Video transcode to iPod using Thinkpad-upgrade questions

[rkawakami]

I recently "partially-funded" an 80GB video iPod for my daughter's birthday. In my investigation into programs which transcode video files into a format which the iPod can handle (.mp4), I ran across the program Videora. It appears to work correctly in that the .mp4 file is viewable using Quicktime but this is my problem: I'm using a 1.13Ghz T23 running 768MB under Windows XP Pro to do the conversion. This is the same type of system she has. During the two-plus hours it took, the processor temperature hit 70c and the disk drive alarmed at 50c. For about the last half-hour I had to put the T23 on the window sill in order to keep it cool. I had tried a laptop cooler but that seemed to confuse the internal fan control since the CPU temp went up to 80c and the fan didn't turn on. I don't want her to burn out her laptop if she tries doing this herself. Thus, my questions:

1) Has anyone found/used another transcoding program besides Videora that doesn't consume 100% of the CPU cycles or is more effiecient? I had the "priority" setting in Videora to "below normal" with no other major programs running (besides Norton AV 2002). I also tried the priority on "high", but that didn't seem to have any effect on the overall conversion time or temperature. I'd like the conversion process to be a little faster only on the assumption that the disk drive temp would be kept down if it didn't have to be spinning for so long.

2) If I have to upgrade to a faster Thinkpad, what would the better processor be? A T30 or A31 with a 2Ghz Pentium 4-M? A T40/41 with a 1.6Ghz Pentium M? I'm not familiar enough with all of the flavors of Intel processors to know which is the best for intense computational programs. I'm also trying to keep the costs down as this is for a college student with a part-time job (her, not me ).

3) Since both the input and output files were on the hard drive (Toshiba MK6026GAX), should I try to convert directly from the original source (DVD) files onto the hard drive? I know that probably won't affect the CPU temperature, but the hard drive is rated for 55c and there is no way to reduce its temperature besides not having it run for so long. Should I try a different drive? Anybody know of a cool-running 60GB drive that can continuously operate for 3 hours (or more) without getting near its temp limit?

Thanks!

[DIGITALgimpus]

AFAIK it's really between QuickTime and ffmpeg, both of which power *many* (likely numbering in the thousands) of different products. The products just put a frontend to it.

There's really no "efficient" way to encode "mp4". H.264 is a mathematical nuthouse, so it's going to be tight. That's why file size remains relatively small with good quality. The iPod IIRC uses AAC audio to go with that.

There are a few programs out there to throttle a programs CPU usage (I personally don't use anything like that). But no way to get around what it's actually doing.

[GomJabbar]

I believe you should be able to throttle CPU usage by setting up a power scheme in Battery Maximiser Wizard that sets CPU speed to Slow when on AC power.

I think it would be advantageous to have the source files on a different drive than the destination files.

[rkawakami]

Poking around the net I found this article:

http://www.mobilityguru.com/2003/02/05/ ... index.html

It discusses the differences between the Pentium M (Banias) and P4-M. From my quick scan of the charts it appears that a lower clocked P-M is equal (or better) in performance to a slightly higher clocked P4-M. I guess that this means I should be looking at 1.6Ghz T40/T41 systems over the 2Ghz A3x or T3x (price being equal).

I had monitored the CPU speed during my transcodes using MobileMeter and it reported a constant 1.13Ghz. I don't think that slowing down the processor is an answer for me; that will only mean that the disk drive will be spinning longer and thus reaching the critical temperature earlier in the overall conversion process. Using a second disk drive sounds like something that might be possible however. I'll give that a try and see what happens to the source drive's temperature.

Thanks for the comments!