Why is render so slow?

stevechou wrote on 7/6/2014, 12:07 PM
I have Movie Studio Platinum 13.0 trial installed and am trying to decide whether to buy. I did a test render of 1.5 hrs of video to MP4 using MainConcept AVC/AAC, 1920x1080p, 29.970fps, 12 Mbps; 192 kbps, 48kHz audio. Movie Studio took 3 hrs, 45 min to render this video. I'm also evaluating PowerDirector. PowerDirector took about 45 minutes to render the same video, same settings. The output file from both programs are about the same size (9.91 GB and 10.0 GB). I like Movie Studio usage, but the render time is horrible. Why is it so much worse? btw - I have the setting turned on to use CUDA cores on my GTX 780. I should have plenty of horsepower, so I'm not sure what's wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

System info: MSI z87 MPower Mobo, i7 4770K 3.9 GHz, 16 MB, NVidia GeForce GTX 780, Win 8.1

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 7/6/2014, 1:58 PM
" same settings"

Power Director does not use Main concept, but freeware codec packs, so that's impossible.
But use what you're happiest with.
;?)
stevechou wrote on 7/6/2014, 4:42 PM
Same settings = mp4, 1920x1080p, 29.970fps, 12 Mbps; 192 kbps, 48kHz audio. I'm not choosing the codec that the software uses. So you're saying that Power Director is faster because it uses a freeware codec pack?? Anyone have any useful feedback?
Markk655 wrote on 7/6/2014, 7:32 PM
Steve,

FYI - Musicvid is an accomplished editor and is VERY helpful in this (and the pro forum).

If you like editing with Movie Studio, use it. If rendering speed is a priority, you may want to follow your test results. From my experience, 1920x1080 (3770k cpu/Win 8.1 with GTX650Ti), rendering to mp4 takes from 1-2x depending on the number of FX.

You may also want to look at this. Clearly, they view rendering speed as one of its strengths.
musicvid10 wrote on 7/6/2014, 7:47 PM
"So you're saying that . . ."
Please don't put words in my mouth.
If you're casting me as some kind of Mainconcept fanboy, you've got the rest of these forums rolling in laughter by now.
I could request complete MediaInfo readouts from you, and then go into a lengthy discourse about the multitude of settings that are NOT (nor could they be) the same, that "might" contribute to differing render times without taking either quality or compression efficiency into account. But I'm not going there with you.

Rule #1 of video encoding is, "Speed, quality, compression. Pick two."
My advice stands, and best of luck.
Markk655 wrote on 7/6/2014, 8:31 PM
Musicvid

Outside of editing, people talk about the triangle of time, cost and quality. Interesting parallel....

musicvid10 wrote on 7/7/2014, 8:23 AM
OP probably used two pass vbr in Vegas, and crf in the other encoder. That, and the hardware settings used, could easily account for the differences, all else being equal.

Its best not to promote assumptions based on face values; however, x264 is faster than MC in many situations.
DavidK wrote on 7/7/2014, 11:19 AM
@steve

I see you have the GTX 780 video card. While this is a excellent video card for some NLE software packages, you would do better with an AMD card.

With Movie Studio and Vegas for that matter, only work well with the GTX 400 and GTX 500 series of video cards.

When NVidia came out with the Kepler cards, the GTX 600 and GTX 700 series of video card, they changed the architecture of the video card and now Movie Studio and Vegas will only use a very small percentage of the GPU.

I had been using a GTX 760 card and switched to an AMD 6970 and my rendering time dropped dramatically.

Dave