CPU Usage Optimization on Ubuntu
I've been able to piece together many of the guides around regarding installing and configuring on Ubuntu (mostly a Linux/Ubuntu newbie) and I've got it working well for the most part.
However, I seem to be running into a limitation with my CPU. Everytime I play an MKV (HD specifically) and some HD videos (mp4's 1080p mostly), it begins to stutter.
My limitation seems to be the CPU (Intel D525). When running an HD video, my CPU shows 100% usage in top, taken up mostly by ffmpeg (95-99%). I've downloaded ServiiDroid as a console since my Ubuntu install is headless (12.04.1 Server, x86). I am able to add and remove shared folders and have tried to add a second CPU under the ServiiDroid->Advancded->Transcoding Settings->CPU Cores, but it does't seem to be taking effect. When I view top while watching videos over SubSonic, my CPU usage goes well over 100% when transcoding. However, my CPU usage when viewing videos via Serviio never goes over 100%.
Other small details: the files are being accessed on an mdadm RAID5 with excellent performance, Ubuntu and Serviio are installed on a USB 2.0 8 GB thumb drive, system RAM is 4.0 GB DDR3, all network connections are 1 Gbps.
Please let me know if you have an suggestions, thank you.