slow conversion and low cpu usage

[Junior2k4]

hey, i'm new to this program and i have been trying it out for the past couple of days. it seems to be a really neat program, but the conversions seem to be taking longer than the first time that i used it. i check my cpu usage and it says that it is using 55-65% of my processor. it seems to me that the program is not properly utilizing HT and i would really love it if it did. as it stands, it is currently taking me about 7 hours to encode 1.5 hours worth of video. i'm converting 16:9 xvid with mp3 audio using
p4 2.8c
1gb pc-3200
2x120gb hdds
and a liteon sohw-1633s
any help would be greatly appreciated.

PS it took me about 73min to encode 40min of movie the first time. does this seem weird to anyone else?

PPS also, i'm just encoding the video. no menus and no tweaks just cbr 7000mb/s

[GeorgeW]

Xvix and DivX .avi's can take longer times to encode to mpeg (than something like a DV .avi) -- and that's when you are successful in getting the program to encode those types of videos.

It's sort of hit-and-miss when you are dealing with those types of .avi's (and this isn't specific to DVD WS, this has been my experience in other software as well)

That's why there are specific utilities to deal with those types of videos:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools

[Junior2k4]

would it help me any if i were to have the file i am converting on a seperate hdd than the converted file will end up?

[Devil]

I doubt it, at least significantly.

IS WS2 HT-enabled? Even if it is, my practical experience with rendering in MSP7, which is HT-enabled, is that HT stands for HYPErthreading: at the best, you may get 5-10% speed improvement, no more.

[Junior2k4]

it claims to be HT enabled. i've come across a few programs that claim to use it but can't take full advantage of it. one of my favorite programs is the tmpg suite. HT makes a huge difference with tmpg. i can encode a little faster than real time with it. the only reason that i am using this program now is for the features.