avconv uses only 1 core Ubuntu 13.10

[Filiprino]

I tried to get a movie transcoded with libx264 and libvorbis instead of AC3-DTS but avconv is not using all 4 cores of my computer. The original file has the video track plus three audio tracks, one in DTS-HD MA, one in DTS and the last one in AC3.

My command line is this:

avconv -i MOVIE.mkv -map 0:0 -codec:v libx264 -pass 1 -threads 6 -coder:v ac -g 240 -keyint_min 23 -bf:v 16 -b_strategy 2 -b-bias 0 -refs 3 -b:v 11000k -partitions p8x8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4 -mixed-refs 1 -me_range:v 20 -me_method:v umh -subq 8 -b-pyramid strict -8x8dct 1 -direct-pred 1 -weightb 1 -weightp 2 -deblock 0:0 -an -f rawvideo -y /dev/null ;

avconv -i MOVIE.mkv -map 0 -map -0:2 -map -0:3 -codec:s copy -codec:v libx264 -pass 2 -threads 6 -coder:v ac -g 240 -keyint_min 23 -bf:v 16 -b_strategy 2 -b-bias 0 -refs 3 -b:v 11000k -partitions p8x8,b8x8,i8x8,i4x4 -mixed-refs 1 -me_range:v 20 -me_method:v umh -subq 8 -b-pyramid strict -8x8dct 1 -direct-pred 1 -weightb 1 -weightp 2 -deblock 0:0 -acodec libvorbis -async 1 -b:a:0 640k -metadata:s:a:0 title="arc Vorbis 640k 5.1" OUTPUT-MOVIE.mkv

I tried to do a 1 pass encode with the second pass command (without the -pass 2 option) for testing purposes and it didn't use more than 1 core (total load of avconv remained ~130%, I assume it's 100% of libx264 plus some processing for the audio). At times it went up near 400% but it never didn't stay at full load, most of the time (99% of the time) was spent on ~130%. I've also tried with -threads auto, -threads 0, -threads 4 but no luck.

I'm using the avconv available in Ubuntu 13.10 repositories (I'm on Kubuntu 13.10): 6:0.8.10-0ubuntu0.13.10.1

[Sebastian Ramacher (s-ramacher)]

Please test if this is still an issue with more recent versions of libav (libav 11).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for libav (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]