My Handbrake Performance Notes

Vanity | 02/28/2023 | Self

[CptnObvious]

Handbrake has been the best hobby for this old geezer for many many years. At over 2200 videos and 1.5 Terra Bytes of data and growing, the hobby continues to amaze me.

First of all, it's been cheap. You would think I would have used top of the line gaming computers - not at all. Our of 4 computers I use, 2 are used at $200 for one and a bit over $300 for the second. My third was a old used HP G4 deskpro for $400 and wait for it, the fourth I bought new, for $700 - my pride and joy - my Beelink AMD GTR5 mini.

And you would think I would have maxed out main memory in all of these and overclocked it. Tried that on one - no help. And storage, the Beelink and HP came with NVMe storage. You would think that would speed things up a bit - again, very little help.

So, if more faster memory and storage didn't help (much) what did? CORES. The number of cores makes a big difference. The GTR5 has 8 cores (16 logical), The HP 6/12. The Acer laptop 4/8 and my Dell laptop 2/4.

And when I'm on a big project like today, I use all of the computers at the same time with Windows 11 shared folders. Yeah, folders for the raw data (from MakeMKV in this case) to a shared output folder.

My project for the day is to process Downton HD Blu-rays into best compressed high quality videos. Oh and the Bluray drives (4k capable) were cheap too (another story).

Now, if I was doing 4k, I wouldn't be doing it over Wi-Fi, but I'm not. And knowing that Handbrakes multiple handlers does not help (even though the input is SSD), I'm doing one HD episode at a time on each system.

Downton is 8 Blu Rays, about 48 episodes. So, dividing by 40 (16+12+8+4) logical cores, that's a 1.2 load over each logical core. So, the load ratio so the AMD will get 48% or 23 (used 24 episodes) and so forth to spread out the workload.

I Throttlestop the Laptops as laptops power and termally limit badly. On the AMD and HP systems, I have the Preformance Boost (Overclocking) OFF as I can't Throttlestop them. Why, you might ask, well these are all gaming computers, and they don't do well with these long term loads. Another reason, I didn't go with expensive systems.

At the time of this writing, all systems logical cores are at 98-99% utilization. The frame rate on the AMD system averages around 48FPS and the others are lower as expected.

I go back to bed while my 4 friends do the work.

And I wonder, will there come a day when I will be processing 4k Episodes? Golly, will I need a 48 core like systemx to do it? Will Handbrake spread the load over that many cores?

Well, those are questions for another day.

Happy Handbraking.

PS: And if your wondering how I handle subtitles, my answer to that is EMBY (free).

CO

[ShadowAce]

I was wondering how many replies it would take to go that direction....

LOL!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“Everything is already digital and online.”

It depends on what you enjoy watching. About 75% of the movies and tv shows I want to watch are not online. Many WERE are online, but are no longer available. I refuse to watch anything with ads, too. You can find some movies and shows online, but only at sources that inset ads.

Just recently, I had to get a copy of John Jakes’ “North and South” and use Handbrake to put it on my home media server. I’ve got about 600 movies on my server.

[CptnObvious]

Yeah, the way the censoring is going, they won't be around much longer.

I've got Grizzly Adams, but unfortunately they never did subtitles. Then I found Subtitle editor NKSE (free app) that has voice recognition. It's not perfect and has trouble with childrens voices etc. But it gives me placeholders for a start. I've got subtitles on all the episodes now and am working on it.

[wbarmy]

1980 Mustang. I had the straight 6 inline (3.7L) and what a monster that car was. My wife and I did our honeymoon driving route 66 to California, then State Route 1 to San Francisco.

What a drive, what memories, in a a 1980 Mustang.

[Gil4]

for later

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Yeah...still my favorite car. And I've had many. It was the 4 cylinder Turbo model with the Michelin TRX radials with the tri-spoke aluminum rims. I miss mine too.

My brother sold it to me. I wanted the 5.0 liter but he refused. He said I'd kill myself with it. He was probably right.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Robinson’s Theorem: There’s a 20% chance that an FR Post will turn to a car discussion by Post #20.

(guilty as charged)

[nagant]

I find that screen capturing on one computer is too taxing. It results in freezes and jumps. It’s much better to play on one machine, through a capture device, to another machine. OBS is the cat’s meow. Then process with AVIdemux and Auto Gordian Knot. All are public domain.

The biggest benefit of this method is that it doesn’t use programs which try to do too many tasks. Because of hardware limitations they do individual tasks poorly. Other benefits are:

1. DVD’s are prone to errors. losing videos is common.

2. AVIdemux keeps your “keep” video on-screen instead of DVD Shrink’s method of re-editing for each segment, then combining segments.

3. AVIdemux gives you larger editing screens.

4. Auto GK accepts either VOB files or AVI files. It lets you choose the output video size, then tweaks parameters automatically to arrive at the chosen size.

OBS has a learning curve, but mastering it is worth the effort. I set up a screen resolution spreadsheet to convert aspect ratios from input to output resolutions. Then the conversion profiles can be stored for fast retrieval.

[corkoman]

I am using Handbreak to process MKV files down to MP4 files = usually reduces the movie down from a 50 gig file to 9 gigs. Unfortunately there doesnt seem to be a way to preserve the subtitle function - the MP4 has the subtitle option but the controls do not work. I really need those subtitle options.

ANyone know how to configure for this?

[CodeToad]

What do you use to rip blueray?

[Clutch Martin]

“I was just thinking that just a few short decades ago that entire post would not make any sense”

I used to be a technical guy... now I can barely figure out how to play the banjo in the morning.

And when the weather warms up I’ll be fishing.

A friend suggested I get into ham radio so okay, I’m reading the technician book. And if I get my license I will probably just do QRP with Morse code... I don’t feel chatty. I learned and used Morse code years ago and it’s never really left me I think at one point I was copying 35 wpm, now I struggle at around 12 to 16 but I only need 5 wpm to certify...

[Bikkuri]

BKMK

[nagant]

I have 12 Readers and you can figure that I eat box sets for breakfast :)
~~~~~

Pay cash.

[AFreeBird]

L8r

[Paal Gulli]

AMDs scream. A friend gave me an HP All-In-One with an AMD slug and it boots Win10 from stone-cold in 40 seconds. And that’s using an HDD. That PC isn’t in a mission-critical role or I’d drop an SSD in it just to see what it does to boot times.

In fact it was AMDs who brought the multi-core thing to PCs. Some of the UNIX manufacturers had been doing multi-cores before that but IIRC AMD went to it because it offered a solution to the overheating problems that came from just endlessly cranking up the clock cycles.

Earlier this month I bought a refurbed Dell Optiplex 5040 off a noted online retailer (box probably came back from corporate or institutional lease) with a quad-core Intel i5 CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB SSD ... for $140. Shipped free. I added another 1TB SSD, loaded Linux Mint (Cinnamon) on it, put a swap slice on both SSDs with the same priority (which effectively makes them striped/Raid0) and it is faster than stink. Astonishing performance for a $200 investment.

SSDs raise the performance of virtual memory to a whole ‘nother level, especially when you stripe multiple devices. I’ve got a couple of boxes I put a small SSD in just so I could have virtual memory on a solid stated drive separate from the drive the OS was on. It’s a YUGE boost to a box that only can support 4GB of RAM. More’s the pity SSDs (and the interface to support all that speed) didn’t come along when PCs all were still 32-bit.

[CptnObvious]

Optiplex 5040 can be upgraded to 16GB MAIN MEMORY AND TO AN nvme ssd ON IT'S m.2 SLOT.

Set Visual to Performance under Advanced System Settings and it will scream.

[CptnObvious]

I am using Handbreak to process MKV files down to MP4 files = usually reduces the movie down from a 50 gig file to 9 gigs. Unfortunately there doesnt seem to be a way to preserve the subtitle function - the MP4 has the subtitle option but the controls do not work. I really need those subtitle options. ANyone know how to configure for this?

That is why I mentioned the EMBY video server (free). It can take almost any subtitle format included with the DVDs or Blu-Rays.

Load up a DVD with Handbrake and clear the Foriegn Scan stuff from under the Subtitle tab. Press Add Track and see what is available. Set no options and encode it (MP4 for DVD) MKV for Blu-Rays and you should be able to turn on and off subtitles (default then is OFF) with an EMBY Client which is A URL on A Windows PC.

Before I discovered EMBY I was burning the SubTitles into the Video on all of my box sets since subtitles where such a pain in the A*SS. AFter EMBY, then are a snap.

[CptnObvious]

I am using Handbreak to process MKV files down to MP4 files = usually reduces the movie down from a 50 gig file to 9 gigs. Unfortunately there doesnt seem to be a way to preserve the subtitle function - the MP4 has the subtitle option but the controls do not work. I really need those subtitle options. ANyone know how to configure for this?

Also, I've had DVDs that does not come with subtitles. You might find one on opensubtitles.org.

My Box set of Grizzly Adams had no subtitles and opensubtitles.org had only one episode covered. So, I used Subtitle Editor NKSE (Free) and it's Voice Recognition to subtitles function. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

But I'd rather you use EMBY since you can also get subtitles for other languages on the fly!

[minnesota_bound]

#35 Thanks for the suggestion. I just ordered the following for my sister who has a XP computer that has been giving her many errors.

HP Z240 Small Form Factor Workstation, Intel Quad Core i5-6500 up to 3.6GHz, 16G DDR4, 512G SSD, WiFi, BT 4.0, DVD, Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
Also has TPM for Windows 11 (Renewed) $123.99
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085LMQQLC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With my Visa Gift Card discount at Amazon:
Order total: $17.24

$17+ bucks!!
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04892038

[corkoman]

thank you very much!!