Discreet Cleaner 5 - Opinions Please

[dream-creation.com]

I use Discreet Cleaner 5 but it is SLOW, SLOW ,SLOW!
Cleaner XL is supposed to be better, but I can't afford to upgrade. I got a deal on Cleaner 5 when my friend upgraded to XL.
How does it compare to TMPGEncoder Plus?
I get "to my eyes" the same results with TMPGEPlus and faster than Cleaner 5

[txpharoah]

Cleaner 5 is only slow if you just run the software. I have the Cleaner 5 MPEG SuperCharger card, and it's fast. The quality in Cleaner is better than TMPGenc if source does not need to be filtered. Cleaner 5 has some annoying glitches too. TMPGenc is better at filters (especially since you can preview easier and better than Cleaner).

I also cannot dump money in XL right now, so I am also curious how much faster or better it may be.

[dream-creation.com]

Oh, There is hardware that goes with it?
Maybe I should rethink my purchase, I still have a week or two to decide.
From what he says its much faster but he bashes anything PC related.
He prefers to do all his rendering etc. on mac.

[txpharoah]

Both MAC and PC can use the PCI Cleaner cards. Both have Cleaner versions, but the Mac one seems to have less options (notably 2-pass VBR).

[BJ_M]

even discreet says cleaner 5 was the worse product they ever had .. if you reacall it was passed around from owner to owner for awhile .. and all lost mony on it ..

tests done by compressionest groups (even with supercharger) showed that basicly cleaner 5 was unusable for mpeg encoding -- on mac or pc , but on a mac it was about all you could get .... free encoders , tmpgenc and other encoders beat it in terms of speed and quality and in some cases even features .. cleaner's strenths were in its creation of streaming media on the mac (and on the pc) .. strenths in that they were almost the only well known game in town to do it ..

fast forward to now ... cleaner 6 is out ... won best of show at mac world ... but i go to the cleaner 6 forums and the people that bought this program are trashing it ... buggy as hell , slow , and only so so quality .. but faster and better quality than 5 .. a update to cleaner 6.01 is out now ..
cleaner XL for pc ... well check out the forums on that one also .. i dont need to say much ..

i had bought a copy -- i donated it to a school after one week ..

[dream-creation.com]

I am convinced!
You guys certainly know what your doing.
Thanks for the info.