Achieving optimal system performance

To achieve optimal system performance:

• Use a computer with fast or multiple processors. Because high-quality encoding requires more computing power, use a computer with a fast processor or multiple processors, especially for live events. Windows Media Encoder can use up to two processors for audio, and up to four for video to efficiently distribute the encoding load. If you are using the Windows Media Video 9 codec, you can also adjust performance settings to ensure encoding success. As a general rule, if you find that you continually reach or exceed 80 percent of the CPU load (as indicated on the General tab of the Monitor panel), you may want to consider upgrading your computer.
• Use supported audio and video cards. For a complete list of supported cards, see the Microsoft Web site.
• Use Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Windows XP Professional takes full advantage of a multiprocessor computer by automatically spawning separate threads to enable processes to run different parts of their programs on different processors simultaneously. This parsing of the work enables you to perform high-end encoding tasks without maximizing your CPU usage.
• Check your network bandwidth. It is rare that you will achieve 100 percent throughput when sending content over a network. For optimal results, ensure that your network can accommodate the aggregate bandwidth required by your broadcast session plus the overhead for HTTP.
• Use a high-performance hard disk. For archiving or file conversion, use a high-performance hard disk, such as a small computer system interface (SCSI) hard disk with 15,000 rotations per minute. Using a high-performance hard disk can help to offload performance requirements from the main CPU, freeing up more processing power for encoding. In addition, it is useful to use the hard disk only for encoding purposes.
• Keep the encoder on a dedicated computer. If you are streaming content from a server running Windows Media Services, it is recommended that you run the encoder on a separate computer from the Windows Media server.
• Turn off video preview and postview. The Input and Output areas in the main encoder window show you what your content looks like before and after it is encoded. Turning off these displays improves encoding performance. Or, to achieve a minor performance improvement, you can reduce the views.
• Store captured content temporarily. If you are encoding to a file while sourcing from devices, store the content to a hard disk temporarily. In addition, use a different hard disk than the one dedicated to encoding.

Related topics

• System configuration options
• Adjusting encoder performance settings
• To turn off or decrease video preview
• Improving performance when encoding screens
• To store captured content temporarily