After a few recent complaints from our customers, it became evident that our x264 encoding configuration was way too slow. Not only had we missed some critical optimizations when configuring the library, but we were not using optimal parameters for the encoding itself either.

Today, we are happy to announce that we have fixed all of these issues:

  • We are now configuring our x264 library to take advantage of CPU-specific (assembler) optimizations
  • Our presets have been updated to use a slightly faster encoding strategy that still produces great quality
  • Everything is now configured to take full advantage of our new 8 core machines

So, how much of a difference will this make?

In one – especially slow – scenario, we are now seeing a 20.5-fold speed increase over our previous configuration. While your mileage may vary, you should very likely see a similar speed increase, at least in the neighborhood of 10 times or more.

That being said, we will continue to improve our performance over time. So, if you feel something is not fast enough, just let us know and we'll investigate!