information tab) showing your input and output file parameters.

Regards

To: nadin


ok I see it as two problems.
one is that the time remaining treats the whole process as decoding/encoding and gets screwed up by the second part which is write to disk
if you open 'reliability and performance monitor' in Vista you'll be able to see that avs writes to various files on the HD including several 7GB temp files (although I didn't observe it from the start but from around %80+)

the program doesn't dump everything to and write aggresively to the HD because people would have noticed then but does it bit by bit.

converting a 720p 4GB file to divx at around %80 the program wrote about 200MB and used 300MB. out of a file that shouldn't even reach 1GB
so either you do an agressive write (similer to windows file transfer in terms of speed) or you at least make it so people understand that this is a separate process.

I think that what happens is that you don't use the classic windows cache. or how I'm used to it maybe in older versions where when you wrote a big file to the HD windows would start using the memory as a write cache as much as it could until it couldn't hold it any more in memory and started writing it to the HD which also resulted in slowing the program down.

you should switch to agrassive write at the second part (or do it as an option?) and change the timer/text to 'writing file to disk' or something similer

To: nadin


I also see the program writing to 'NTFS volume log file'. I know roughly that the log file is used for some file system tracking and logging but what's it used for?
especially writing 50MB+ to it..

To: nadin


WAIT!

Stupid question
if decoding/encoding is done up to around %85
how come I see the video preview up to %99 when the second part is suppose to be 'writing file to disk' as you say? (mkv to divx)

When converting an MPG to m4v, it gets to about 85 - 90% then slows way down. It does this very consistently. The conversion is going very smoothly, then all of the sudden it starts moving very slowly. Once completed, the converted file is fine, but the conversion takes a very long time.

Environment:
Win 7 64 bit
i7 processor
6gb ram

Any thoughts or suggestions?
Steve

To: steve@cersos.com


read the entire thread this is a known bug. the program's working fine but takes longer after %85 due to some 'second process' as officials have said here.
it will be fixed in the next version

To: shachar2

You get the conversion process just right, the job well done!
The only comment we need to add is that on preview not the decoding/encoding stage is reflected, but the write to disc process. Have you noticed that right after the conversion start, there is no preview at all, the program is preparing data for conversion? At this moment the decoding/encoding takes place. As soon as it is finished and the program begins to write the file, the video starts to be previewed.

Both the processes are done not one after another, but in parts allocated between threads and therefore, roughly speaking, they are organized rather parallel to each other. Although thanks to the multi-thread scheme the encoding part was accelerated, the write to disc process still remains quite slow. This pretty much depends on your winchester performance. If you, for instance, use computer performance instrumentation available on Windows 7, you might see that the winchester performace remains at quite a low level. This causes slow down during conversion.

As the conversion process is organized in a complicated way, the progress bar available during conversion does not reflect is quite correctly. Whereas you see it is at 80%, in reality the whole process still sits at a much lower point.

Hope this explanation provides answers to your questions.

To: nadin


so basically what I said at first was write this whole thing is because you do not simply dump everything to the HD because that will slow the system down during the conversion process so it's a 'slow write' process. but the conversion finishes quickly within 30min in my case (4GB 720P mkv to divx movie) only to wait for the 'slow write' process

the simple solution would be to communicate to the other process and to tell it to simple dump everything to the HD once the conversion process is down. another way is to try to more agressively write to the HD but not dump everything so it will slow the system down.

dumping everything to the HD shouldn't take too long depending on the file size (today 4GB for 720P tomorrow say 8GB for 1080P and the day after that 16GB for 1080P 3D :P)

But when you convert the video you can't use the whole system memory and I've seen that the program writes 7MB temp files, I'm not that good in programming as to understand why to write to a temp file and not directly to the file.
The only programming I know is basic with the atari from the 80ies. you know lines that goes:
10 . . .
20 . . .
30 . . .
40 goto 10
and things like that

nadin:

To: shachar2 Have you noticed that right after the conversion start, there is no preview at all, the program is preparing data for conversion? At this moment the decoding/encoding takes place. As soon as it is finished and the program begins to write the file, the video starts to be previewed.

BTW yes I've noticed that. I thought that it's because its an HD file it takes longer to start previewing it and didn't give it that much thought

To: shachar2

Our developers will do their best to optimize the whole process in a better way in future.
Guess, we should not dig deeper into programming on this forum. Anyway, thank you for your interest and comments.

To: nadin


You're welcome

I have been playing w/ Video Converter 6 (i.e., learning to use it!) and find that the CPU % Usage runs at 98% of so for the first 70% of the conversion. The % usage dies quickly to low 40%, then at around 80% completion of conversion, % usage dies down to 4-7% till finish. It takes a lot longer to convert the last 20& than to convert the first 75% or so.

Is this normal for the Converter???

Win 7 (64), i7 929 at 3 Gigs or so, 6 Gigs Mem, 3+T HD Storage.

rlnay