Why is Cleaner so slow to encode MPEG-2?

[thendis]

Hello everyone!

I encode a lot of video to MPEG-2, and up until now I have been using Quicktime Pro to do so. I have found it consistently takes around 2 hours to complete encoding a 40 minute video to MPEG-2.

So I recently got Cleaner 6, thinking this would be a more efficient way because you can queue multiple files rather than Quicktime's one-at-a-time setup. Cleaner rocks, but encoding takes 8-9 HOURS to encode a 40min video with the same quality settings as Quicktime!!

How can this be? Is there something I can do?

Using: Cleaner 6 on iMac G5 1.8 Ghz, OSX 10.3.9, 1.5GB RAM.

[sirstaunch]

Maybe the queing could have something to do with it¿

[Mikuro]

My experience with Cleaner is that it is optimized for quality, not speed. There are a million different ways to encode an MPEG2 with the "same settings". Every encoder needs to make choices, and some are optimized for quality, some are optimized for speed. Most try to strike a happy medium. I've never done much MPEG2 encoding with Cleaner, but I've done a lot of MPEG1 encoding. It's always been the slowest, but it's always looked the best, too. This isn't just my opinion — I've heard the same sentiments from many different places.

Another likely factor is that Apple's software is better optimized for their G5 hardware.

Bottom line: I don't think there's much you can do to boost Cleaner's speed.

[thendis]

lol sirstaunch, I'm a stupid man, no doubt, but I'm not that stupid! That's a George Bush level of stupidity, I'm at more of a George Costanza level

Sounds fair enough Mikuro. It's a little annoying, but not a huge deal; the fact that I can queue things makes up for the speed factor. Quality is better than Quicktime, I must admit. Thanks for clearing that up.