Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#1

Post by Heff » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 6:13 PM UTC

Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding
blog.zencoder.com

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#2

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:39 PM UTC

How could transfers from Google to Amazon be so much faster than from Google to Google?

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#3

Post by jcdavis » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:45 PM UTC

Its not a fair comparison, but shouldn't they also be trying/using EC2 GPU instances? I would think a large transcoding service such as zencoder has at least looked into it at some point

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#4

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:49 PM UTC

jcdavis wrote: post #3

Its not a fair comparison, but shouldn't they also be trying/using EC2 GPU instances? I would think a large transcoding service such as zencoder has at least looked into it at some point

They've looked into it, but they said GPU encoders don't compress as well, and don't look as good. https://www.quora.com/Does-Zencoder-use-regular-EC2-or-GPU-E...

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#5

Post by jbeda » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:49 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #2

How could transfers from Google to Amazon be so much faster than from Google to Google?

I'm the TL for Google Compute Engine.

This isn't the performance we expect here and we will be looking in to see what is going on.

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#6

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:51 PM UTC

jbeda wrote: post #5

sp332 wrote: post #2

How could transfers from Google to Amazon be so much faster than from Google to Google?

I'm the TL for Google Compute Engine. This isn't the performance we expect here and we will be looking in to see what is going on.

Oh I'm sure it's not normal. Let us know if you find out what happened :)

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#7

Post by salem » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

jcdavis wrote: post #3

Its not a fair comparison, but shouldn't they also be trying/using EC2 GPU instances? I would think a large transcoding service such as zencoder has at least looked into it at some point

Much of the SFX film industry is not using GPUs, at least not for final renders because differences floating point precision.

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#8

Post by wmf » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

Does 8 cores mean 8 cores or 4 cores/8 threads? The documentation is confusing.

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#9

Post by dpe82 » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 8:06 PM UTC

salem wrote: post #7

jcdavis wrote: post #3

Its not a fair comparison, but shouldn't they also be trying/using EC2 GPU instances? I would think a large transcoding service such as zencoder has at least looked into it at some point

Much of the SFX film industry is not using GPUs, at least not for final renders because differences floating point precision.

Floating point precision isn't the problem - when your output is 8 or 10 bit resolution, floating point differences aren't a big deal.

The biggest blocking factor is amount of code that needs to be ported to make it work. High end SFX companies spend virtually all their man hours implementing new stuff. They don't have the time to go back and reimplement everything, and their customers aren't so cost sensitive that they demand it.

Re: Google Compute Engine vs. Amazon EC2: Video Transcoding

#10

Post by rdl » Tue, Jul 24, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

jbeda wrote: post #5

sp332 wrote: post #2

How could transfers from Google to Amazon be so much faster than from Google to Google?

I'm the TL for Google Compute Engine. This isn't the performance we expect here and we will be looking in to see what is going on.

How do people get beta access? I'd love to look at moving workloads over to GCE.