Comparing H264 encoding in EDIUS to other programs

Comparing encoding times for H264

Using Intel Quicksync EDIUS 6 can encode an hour of video into the right format for Blu-ray in under 30 minutes.  How well does this compare to other programs that are available?

We have quite a bit of information below and will try to make it as clear as possible.  It can be boiled down very simply into EDIUS is a lot faster than everything else!  Also bear in mind these tests are done with the latest Intel processors and even though a 3.4Ghz Sandybridge i7 processor may not sound faster than 3.4Ghz Pentium D they are an awful lot faster.  However the Sandybridge processor does cost about the same as the Pentium D used to and a typical Sandybridge-based system is only about £2,000, so we are not using the absolute best processors available, just the current "standard" processors.

First comparison: encoding 10 minutes of straight cuts to a Blu-ray H264 file. 

In these tests we used 1920 50i AVCHD footage on a 1920 50i timeline.  This is a fair test as AVCHD is pretty hard work, but very common, and the most common size used is 1920 x 1080.  If you add effects it will slow down the encoding, and most edits will have some kind of effects (even if it is just colour correction).  We have some tests with effects later on.

As you can see EDIUS is the fastest, however it has to be said Premiere Pro CS5.5 and it's 64 bit processing it pretty good as well!

Notes:

• Grass Valley EDIUS has 3 ways of making Blu-ray files - using the Intel Quicksync (the really fast way), using an extra piece of hardware called a FireCoder Blu (a pretty quick way) and using just your computer processor.  EDIUS also has different quality settings; the times shown are using the NORMAL setting.  If you choose "super fine" it will take longer.  If you use the Intel Quicksync encoding the speed is the same at every quality setting.
• Avid Media Composer is not making H264 files but VC1, which is a similar format and suitable or Blu-ray.  This is because Avid Media Composer does not come with software to make Blu-ray H264 files out of the box.Sorenson Squeeze, which ships with Media Composer, makes VC1, and only does Blu-ray H264 if you pay for an upgrade.  We decided making VC1 seemed the best choice for this comparison because the most important question is not "how long does it take it make H264" but how long does it take an edit and export something which is usable on a Blu-ray disc.  We have also not included the amount of time it took to get the edit from Avid to Squeeze.  As they are two separate programs we had to make a "Quicktime reference file" which took another couple of minutes.
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 has 3 ways to export footage (without adding extra hardware) - directly from Premiere, by loading the timeline into a separate program called Adobe Media Encoder, and sending a timeline to Adobe Encore (Adobe's Blu-ray writing program) and letting Encore encode footage.  We have included the 3 different settings because many Adobe users have asked us if there is a difference.  The 64 bit Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 is actually very good, and faster than previous versions, although not as fast as EDIUS with Intel Quicksync.  Adobe Media Encoder can encode while you carry on editing in Premiere; if you work this way it will take longer than shown above.  We also have a result for using the 2 pass setting - which you can see is nearly twice as long (which you would expect)  Adobe Premiere Pro is the only program with a 2-pass setting which should mean it can manage better quality if you are trying to fit a lot of footage on a disc (over 2 hours)
• Adobe Premiere Pro and Matrox  MAX- A Matrox MX02 MAX installed into a Premiere Pro system has extra chips to do faster H264 encoding (the MAX chip).  This chip does faster than realtime encoding, although as you can see in these tests the Sandybridge processor using Premiere Pro's normal encode (as described above) is actually nearly as fast.  If you have an older processor, or a laptop, the difference in speed between your computer and the Matrox MAX is greater; the MAX will still encode at about the same speed as shown here, but your CPU will be a lot slower.
• Sony Vegas has two ways of encoding H264 footage - either using just the CPU or using CUDA chips on an nVidia card.  Our test system has a very good nVidia 570 graphic card which speeds up encoding quite a bit although not as fast as using the Intel Quicksync.
• In each case we were making a Blu-ray file, not a Blu-ray disc.  Making the file is the most time consuming bit, but when making the actual disc the program will also need to encode the menus and burn the disc. The time taken to do this will all the different programs is about the same, however.
• You can make MPEG2 files for Blu-ray discs - they will look just as good (as long as you do not try and fit too much on a disc) and will encoded quicker, because MPEG2 is easier.  However, H264 is better since you can squeeze it more to get more footage on a disc at good quality and is pretty much the standard way to make Blu-ray discs.  The only downside of using H264 is the time it takes to make it - which is what these tests are all about!

Quality

The tests here are all about the amount of time it takes to make the footage, not the quality of the results. To be honest they are all pretty similar at normal data rates, but some may be better than others when you are trying to fit more that 2 hours on a single layer Blu-ray disc.  Adobe Premiere Pro should manage a better quality than the other programs when trying to fit more footage on a disc because it has a 2-pass option (the other programs are all one pass) but, to be honest, we have not done a proper scientific test on quality as yet.  We hope to make a decent comparison on quality in the future.

Second comparison: making an H264 file

A similar test to the one above but instead of making a Blu-ray file we made an MP4 file - the type you would make to send to YouTube.  This is a 1920x1080 25P file (so the footage is being changed from Interlace to progressive).  Once again we use 10 minutes worth of original footage.

Third comparison: clips with effects added

We added various effects to timelines in EDIUS to see what effect this had on the rendering.  Once again we used 10 minutes of 1920 50i AVCHD footage on a 1920 50i timeline.

Notes:

It is hard to find direct comparisons in other programs to the EDIUS effects.  Also other programs use the graphic card to do some effects - with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 there are a huge amount of realtime effects which are carried out by the graphic card (as long as you have the right graphic card) so the results of encoding with effects will vary a lot depending on whether you have the right card, and even which card you have.  It is the same with Avid Media Composer which uses the right kind of graphic card for effects work.  Sony Vegas does not use the graphic card for effects at all - although it can use the right kind of card to speed up encoding. Confused?  Send us an email or ring with some questions and we will do our best to explain in plain English!

We hope this information has proved useful.  Please free to email or phone with any questions.

You can see information on the various systems available from DVC here: http://www.dvc.uk.com/acatalog/DVC_systems.html

The specifications listed are for typical systems - not the cheapest or the most expensive.  We can supply systems without monitors, in not-so-quiet cases, with different hard drive configurations etc.  Just contact us for a customised quote.  To upgrade an existing system to the latest processor, using your existing software and hardware, and with all the set-up and configuration carried out by us at DVC is normally about £1,000 - again ring for a quote.