Extremely low utilization of CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD when rendering to smaller size

[zlawton]

I have a one-hour-and-twenty-minutes-long, 3840x2160, 25 FPS, MP4 video that I am rendering down to 1280x720 with the H.264 encoding format in Media Encoder 2020, but it's barely utilizing my computer's hardware and is predicting a 4-hour-long encode time. Is there anything I can do to get the resource utilization higher and cut down the encoding time?

Hardware and respective utilization:

• Intel Core i7-4770 @3.40 GHz - wobbling between 20% and 25%, spread pretty evenly across all 8 4 logical processors.
• 32 GB RAM - only using 13.8 GB of that, with the rest unused.
• SanDisk SD7SB7S 512 GB - between 0% and 1% active, write speed usually ~4 KB/s with occasional spikes as high as 240 KB/s 
• GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with 768 CUDA cores - 1% 3D utilization, wobbling between 6% and 8% copy utilization, 0% Video Encode and Video Decode utilization; using 2.7 out of 20 GB GPU Memory, 0.6 out of 4 GB Dedicated GPU Memory, and 2.1 out of 16 GB Shared GPU Memory.

The source file and the output location are both on the SSD, and GPU Acceleration (CUDA) is enabled in the Media Encoder preferences.

[Justin Taylor-Hyper Brew]

What codecs are encoding from and to? Some codecs just take way longer and are less optimized. Also, make sure you have memory usage turned up in setttings.

[zlawton]

Here is the codec information from the source video, according to VLC Media Player:

• Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
  • Type: Video
  • Video resolution: 3840x2160
  • Buffer dimensions: 3840x2160
  • Frame rate: 25
  • Decoded format:
  • Orientation: Top left
  • Chroma location: Left
• Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a)
  • Type: Audio
  • Channels: Stereo
  • Sample rate: 32000 Hz
  • Bits per sample: 32

("Decoded format" is blank in VLC's output, if that means anything)

As mentioned in my original post, I am using the H.264 encoder. My encoding settings are all on "Match Source" except for the resolution:

• Width & Height: 1280x720
• Frame Rate: 25
• Field Order: Progressive
• Aspect: Square Pixels (1.0)
• TV Standard: PAL

"Render at Maximum Depth" is not selected.

4 GB of ram are reserved, leaving 27.9 GB for Media Encoder.