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Why is Convert Format so slow?

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Hendrik:
10 hours are 600 minutes, thats about 9 files per minute, or one file every ~7 seconds. That seems like a rather decent speed to me, factoring in overhead of reading new files, decoding and encoding them, writing them, tagging them, etc.
MP3 in particular uses an external encoder, which also has some added overhead executing it, which isn't huge, but it all adds up when you process thousands of files.

haggis999:

--- Quote from: zybex on June 22, 2021, 04:00:39 am ---Also, how long is your commute?  ;D
5000 files x 7 minutes = 24 days of continuous play, or about 10 months of listening to 2 hours of music per day in your car... I understand wanting to carry your entire collection for freedom of choice, but sometimes it takes longer to pick want you want to hear next instead of just having some curated playlists.

--- End quote ---

I think playlists work better for non-classical music. In my case, I usually know what I want to play and many of my potential choices can last much longer than my typical journey time, so having my full collection available is an advantage. The USB memory stick in my car was last loaded several years ago, so an update is long overdue.

haggis999:

--- Quote from: Hendrik on June 22, 2021, 05:20:30 am ---10 hours are 600 minutes, thats about 9 files per minute, or one file every ~7 seconds. That seems like a rather decent speed to me, factoring in overhead of reading new files, decoding and encoding them, writing them, tagging them, etc.
MP3 in particular uses an external encoder, which also has some added overhead executing it, which isn't huge, but it all adds up when you process thousands of files.

--- End quote ---

Given that modern CPUs can process a gazillion instructions every second, taking 7 seconds to convert a FLAC to an MP3 seems very slow to me, though I realise that the CPU is not the only factor in this operation. 

I last did this several years ago and it's possible I attached my NAS locally via USB at that time. EDIT: My NAS can't attach to a PC via USB, so that recollection was wrong.

I also seem to remember that it processed about 10 files at a time rather than the 2 it's doing at the moment. Is this something you can control in the settings? I couldn't find anything relevant in Tools/Options.


EDIT:   I've now found the setting for changing the number of files processed in parallel and have upped it from 2 to 16 (it was in the Audio Conversion Options dialogue box). Things have now noticeably speeded up.

BTW, I have confirmed that both my PC and my NAS have Gigabit connections to the network.

 

haggis999:
Stopping the conversion and then restarting it after setting the ‘Number of files to convert at the same time’ to the maximum value of 16 has made a huge difference.

The job soon completed, but I then realised that my choice of a VBR Target Quality of 'Normal' was not what I used in the past, as I had the space to go for a Target Quality of 'Extreme'. I then ran a new conversion using this setting, which has taken just one hour to process 6000 files.

My original problem is thus resolved, and I have updated my file conversion notes to make sure I will remember all my optimum settings for this process :)

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