When transcoding, 10% CPU usage

[Shawn Whiting]

Looks like write caching is on for the drive im pulling the footage off of and also writing it to"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...tesettings.jpg


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Running Prime95 did put my processor at 100% for as long as i was running prime95.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...HDDprime96.jpg

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Could the problem be that the drive im running Vista and Cineform on is too slow? (it also has write caching on)

Ive got two of these drives:

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

in raid 0, split into 3 partitions. one for gaming, one for editing, and a media cache for render files.

[John Quandt]

Tell me your operating system is not installed on the same two-drive RAID. If so, that's your problem. Windows will take priority over your video file access.

You'll get better performance with one drive running the OS and programs with your video files on the other drive. Also, partitioning slows down drive performance.

[Shawn Whiting]

I have 4 hard drives in my computer:


2 640gb Western Digitals in Raid 0, split into 3 partitions:

Vista ultimate 64bit gaming partition

Vista ultimate 64bit editing partition

Render file cache partition


2 1TB Western Digitals, both holding all the video files that cineform is reading and writing.

[John Quandt]

I'd switch my render file settings to use the 2-1TB RAID. Even though your current rendering is written to a separate partition on your boot drive, Windows still has and takes control of that hard drive pair, limiting access to your rendering area.

You can read up on how to configure your storage at http://www.videoguys.com/Guide/E/Vid...03a6c38df.aspx

[Shawn Whiting]

So is everyone stumped as to why im only using 10% CPU when transcoding using HDlink? because I am

[David Newman]

Have you try converting to a different volume (like setting the target as your system drive.)

[Shawn Whiting]

"Have you try converting to a different volume (like setting the target as your system drive.)"


This works! When i convert to any other volume besides the one the footage is on it uses around 80 - 90% of the processor. I guess it just cant read the AVCHD files from the drive and write them back onto the same drive as the converted cineform with full processor power?

Do the 1TB drives i got look like they would have problems converting footage on them and also saving the CFHD back to that same drive? I think i gave a link to what type of drive they are on the first page of this thread. Thanks David!

Guess Ill just have to save the converted files onto a separate drive then move them back onto the drive where im storing all the files for this project.

- Shawn

[Dan Herrmann]

Originally Posted by Shawn Whiting

So is everyone stumped as to why im only using 10% CPU when transcoding using HDlink? because I am

I have been reading about issues with computing power and the i7-920.

it looks like a chinese version is on the street with many users not knowing they are operating with a cheap chip
Newegg said Monday that it is conducting an investigation of recent shipments of "questionable" Intel Core i7-920 processors from Newegg. The news was first reported by [H]ard|OCP.

[Brant Gajda]

^^

Those were not even real chips and would not even function. It has nothing to do with the OPs problem.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Shawn Whiting

"Have you try converting to a different volume (like setting the target as your system drive.)"


This works! When i convert to any other volume besides the one the footage is on it uses around 80 - 90% of the processor. I guess it just cant read the AVCHD files from the drive and write them back onto the same drive as the converted cineform with full processor power?

Do the 1TB drives i got look like they would have problems converting footage on them and also saving the CFHD back to that same drive? I think i gave a link to what type of drive they are on the first page of this thread. Thanks David!

Guess Ill just have to save the converted files onto a separate drive then move them back onto the drive where im storing all the files for this project.

- Shawn

It is an ATA limitation (remember, Serial ATA, or SATA, is still not a full-duplex connection - but is rather only a half-duplex interface). The interface can only allow data to be transferred in one direction at a time. And if data tries to access the bus in both directions simultaneously, everything that's associated with SATA bus transfers will slow down - and the CPU utilization will be lowered to match the limitations of the bus itself.

In other words, if you try to both read and write to the same SATA drive at the same time, you might as well save the money and use just a single large-capacity internal physical drive for everything (operating system, programs and media).