Blu-ray copy / HD Audio and Intel QuickSync observations

[kc7457]

I have completed a new system build and now have a fully stable Intel 2600k over-clocked to 5.0GHz on the ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe platform. So I have been experimenting with optimal AV codec settings to fully exploit the QuickSync feature available in Intel Z68 Motherboards.

Using a purchased Blu-ray disk of Insidious, I created a full clone .ISO file which resulted in a 26.6 GB file. This ISO file and DVDFab v8.1.2.5 were the basis of all my performance tests....

The AV / Codec settings for Decode were:

H.264 - QuickSync
VC1 - CUDA (I have a mid range Nvidia card (EVGA GTS450)
MPEG2 - QuickSync

The AV / Codec settings for Encoder were:

H.264 - QuickSync

Lightning Recorder was NOT activated / checked.


Using the BluRay "Full Disk" copy to a BD25 target it took a disappointingly long 3 hours and 29 minutes to transcode. This test was with the "HD Audio" set to "Off". As an experiment, I retried the Full Disk copy, but with HD Audio now set to ON. To my great surprise the transcode now only took 46 minutes to complete!

Is this a software bug or are my observations what the developers intended? Naturally I would like to see this performance reversed, since I want to afford more space to the video content and not to audio, but with such a performance delta, I am going to stick with including the HD audio, for now.

I would appreciate other forum members who use QS could confirm this observation.

One final observation..... It seems v8.1.2.5 has improved the QuickSync decoding quality. In previous versions, I observed very poor output quality when ripping a BluRay to a iPod / iPad compatible format. The video would have many artifacts and the playback with stagger. Other members had experienced this and several recommended to use "Software" as the video encode option (which I did). But it seems v8.1.2.5 has improved this tremendously and when using QuickSync for both decode and encode I have seen iPad / iPod rip frame rates as high as 178 frames per second! I too would appreciate any QuickSync forum members who used the encode "software" option to see if v8.1.2.5 has improved their results.

Thanks

Ken

[trife]

I ripped xmen first class to HDD with other software cause fab kept spinning and stopping my drive (making a tick sound) and i've read on here thats not a good idea cause it burns out your drive. just saying that cause it could have an impact on how fab handles the files.

Currently ripping to bd25 apprx 80% of original file size and am getting 8-9MB/s with IQS enabled. Is that about what you're getting? HD audio left on. Default languages and sub's left checked. I think lightening encode is off, im afraid to check settings while rip is half done.

Have you tried any video conversions with H264 like m4/avi? I dont have a discrete video card and its given me issues in the past, but i just reformatted and am giving it a try again.

I will update on different settings later in thread.

H.264 - QuickSync
VC1 - Software
MPEG2 - Software

The AV / Codec settings for Encoder were:

H.264 - QuickSync

[trife]

k confirmed. 4 hours with IQS when taking out HD audio. 1.8MB/s taking BD50 to BD5 1080

Also 1.8MB/s just ticked down to 1.7. taking an extra 15 minutes. may continue to do this for the next 4 hours i'll try to remember to report back in thread if it fails, or takes more time.

[kc7457]

k confirmed. 4 hours with IQS when taking out HD audio. 1.8MB/s taking BD50 to BD5 1080

Also 1.8MB/s just ticked down to 1.7. taking an extra 15 minutes. may continue to do this for the next 4 hours i'll try to remember to report back in thread if it fails, or takes more time.

I appreciate your research and replies.....

So now the question (to the DVDFab developers) is:

Is the dramatic decoding slowdown we observed when using QucikSync and excluding HD audio by design or is this a software bug?

As I mentioned earlier, it seems logical to me that if one excludes the HD audio it should decode faster, but clearly this is not what we are seeing on our systems.

Finally, I choose to use overall time it takes to complete a process, rather than the MB/s of thruput. This is mainly due to my observation that MB/s thruput can vary per file that is being transcoded. In any case both you and I are seeing dramatic differences it transcoding times, depending upon the inclusion (or not) of HD Audio.

Ken

[Gerberot]

One final observation..... It seems v8.1.2.5 has improved the QuickSync decoding quality. In previous versions, I observed very poor output quality when ripping a BluRay to a iPod / iPad compatible format. The video would have many artifacts and the playback with stagger. Other members had experienced this and several recommended to use "Software" as the video encode option (which I did). But it seems v8.1.2.5 has improved this tremendously and when using QuickSync for both decode and encode I have seen iPad / iPod rip frame rates as high as 178 frames per second! I too would appreciate any QuickSync forum members who used the encode "software" option to see if v8.1.2.5 has improved their results.

Thanks

Ken

Quality is very very bad. I have to use my Ati to get videos without artifacts.