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When i started using vuze (years ago), conversion times were roughly on par with download times. It might take me an hour to download what i wanted, and another our to convert it to be watched through my xbox360. The past few months though, conversion times have gotten RIDICULOUS. I am talking regular conversion times of 5+ hours, and if i put a second file or more in que, i reach conversion times of 13+ hours for a 1.5 hour file.
I dont know what settings i might have jacked up to change this, and in reality, i have changed nothing other than updating when a new update was available. But 13 hours to wait to watch a video on through my 360 and on my TV is getting to be too much. Roughly 15% of the time, it doesnt convert correctly anyway, so then i wait 5+ hours to find out i just wasted 5 hours.

Before i go to much further down unnecessary rabbit holes, does anyone have any suggestions?

Late 09 Mac (version 10.11.1), 3.06 intel core duo, 4 GB DDR3 ram (Running vuze, mail, and firefox, system ram usage is around 2.6 GB), vuze 5.7.0.0
There are lots of possible explanations but with what you have told us . . . who knows! 

You have not mentioned what I imagine is the salient point.

How large are the videos you are now converting and how large were they several months ago?

Are the videos in exactly the same format using exactly the same codec's etc?

Video standards can change very very quickly and I suspect that might be part of the reason for the sudden onset of the problem.

Have you tried to use a different program to convert?  Like maybe Handbrake . . . that is is supposedly one of the better converters.

It is of course possible that it is a Vuze problem . . . but you are running a 6 year old computer with a processor that was quite frankly not that good of a processor when it was introduced.  I am also running the same generation of Mac (mine is a 27" iMac) and I have a 2.8 GhZ i7 with 12 GB of RAM and quite frankly it is getting to the point that it is too slow for me running basically the same stuff you are running (although I suspect I am running orders of magnitude more torrents and I am a very heavy Firefox user . . . it generally eats up about 5 or 6 GB of RAM on its own).  I can only replace my computer or my TV in the next 12 months . . . and I have to decide which is more important right now if I could replace both without worrying about the money I would be very very close to a new computer within the next few months.

The point is that you have a pretty old computer running what if memory serves was the worst processor offered at the time.  It just might be time for a new computer.

Again video formats change constantly I know I am seeing a lot more x265 than ever for example.  It is certainly possible that is the kind of problem you are running into.  Simply a newer newer video format which is just more than your computer can handle or maybe that Vuze is not optimized to convert or whatever.

Looking at just the data you gave us . . . there is just not enough information to say for sure what the problem is.  However, I suspect that the larger issue here is your aging computer.

It could be you have a bad bit of memory too.  Like I said at the beginning there are lots of possible issues here . . . I certainly can not discount a Vuze problem but I do not think Vuze has had a major change involving video conversion in quite a while -- so my first thought is to look elsewhere.

If you still have some of the older videos that converted quickly . . . give handbrake a try (it is free) with the older and the newer videos and see if there is as big of a difference as there is with Vuze doing the conversion.  Then there will be something more substantial to go on!
the videos being converted have not changed massively in size. Maybe a few here and there went from 700mb to 1.3 gb. I try and stick to smaller videos files. I am not expecting a video file 4x the size the convert in the same amount of time. But 700mb 1.5 years ago took roughly an hour, vs 700mb taking 16 hours now.

As for the codecs/file types... I have seen no new files types. mkv, mp4, and avi. Something i have noticed though is that some avi's will drag and drop and need no conversion, while others do. I havent figured out why that might be either. mp4 sometimes doesnt need to convert either, while mkv always does.

I dont debate that i dont have the best computer in the world, but mac's dont exactly crap out slowly either. It is either fine, or it is dead. Not a lot of in between.

What other information can i provide that would help narrow down what is going on?

If i used handbrake, would the file be able to instantly drag and drop into my 360 list?
joshtried\ dateline='\'1449694147' Wrote: [ -> ]the videos being converted have not changed massively in size. Maybe a few here and there went from 700mb to 1.3 gb. I try and stick to smaller videos files. I am not expecting a video file 4x the size the convert in the same amount of time. But 700mb 1.5 years ago took roughly an hour, vs 700mb taking 16 hours now.

As for the codecs/file types... I have seen no new files types. mkv, mp4, and avi. Something i have noticed though is that some avi's will drag and drop and need no conversion, while others do. I havent figured out why that might be either. mp4 sometimes doesnt need to convert either, while mkv always does.

I dont debate that i dont have the best computer in the world, but mac's dont exactly crap out slowly either. It is either fine, or it is dead. Not a lot of in between.

What other information can i provide that would help narrow down what is going on?

If i used handbrake, would the file be able to instantly drag and drop into my 360 list?

 


Let me start with your handbrake question.  I have never used the program.  I do not do any converting.  I watch about 85% of the stuff I download on my computer.  The other 15% I drop directly into iTunes without conversion to watch on my iPad.  The reason I mentioned handbrake is:

1) It is free
2) It is the program I see the folks whose opinion I trust the most recommend

Give it a try it is free.  My understanding is that it is a bit tricky to set up initially but once it is set up it is the best program out there.  From what I have heard there are lots of youtube videos showing in great detail how to set it up!  The point here is trying to figure out if the problem is Vuze or your computer or what!  Obviously if you have the same problem with handbrake we can say pretty clearly that the problem is not specific to Vuze.  How long handbrake takes to convert the same video is going to tell us a lot.

Before I go further I will say very clearly that conversions are not something that I am an expert about by any stretch of the imagination.

The bit I highlighted in red.  I suspect that the differences are the way those videos are encoded.  I know that different encoding schemes take more or less horsepower to get done.  I would try to find a program which tells you the technical details of the video file you are trying to convert and use that on the ones that drag and drop without conversion and the ones that do.  Finding that difference might lead you to either choosing different torrents to download or lead you to the best conversion program for that type of file.

The bit I highlighted in green . . . same thing really.

Just because the file type is the same it does not mean that the codec's and whatever else plays into the encoding of the video are the same!

Without knowing exactly what to tell you to look for . . . I again suggest finding some video player or whatever for your computer that will give you that information.

I know that VLC player gives a lot of that information (press command-i after loading a video and click on the various tabs).  It is also a free download let me find you a link . . . https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
You can get the most basic information from QuickTime . . . but since there is a lot of stuff that QuickTime does not play and the information is cursory at best so VLC is a better option.

You could also try ~sedna Movie Thumbnails Free (available from the App store) but that creates a mosaic screen shot of videos and can take a while to run.  Even when it is done it does not give you quite as much data as VLC.

I am just trying to help you identify what the problem might be.  I still suspect that there is some relatively recent change in the way some folks are making and or converting the videos which just does not play well with your older Mac . . . but that is only slightly more than a guess.  Between trying handbrake and examining the details of the videos which will play with and without conversion we are going to get a lot closer to finding the exact nature of the problem and or finding a solution!

Good luck!
I have attempted handbrake on 2 different video types, and each has taken roughly 2 hours to convert. It converts to mp4, and each of these has not needed to be converted by vuze to be used by my 360. It is a work around that is relatively painless... so i will just use that instead.

It would still be nice to know why vuze is taking so much longer (13+ hours vs 2 hours).
That is good information.  I have no idea why the difference but at least you have a solution.

Hopefully one of the coders will stumble through here and at least let us know they are looking at the issue!