TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress
We are now using the fourth version of this MPEG-2 encoder. Compared to the third version, the latest integrates a couple of optimisations for the Core 2 and improves performances by approximately 5%. For this test, we continue to encode a 10 minute 16 second DV file to MPEG-2 format in 720x576 with an average bitrate of 4500 Kbits and in two paths. The video preview display is activated during this test and the DV file is decoded via a Mainconcept codec, which is faster than the decoder in TMPGEnc.
TMPGEnc really benefits from the quad core even if the performance improvement is more comparable to a "tri-core".
VirtualDub & DiVX 6.4
We upgraded VirtualDub from 1.6.11 to the 1.6.16 version. The upgrade mainly concerns the correction of several bugs. We are now also using DiVX 6.4. Performances are also improved since we measured an 8% gain with the A64 X2, 10% with Pentium EE and 14% with Core 2. We encoded the same video as in TMPGEnc in Fast recompress mode, via DiVX 6.1 CODEC, in one path with an average bitrate of 1500 Kbits /s, b-frame and with best quality encoding performances. The video preview display is activated during this test.
With the quality selected, the performance improvement for encoding with DiVX 6.4 was only approximately 20%.
