Multi machine processing

Question

Can someone tell me an easy way to set up multiple MacPros on a local network to process files in Compressor?   Thank you

Answer 1

There are more than a few caveats in setting up a render farm.
1. the more you break up a file to send to computer instances, the more time is required to stich the various render elements back together.
2. the more physical machines you have, the more network traffic is required to move files back and forth. This means - use a hard wired network. Airport is not the way to go
3. the bigger the initial file, the longer it will take to copy the file to the other machines before they start working
4. dedicating all instance cores of all machines may be counter productive.
5. having one really slow machine in the mix may hinder the overall speed a great deal.
Speed of transcoding is not a linear process. If you are working with multicore Macs without hyper threading, the sweet spot seems to be 1/2 the number of cores (ie on an 8 core 2008 MacPro, set up Qmaster to use 4 cores). On a hyper threaded Mac, the 1/2 the number of virtual cores (ie, on a 4 core 2012 MacMini Server which has 8 virtual cores, dedicate 4).
1 GB per core seems to be a good starting point.
In big files, it may take more time to split up the file, move it to the remote machines and put it back together than it does to actually do the encode. Sometimes it is significantly faster if you are working on a MacPro to simply let it do the work locally and go take a coffee break.
Your experience will vary based upon network configuration, computer configurations, mix of computers, file sizes and encoding choices. It will take some experimentation to find the fastest setup for a particular transcoding type.
Have fun.
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