Mezzmo - 100% CPU transcoding even on Quad Core CPU

[li21]

Hi all

Today I went and got a Athlon X4 640 3.0ghz CPU just for the purpose of Mezzmo transcoding..

I've had nothing but issues with stopping and stuttering and 100% CPU maxxed out on my Dual Core Athlon.
So I thought this replacement would fix it..

But still I'm maxing out 100% and the transcoding status says "too slow @ xxFPS"

transcoding settings: WD TV Live Profile, Normal CPU Priority, Quality on my device is 4 notches from the left (lower quality)

Anyone know why this is ?
Seems to happen with ALL videos that are HD / Bluray rips.
They will play fine for a while but sooner or later the video will catch up with the transcoding progress.

I also just reformatted and Freshly installed WIndows to make sure it wasn't windows screwing with it.. but its not.

I would have though a Quad core CPU would have been more than adequate?

Anyone else having these issues?

[Paul]

Some Blu-ray rips can have very high bitrates and if Mezzmo (using ffmpeg.exe) needs to do a full transcode, then it will require a lot of CPU and RAM.

Please contact us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com and we may have a patch that can help reduce the requirement for a full transcode (and do a quicker remux instead). In your email to us, please include a set of logs when you try to stream your Blu-ray rip. This will help us pinpoint any bottlenecks in your setup. Turn transcoding on (see http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread...nostic-logging) and restart your Mezzmo server. Connect to Mezzmo server using your WD TV Live and play the Blu-ray rip. After it starts to stutter, stop your Mezzmo server and exit Mezzmo. Zip up all the logs & send them to us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com.

[stewart]

Some Blu-ray rips can have very high bitrates and if Mezzmo (using ffmpeg.exe) needs to do a full transcode, then it will require a lot of CPU and RAM.

Please contact us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com and we may have a patch that can help reduce the requirement for a full transcode (and do a quicker remux instead). In your email to us, please include a set of logs when you try to stream your Blu-ray rip. This will help us pinpoint any bottlenecks in your setup. Turn transcoding on (see http://forum.conceiva.com/showthread...nostic-logging) and restart your Mezzmo server. Connect to Mezzmo server using your WD TV Live and play the Blu-ray rip. After it starts to stutter, stop your Mezzmo server and exit Mezzmo. Zip up all the logs & send them to us at support [at] conceiva [dot] com.

im thinking of updating my server to 2x cpu's as below would 2x of these be good for transcodeing 1080 on the fly ?

Description
Intel Xeon processors represent a broad product line to meet a range of demanding performance and energy efficiency requirements for compute-intensive embedded, storage, and communications applications.

Product Identifiers
Brand Intel
Processor Model Xeon X5482
MPN EU80574KL088N
UPC 0735858201568

Key Features
Clock Speed 3.2 GHz
CPU Socket Type Socket 771
Multi-Core Technology Quad-Core
TDP 150 W
Processor Quantity 1
Product Type Processor

Cache Memory
Installed Size 12 MB

Expansion / Connectivity
Compatible Slots 1 x processor - LGA771 Socket

Other Features
Bus Speed FSB Speed - 600 MHz
Manufacturing Process 45 nm
64-bit Computing Yes
Architecture Features Enhanced SpeedStep technology, Demand Based Switching, Execute Disable Bit capability, Intel Virtualization Technology, Intel 64 Technology, Intel I/O Acceleration Technology, Enhanced Halt State (C1E), Intel Thermal Monitor 2
Platform Compatibility PC

[Paul]

I'm no CPU expert, but it looks fine to me. I'll let others chip in with more knowledge of CPU models. As mentioned many times on this forum, the general rule is that the more CPU performance & RAM, then the better transcoding performance you will get.

One thing to consider is getting an Intel CPU with Intel Quick Sync support. The upcoming Mezzmo v5.0 supports Intel Quick Sync hardware encoding & this can give you faster transcoding times when transcoding video. We're just testing this now in our Mezzmo v5.0 Beta testing.

[smitbret]

Hi all

Today I went and got a Athlon X4 640 3.0ghz CPU just for the purpose of Mezzmo transcoding..

I've had nothing but issues with stopping and stuttering and 100% CPU maxxed out on my Dual Core Athlon.
So I thought this replacement would fix it..

But still I'm maxing out 100% and the transcoding status says "too slow @ xxFPS"

transcoding settings: WD TV Live Profile, Normal CPU Priority, Quality on my device is 4 notches from the left (lower quality)

Anyone know why this is ?
Seems to happen with ALL videos that are HD / Bluray rips.
They will play fine for a while but sooner or later the video will catch up with the transcoding progress.

I also just reformatted and Freshly installed WIndows to make sure it wasn't windows screwing with it.. but its not.

I would have though a Quad core CPU would have been more than adequate?

Anyone else having these issues?

I don't think what you are experiencing is abnormal. I have an AMD Phenom IIx4 955 that is overclocked to 3.8Ghz and transcoding a raw BR rip to 1080p still challenges that. Most of my streaming is to a WD Live so I'm able to disable transcoding competely, but I do have a couple of other devices that need OTF Transcoding.

I just played with my system after reading your post and I would think your results are consistent. I have a couple of DirecTV HDDVRs that require me to transcode everything to MPEG-2 so I ran a quick test with my BR rip of Aliens. I was unable to transcode with my CPU when it was set to 1080p, regardless of quality. I did notice in the task manager that FFMpeg's CPU usage never got above 70% even with priority set to "very high". The fps ran between 13fps and 28fps which is not going to be adequate.

I switched to 1080i mode (which, incidentally, should probably be named 720p since the resolution is 1280x720) and I was able to run it at the highest quality setting between 36-52fps. Plenty of headroom for OTF transcoding.

If I were a betting man, I would guess that the only CPUs you're going to get to run 1080p at a decent quality setting for BR rips will be an overclocked i5 or i7. I have my doubts that a 6-core would even be consistently up to the task for anything more than the absolute lowest 1080p settings.

[Paul]

Excellent information, smitbret. Thanks for testing this & posting the results.

[paulyz]

I want to renew old my PC system to transcod 1080p files on-fly. My tv panasonic tx-p46g20e. Is cpu Intel Core i5-3450, 3.10GHz, 6MB, LGA1155, 22nm, 77W, enough for transcoding?

[Paul]

I want to renew old my PC system to transcod 1080p files on-fly. My tv panasonic tx-p46g20e. Is cpu Intel Core i5-3450, 3.10GHz, 6MB, LGA1155, 22nm, 77W, enough for transcoding?

It appears that the i5-3450 CPU is quad core - which is our minimum recommended for transcoding HD 1080p video. I would probably recommend more cores (e.g. i7) if you can afford it.

[paulyz]

It appears that the i5-3450 CPU is quad core - which is our minimum recommended for transcoding HD 1080p video. I would probably recommend more cores (e.g. i7) if you can afford it.

I did test with q6600 (quad core 2,4 Gghz), for 1080i looks ok (cpu always 90-100% usage) but for 1080p this cpu is to weak

I7 - whats mean + 120-150 eur or + 400 eur for hexa core cpu

Yes, I can think about AMD FX-8150 8 cores cpu ( it's cost like I5), but I don't know, amd at this time looks unreliable for me