Benchmarking of MBP

Iritscen

Iritscen

Mr. Grumpikins
I really would like a good answer to this because I am extremely puzzled. I recently used a MBP at a friend's house (which speed, I don't recall). I asked if I could run a video encoding test to compare its speed to my home computer.

I took out a DVD of mine, and used Handbrake (which must be Universal) to rip a chapter. No matter what exact settings were used as far as encoder, codec, etc., encoding at 100% quality often got about 48fps. In other words, over 1.5x playing speed.

This is simply astounding. The same program, running on my Mac, a PowerMac G5 1.6GHz, gets about 8fps encoding rate. This is the same rate I get in the program I usually use for converting DVD video to QT format, MacMPEG2Decoder. Actually, that's using the MPEG-4 or H.264 or Sorenson 3 codec. My preferred codec, Sorenson (the OG), gets about 1.25fps, which is slow enough to make the smallest rip (a 30-second ad, for example) into a fairly big ordeal.

NOW, here is where the confusion comes in. Looking at some benchmarks, such as the ones on OWC's site (http://eshop.macsales.com/benchmark...iids=17,71&iids=8113&tids=100,107,109,127,128, the slowest G5, mine, outperforms the MacBook pretty consistently.

I feel as if I visited a Bizarro universe in which MBPs are insanely fast, only to return to this plane and find that they're not that fast at all.

I realize that laptops aren't meant to perform on par with desktops; but it doesn't change the fact that several different rips attained up to 50fps encoding rate on the MBP I used. Nothing can change that number, and the fact that my G5 is absolutely glacial in comparison.

Explain. Please. My brain hurts.
 
Hey guys who own MacBook Pros, all you have to do is rip some video from a DVD (preferably with the *free* program Handbrake) and tell me what encoding rate you get.

And if fellow G5 owners can do the same and post some rates, we'll have a decent basis for comparison aside from just my own machine.

Just make sure you name the program you used to do the ripping.

I am really suprised no one has responded yet.
 
Iritscen said:
I am really suprised no one has responded yet.
Click to expand...
Considering that Memorial Day weekend just ended, and a significant portion of the users here are American, did you really expect them to drop their plans to go out-of-town and sit around ripping DVDs for you? Sheesh, man, have some patience, especially over a holiday weekend.

What brand and model of drives are in your two machines? Does the frame rate significantly change if you rip the contents of the DVD to your hard drive first (using something like MacTheRipper), then encode with Handbrake?
 
Forget the holiday, man, people need to start ripping stuff now! Now! NOW!

:)

Just to clarify, I only own the G5. Someone else owns the MacBook Pro I was using. As for what drives each uses, Everymac.com tells me that my G5 uses a 4X/8X/16X/10X/32X SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW), and the MBP uses either a 4X single-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive or an 8X dual-layer DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive, depending on the model.

But I don't think the drives make much difference, it's the CPU that's the bottleneck here. And actually, when I rip content, I extract the clip I want to my HD and *then* convert it using MacMPEG2Decoder. So, if anything, the MBP makes my computer even more pathetic by encoding at least 6x faster *while* ripping directly from the DVD.

Or, I was hallucinating. That's why I'm so curious (and yes, a little impatient) to see what others have to say. I might be totally crazy, or missing some crucial difference. Perhaps it's my G5 that's so slow, rather than the MBP being fast. I have no other frames of reference aside from a brief time using that one MacIntel laptop :/
 
My rip times when I first got my D1.8 G5 were slow. I then (overtime) upgraded my RAM and my Superdrive (all included in my signature) and now I get insane ripping speeds. Ripping is not just processor intensive, there are several factors in the ripping speed.
 
That being said, aren't there some people out there with both a G5 and a MacBook Pro? I've only heard one set of numbers so far, for the G5. Where are the MBP owners?!

If they could run Handbrake on both and post the results, it would be very interesting. Drive speed alone can't explain it, nor can RAM, since I have 1.5 GB of it and the MacBook had about the same.
 
I checked out Bare Feats, top to bottom. Although there aren't any comparisons to my Single 1.6GHz G5, the MBP Dual/2.0GHz seems to be equivalent in speed (generally) to a Dual PowerMac G5 2.0GHz. That's impressive, but it doesn't explain the huge difference I saw.

Is there no one who owns a MBP who wants to download Handbrake (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21117) and post the average encoding rate?
 
Well... Hm. I'm ripping a DVD right now in handbrake. What resolution did you choose? What filesize was generated? Which codecs used etc.? I don't know how I should compare my current rip with yours, since I know nothing about yours...

I'm currently ripping a 1:51h movie to MPEG4/AAC using XviD instead of ffmpeg @ 720*400 pixel resolution. I said the final file size should be around 1100 MB. Average is 28 fps currently, but it has just started, so I couldn't say what it'll be like at the end. I saw 38 fps for a minute or two, but I guess some portions are slower than others.
 
Hey, thanks man.

I chose full size (the DVD was 640x480), and 100% quality. I could only choose MPEG-4 and H.264, as I recall, but their performance was pretty close. There's two different encoders, too, not just codecs, but again they were pretty similar, say 36-50fps. Anything in that range is pretty amazing compared to my G5's 8fps, and will go a long way towards convincing me to buy a MBP because I do so much video work (as a hobbyist).

Btw, the average should pretty much stay the same after the first few seconds. A one-minute video clip would be easily enough to get a reliable reading.
 
I'm using a MacBook dual 2 gig with HandBrake and getting an average fps of 52 but seeing fps as high as 70. I haven't copied the dvd to the hardrive so its just ripping straight from the dvd. Hope this helps.
 
Yeah, thanks. There's some benchmarking, like http://www.creativemac.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=38816 (see 2nd page in particular for encoding), out there that shows the MBP's power, but not a lot of attention seems to be given to it.

I have only recently been able to confirm through individual users like yourself that the MacBooks can seriously crunch video. They are looking really attractive right now as my next primary computer (obviously the desktop Mac Pros will be even faster, but still... power and portability in one package!).
 
Well I've had a macbook now for a few weeks and I can definately recomend it. OK it runs a little hot on the lap and there is a mooing sound (hopefully will get sorted in a firmware update) but its a great computer and is only gunna get better as software is made universal.
 
Yes, the MacBook Pro I used made odd sounds, but only when it loaded Windows (can you blame it?).

And I think they're resolving the heat dissipation problems the early batches had.
 
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