Page 1 of 2

Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 8:58 am
by Bytec
I would like to have multithreading while encoding and sending tracks to portable player or other destination.

I have a dual core processor and MediaMonkey (3.0.2) uses only one core while encoding my FLAC tracks to MP3 and then send to my MP3 portable player.

MediaMonkey could have 2 or more encoding threads and then place tracks in one queue to send them to MP3 portable player or other destination.

P.S.
FooBar2000 automatically detects CPU core count and use 2 or more encoding threads.

Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 3:25 pm
by tooscaredtotry
Was going to add this.. have a quad core and it would greatly speed up my sync time.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:02 pm
by wolle
Yes -- this is a very important feature! Was going to add this. BUMP!

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:51 am
by NikonUser
I agree that this is very important.

I have a quad core processor and in 'other' programs can convert 4 files at the same time which makes it MUCH faster to convert 'on-the-fly' to my portable player.

Paul

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:03 am
by Lowlander
This should be the case for whatever feature of MediaMonkey. Although I wonder if the harddrive doesn't become the bottleneck.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:47 pm
by tooscaredtotry
Lowlander wrote:This should be the case for whatever feature of MediaMonkey. Although I wonder if the harddrive doesn't become the bottleneck.
Quick test using dBpoweramp for a 47.5MB flac file to 15MB mp3 v0 takes 27-28 seconds (28,27,27) with different source and destination drives.

So it only needs to read @ ~1.75MB/s per thread and write @ 0.5MB/s to keep up with the CPU. Easily done by most USB devices I'd think.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:57 pm
by Lowlander
Well I was also thinking on scenarios like a harddrive that is already in use for other applications and possibly a slow harddrive like slow laptop drives. Also I don't know if it's as simple as using filesize or that more data flows between harddrive and MediaMonkey for this process.

I know for me that most of the time that I have a slow PC it's due to harddrive not due to CPU (single core) being to slow. This is due to slow laptop harddrive and lack of memory (thus using virtual memory extensively which is also on the harddrive). Add to that various applications that also like to use my harddrive I have the harddrive as the slowest part.

Move to a desktop with more memory (ie. less use of virtual memory) and a faster harddrive (SATA or even RAID) and the harddrive will be less of an issue, but still could be one if the CPU can process things fast (multi-threading).

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:04 pm
by w0858
Hi,
when running MM v3.0.3 on my system with Centrino Duo 2 MHz / 2 GB, the program takes all the capacity when updating the database. It is hard to run a second application ("small" or "big" ones will have the same boring problem).
Therefore it is also my opinion to have a Multicore support. I have absolutely no knowledge in writing programs, but is it possible to write a program in a way that the support is not fixed on 2 or 4 cores (a kind of "open end" code)? It seems to me that the development in the Multicore technology develops fast in the next years. What we have today as high-end in the consumer market with the Quadcores might be end of 2009 a 6- or 8core platform.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2008 11:32 am
by DWSR
Multi-threaded encoding, and multi-core support in general, is a huge issue in MediaMonkey. Having 2 cores in my computer, I would love to have 2 encoders running side by side when syncing to my PAP. What would be even more ideal, is to be able to set the amount of encoding processes running at the same time, and then have that number divided evenly over the number of cores detected or that MediaMonkey is allowed to use (another setting that needs implementation, IMHO). Bump hugely.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 10:13 am
by tooscaredtotry
I'll just add that it's likely you can just call multiple instances of the encoders and the OS will sort out which core to put them on. So MM itself doesn't have to be necessarily multithreaded as long as it is aware of the extra cores enough to call extra encoder threads.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:32 am
by jiri
This feature will most likely appear in the upcoming MM 3.1.

Jiri

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:10 pm
by illusion8055
BUMP!!! Agreed!!

FLAC to MP3 for syncing my iPhone takes soooooooo long and I have a Core2Duo E8400. Only ~50% CPU usage the whole time! HOURS and HOURS to sync only 1200 songs

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:02 pm
by nohitter151
This is already implemented in MM 3.1, currently in beta testing and available for download in the beta testing forum.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:50 pm
by tooscaredtotry
Yes, except I'm unable to use it still because I cannot configure it using no skin.

Re: Multithreaded encoding while sending to portable player

Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:47 pm
by nohitter151
tooscaredtotry wrote:Yes, except I'm unable to use it still because I cannot configure it using no skin.
I don't really understand what you have to configure. It uses all CPU cores by default.