Video Encoding Speed in MacBook Pro

J

jcan

Registered
Hello all,

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, I have only recently switched to a 15'' 2.53 GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro, after many years of living in the Windows world.

I am really excited with the switch, as the Mac is way ahead than my previous PCs in terms of stability, functionality, and performance... I now understand the meaning of "once Mac, never back"! :)

However, there is one thing that I was doing speedier in my Core 2 Quad PC, namely writing video DVDs. Of course the comparison is totally unfair for the Mac, as we are talking about two machines with different CPUs, and thus different processing power... And yet, the fact remains that it takes 2.5 hrs. to encode and burn a movie with Toast Titanium, while my PC accomplished the task in nearly a third of that time.

And so, the question is: What can I do to upgrade the video encoding speed of my Mac? More memory? A different graphics card? Or everything is pointless, and I should just wait for an i7 laptop by Apple to come out?
 
Make sure you have your high-end graphics enabled if applicable. I'm not sure if you'll have the option on your computer, but you can find our by going to System Preferences -> Energy Saver and check "Higher Performance" for graphics. The graphics card is soldered to the motherboard, so your best option for increasing speed would probably be RAM (depending on how much you have). A faster hard drive could also help. Obviously, a faster graphics card and processor would be the best option, but you would need to buy a new computer.
 
The 2.53 GHz MacBook Pro doesn't have the dual vid, no dedicated video RAM, but the video memory is shared with the main memory. The 'Higher Performance' option will not exist in the Energy Saver prefs.
 
DeltaMac said:
The 2.53 GHz MacBook Pro doesn't have the dual vid, no dedicated video RAM, but the video memory is shared with the main memory. The 'Higher Performance' option will not exist in the Energy Saver prefs.
Click to expand...

Sadly, this is true... My MacBook does not have the "Higher Performance" option. So, it seems I'll have to wait for a new generation of MacBooks to come out, as upgrading to another Core Duo MBP which simply has a faster clock speed and graphics card does not seem a meaningless option...

Let us hope that Apple will offer an i5 or i7 MacBook in the near future, as this will be worth the extra money...! :)

Thanks for your responses anyway, guys.
 
I put 14Gig RAM in my Mac Pro (or a six month time) and it now screams burning DVDs. So add as much RAM as possible to increase burning speed.
 
I finally put extra 4GB RAM myself too, and the speed indeed improved.

I am also planning to buy Elgato turbo.264 HD, which I heard also helps with video encoding.
 
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