Video Rendering

[secret52]

I recently came across some old computers that a friend was about to toss in the dumpster. They're P3's and P4's. I was thinking of building my own small cluster for F@H but thought about maybe using it for converting DivX to DVD. I was wondering if there's anything like ConverXtoDVD that can be run on a cluster either in Linux or Windows. I've used ConvertX before and like the interface. Help is greatly appreciated and I'd definitely be willing to open it up to the Hak.5 community for use too.

[Infiltrator]

I recently came across some old computers that a friend was about to toss in the dumpster. They're P3's and P4's. I was thinking of building my own small cluster for F@H but thought about maybe using it for converting DivX to DVD. I was wondering if there's anything like ConverXtoDVD that can be run on a cluster either in Linux or Windows. I've used ConvertX before and like the interface. Help is greatly appreciated and I'd definitely be willing to open it up to the Hak.5 community for use too.

ConverXtoDVD supports multi-threading which can take advantage of more than one core, but it won't work on a clustered environment.

If you are going at programing you could try using Compute Cluster Pack

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc136762(VS.85).aspx

[secret52]

Unfortunatley I'm not willing to dish out what Microsoft wants for Compute Cluster Server 2003 or HPC Server 2008.

Just needing a way to do rendering on a cluster. Doesn't have to be Windows based. I do have some experience with Linux too.

Also any programs that would benefit Hak.5 that can be run on a cluster.

[Sparda]

There are a number of Linux clustering projects, give one/them a try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerrighed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxPMI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSI

Clustering is only useful for multi-threaded applications. Alternatively run each render job on each machine individually.

[secret52]

Ok. Just read about Kerrighed. Looks promising. Just one question, what's single system image?

There are a number of Linux clustering projects, give one/them a try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerrighed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxPMI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSI

Clustering is only useful for multi-threaded applications. Alternatively run each render job on each machine individually.

[Sparda]

Every node in the cluster (except node 1 or the 'master' node) uses the same operating system image file located on the master node.

[secret52]

so essentially it "tricks" programs into thinking it's running on a single computer when it's actually spread out?

[Sparda]

so essentially it "tricks" programs into thinking it's running on a single computer when it's actually spread out?

Yep, the program would have no idea it was running on many computers.

[Infiltrator]

Unfortunatley I'm not willing to dish out what Microsoft wants for Compute Cluster Server 2003 or HPC Server 2008.

Just needing a way to do rendering on a cluster. Doesn't have to be Windows based. I do have some experience with Linux too.

Also any programs that would benefit Hak.5 that can be run on a cluster.

I wasn't suggesting you in buying a Microsoft product. There was also some mentioning of "Message Passing Interface", on the that Microsoft article. And it was also mentioned on one of the articles Sparda suggested to you.

I was just trying to give you some ideas. One thing can lead to another, if you know what I mean.

Edited October 18, 2010 by Infiltrator