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Distributed Computing

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by lump_16 Nov 12, 2002 last reply Dec 13, 2002

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I download alot of movies in a DIVX format and then use a program to convert them to a Video-CD format to play in my DVD.

However this conversion process takes a long time.
Most likely becasue I'm running it on an old 500 MHz test/junk system that can run 24/7 with no interuption.
Also in my junk/test pile I have a 450 and an 166 MHz system.

Are there any distributed processing programs out there where I could have all the computers on my home network working together?

Any suggestions would be appreaciated.

Thanks,
Brian Wright
College Graduate in desperate need for a job.
wrightweb@wright-onthe-web.com
http://www.wright-onthe-web.com

5 replies

by timwalsh Nov 12, 2002

The concept you are talking about is essentially that of a Beowulf Cluster (multiple inexpensive computers linked together to act as one "super-computer." That's the good news. The bad news is that although software is readily available for the Linux operating system, it isn't for Windows.

Further bad news is that like an SMP computer, software must be specially written to take advantage of multiple processors.

Essentially separate threads of the program are sent out to the different processors to run. Unless a program is written to take advantage of multiple processors, it will only run in a single thread. Since you are working on converting a single file, this is further impedence to using multiple processors. You would essentially have to break the video file into chunks, run instances of the conversion program on each processor to convert its chunk, and then reassemble the chunks into one file.

Hope this answers your question.