Encoding taking quite long

Hello all, hoping you can let me know if this is normal or not. First, specs:

2.83 quad core, 8GB RAM, Windows Vista, CS4, footage is AVCHD.

Shot a film and am trying to export. I made two timelines in the same project, as one was the first cut, and the second one is the second cut. I'm trying to export the second cut; it has a runtime of 1h43min. I go to export, just as I would any other clip. In this case, I'm trying to export to MPEG2-DVD as I want to work with it in Encore to produce a DVD. Anyway, I send it over to Encoder, and there it sits. The last time I did this (with the first cut), it took nearly 18 hours to complete. I'm now 6 hours into the export, and the Encoder has the (Not Reponding) tag at the top. Though my first inclination is to close and try again, I remember when exporting the first cut, it'd do that before loading and encoding. So, I guess my question is this: Is it normal for Encoder to take over 6 hours to load a timeline, and another 12 to encode (for a 2 hour film), or is something going terribly wrong?

Encoding taking quite long

It seems a bit long, but then your CPU is not up to editing AVCHD. This may be further hindered by other system limitations, like disk setup. In all, around 18 hours makes sense with the hardware and source material and the length of your timeline. The penalty of using AVCHD.

You may be better off with a different camera, that uses a better format for editing, or a more powerful PC.

Encoding taking quite long

I suppose a faster quad core is in order? Dual core processors can barely handly scrubbing through the video. I also thought that the additional RAM upgrade may help (was at 4, went up to 8), but still, 18 hours just seems insanely long. I suppose if I were shooting HDV on some tape-based camera, the export time would be significantly smaller? Simply because AVCHD doesn't like to play?

I suppose a faster quad core is in order?

I guess it helps to transcode to something else. Course I guess that defeats the purpose of getting an AVCHD camera. Thanks for letting me know that this 18 hour time is normal. I just wish it weren't so, as it's a costly mistake if an error is found.?Thnaks again.

I think 6 hours to start encoding is unreasonable.?I suspect the AME is genuinely hung.

I have a dual quad-core system.?Encoding 1080p30 AVCHD down to MPEG2 DVD, *without* setting Maximum Render Quality, takes 2.5 to 3 times real time with only straight cuts.?During that time, all 8 cores are pegged at 100%.?So a 1.75 hour timeline would take me about 5 hours to export.?On a quad-core system, I would expect about 10 hours encoding time for straight cuts, longer if effects are added.

If you use MRQ, which you should if you want any kind of decent quality for the final DVD, then you can expect encoding times to increase 3 to 4 times that much.?So worst case with MRQ, you're probably looking at 2 days to encode your project.

You need to make sure your system is rock-solid stable, with ample cooling, if your CPU will have all 4 cores chugging away at 100% for that long.

-Jeff

My export settings:

Quality equals Max

Target BR is CBR=4

My system is very stable, with 4 fans. I'm not worried about an overheat situation. I'm just surprised that it'd take so long, even to just load. When I was working with a smaller timeline, obviously, it exported much faster. Perhaps I should consider transcoding to a different format before editing AVCHD? Of course, there's going to be a quality loss if I choose to do that. At this point though, for this project, looks like I'm stuck with the 18-48 hour encoding time. Hope I didn't make a mistake

Maximum Render Quality isn't controlled by the Quality slider in the

settings dialog.

Here's a link to my tutorial on converting HD to SD using MRQ. It'll

take you about 20 minutes to watch.

http://bellunevideo.com/tutorials/CS4_HD2SD/CS4_HD2SD.html

-Jeff

Dang. Well, there went 8 hours

But that's okay. Best to have things perfect and take the time. My camera is the CanonHF100, and though it claims a 24P scan, it really is a 1080i60 via on-camera pulldown. So, I'll head home, start the process again, and hopefully things will turn out much better. Most likely won't see any change in time, but at least I'll have the right settings.