You can try the new option to keep the menu.
My calculations are that it takes ~5 to 10 seconds per title when 're-using' the existing menu page. It means a maximum of 42 minutes for the menu re-creation for 252 titles.
Of course 'playlist scanning' and preparations take some time, too.
*** my post @doom9:
Here is something you may find interesting. Although it is very experimental it works (here).
When you load multiAVCHD compilation, which contains a menu, a prompt will appear if you want to keep it from re-encoding.
It means that WHEN and IF possible, some menu pages will not be reencoded, saving hours and hours for big compilations. Using the option makes sense only when using
more than 5 titles in a compilation.
If you change ANYTHING about a title - in title properties, or REMOVE a title or MOVE a title UP/DOWN in the list, all its 'neighbor' menu pages will be marked for reencoding. Neighbors are 3 titles preceding the changed one and 3 titles after it. I may add an option to override the neighbor re-encoding when adding titles to the end of the compilation. Then the option will make sense even with less than 5 titles, but you won't see the next (newly added) title on the preceding menu page. Scrolling down (in XMB) or right (in Slide/Carousel) will show the page, of course.
For example, if you have a compilation of 30 titles and ADD one at the end, menu pages for titles 1 to 27 will be used as they are and 28 to 30 + the new one will be encoded.
Processing of the thumbnails in HDAVCTN folder is now faster (~10-20 times) and chapter#1 will not be re-extracted when not needed (it was a bug).
Keeping the menu feature may work for builds after 732 (or even 730 if you used default settings for XMB or SLIDE menu and your current menu configuration matches the old compilation)
Give it a try and let me know.
//
A quick comparison with one of my favorite compilations (45GB 11 titles): (all operations performed on an external USB HDD) (created with default XMB settings in build 730RC)
With reencoding the menu (1hr 19mins)
[15:35:43] multiAVCHD finished in 4733 seconds (01:18:53)!
Without reencoding (13 times faster: 6mins)
[20:23:24] multiAVCHD finished in 355.963 seconds (00:05:55.962)!
\\
You will know that a menu page is NOT being re-encoded when you see
* Muxing message in the log for chapter and setup pages:
Kod:
[13:08:47] Preparing menu pages...
[13:08:47] Encoding static XMB menu page [1/4] [Static title thumbnail].
[13:08:48] [B]* Muxing[/B] static XMB menu page [1/4]: Chapter page [1/1] [80011.m2ts]
[13:08:50] * Muxing static XMB menu page [1/4]: Setup page (audio/subtitle) [80019.m2ts]
[13:08:51] Encoding static XMB menu page [2/4] [Static title thumbnail].
[13:08:56] * Muxing static XMB menu page [2/4]: Chapter page [1/1] [80021.m2ts]
[13:08:57] * Muxing static XMB menu page [2/4]: Setup page (audio/subtitle) [80029.m2ts]
The line "Encoding.." for the main menu page is always the same, it is just FASTER!
Dean
p.s. Also, it is now possible to load
AUDIO folders.
p.s.2 Adding a pop-up menu to existing compilation now takes 3-4 seconds, no matter how many titles are in it (compared to 10-40 seconds before).
p.s.3 Each title will get its menu options saved in the project file from now on (even when not using templates). This will make re-using menu files without reencoding possible for the future builds.
