Apple Power Mac G5 - Manual (Page 25)

Video encoding
Video encoding is the most time-consuming part of burning a DVD. Encoding is the
process by which DV, the format generated by most standard digital video cameras,
is translated—or encoded—into MPEG-2, the format used for high-quality television
display by consumer DVD players.
Apple tested the Power Mac G5 systems running Compressor 1.1, Apple’s professional-
level encoding software. The time it took each system to encode a five-minute DV clip
was measured using the high-quality MPEG-2 encoding setting.
The dual 2GHz and dual 1.8GHz Power Mac G5 systems encoded the DV clip 113% and
99% faster, respectively, than the 3.2GHz Pentium 4–based system, and 46% and 37%
faster, respectively, than the dual 3.2GHz Xeon-based system. 1
Power Mac G5 systems were tested using Compressor 1.1. The Dell Dimension XPS, Alienware Aurora, and Dell Precision
650 were tested using Canopus ProCoder 1.5.
Power Mac G5
Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
Power Mac G5
Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
Dell Dimension XPS
3.2GHz Pentium 4
Power Mac G5
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
19% faster
Dell Precision 650
Dual 3.2GHz Xeon
46% faster
Alienware Aurora
2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX-51
12% faster
High-quality MPEG-2 encoding
Percent faster than Pentium 4
Baseline
113% faster
99% faster
25 Technology and
Performance Overview
Power Mac G5
MPEG-2 Encoding Results