Thread Priority

If it weren't for Thread Priority, using Dr. DivX would be unbearable. By default, the priority is set to Low. You probably want to leave it there. Encoding videos can take a long time. Actually, it can take a really long time. Using the highest quality settings, a full-length movie may take 15 hours to encode on an older PC. If you don't have a computer to dedicate to the task, you probably want to be able to do a few other things while your videos are being processed.

Setting the priority to Low means that the doctor's work takes a back seat to your work. You can go right ahead surfing the net or writing your term paper. Your computer won't feel much slower than it ever does. Dr. DivX will only work when your computer is idle. That's actually more often than you might imagine. While you are reading a page or trying to decide what to type next, your computer isn't doing much of anything. Dr. DivX uses that time to get some video encoding done.

The beauty of the arrangement is, if you are in a hurry for your video; just take your hands off the keyboard. The doctor should cruise along at top speed as long as your computer isn't trying to do anything else. That's why there are few reasons to bump the priority up to anything above Low. Your computer can't go faster than 100% and as long as you aren't using anything else, Dr. DivX will work just as fast on Low priority as on High priority. Although, for the best speed, you might want to turn off any screen savers you normally use.