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Hardware for Procoder station?
I’m looking to build a rack-mounted PC to use as a dedicated encoder running Procoder. It would basically monitor a watch folder for DV files kicked out of an NLE and then transcode them to MPEG2 program files and RealMedia files. This will be an automated and unattended process but I’d still like for it to go as quickly as possible to avoid any bottlenecks. Should I simply be looking for the fastest Dual Xeon system money can buy? Should I load it up with RAM? Is there a point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in? Is there a PCI card that would offer better performance on a more modest system? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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3 Replies
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The best compressor power per watt these days is dual-core Athlon machines. ProCoder does very well with multiple processors – dual dual-core AMD would be the fastest, although not cheap.
For RAM, I’d want 1 GB for SD (which you’re doing) and 2 GB for HD.
No PCI acceleration boards for ProCoder.
My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html -
Thanks! I think we’ll probably be looking at a dual 875 setup, although those Tyan quad motherboards are pretty tempting. I’ll have to look around for some AMD hardware discussion boards to see if I can get any ideas. Sadly, it doesn’t look like the AMD COW has been visited in months.
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Oops. That would be a dual 250 (2.4Ghz) setup. Quad 875s would be nice but I doubt I can spend that kind of money. Even so, I expect we’ll be seeing a significant improvement over the single 2.4Ghz P4 box that we’re currently running.
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