Multi-core used?

Andrew B wrote on 7/12/2007, 2:05 PM
I have a quad-core processor and while rendering in Vegas all four cores are up to 100% utilized, I notice that DVDA only uses a total of about 50% of my processing power. Sometimes more, but never over 70%.
Usually, one core is up around 90% while the others are below 30%. Any idea on how to make sure all my processor power is being used, or do I have to wair tfor the 64bit version for them to incorporate multiprocessor support?

Andrew

Comments

ScottW wrote on 7/12/2007, 3:09 PM
Whether or not multi-processing can be utilized depends on the task at hand. Highly CPU intensive tasks can benefit from multi-processing if the task can be broken up into discreet components (encoding to MPEG-2 is a CPU intensive task) or parallel-ized.

Multiplexing audio and video streams together from 2 files into 1 is not usually a CPU intensive task - it's more I/O intensive and is a very serial task.

64 bit doesn't have anything to do with this.

--Scott
Andrew B wrote on 7/13/2007, 9:37 AM
Makes sense Scott.
That's why I am curious as to why DVDA is not taking advantage of my other processors when rendering .avi files to mpeg2.
Vegas is taking advantage of all 4 processors, but not DVDA.

My mention of 64bit version was only that perhaps they had not incorporated support for multi-core into this version of DVDA. I should have said, 'maybe we have to wait for the next release'.

Is anyone else having this issue? Perhaps I managed to turn off this option?

Andrew

ps - yes, I am now rendering all of my files to MPG2 in Vegas, then creating my DVDs. BUT, sometimes, I need to tweek the render settings slightly to fit everything onto one DVD - then I run into this issue again.
bStro wrote on 7/13/2007, 11:02 AM
Use a bitrate calculator to determine the appropriate bitrate. Vegas has more "tweaking" options than DVDA, anyway.

Rob
Andrew B wrote on 7/13/2007, 7:20 PM
Thanks Rob, I will give that a shot.
It is tough as I have about 12+ different media segments on each DVD.
1) Copywrite notice
2) disclaimers (client's)
3) production logos (client's)
4) pre-menu (animated intro tha leads to the top menu)
5) Top menu (animated, approx 2 minutes long before repeating)
6) submenu for scene selection
7) submenu 2 for scene selection
8) extras submenu
9) hidden bonus feature #1
10) Hidden bonus feature #2
11) Main content #1 (~1 hour long)
12) Main content #2 (~1 hour long)
13) Our production logo

WHEW! Everything is in 5.1 so that is taking up a bit more space. The menus are all around 2 minutes each and animated. I like being able to adjust everything right in the 'optimize' area of DVDA. I can bump some of the disclaimers way down since they are just text, while keeping the main content (lots of motion) up as high as possible. I know that Vegas has many more options and control over the rendering, but it is nice to at least be able to see how I can shoe-horn everything onto the disc! ;)

Anyways, thanks for the link to the calculators (and lots of other tools too). I know they will come in handy!

Andrew