some CCE Basic questions: quality and frame size

[ktnwin]

I have three questions:
1) can CCE Basic encoded into other valid DVD frame sizes other than 720x480 (for NTSC)? I am looking at 352x480 or 352x240.
2) how is the quality of the MPEG-2 as encoded by CCE Basic (from DV AVI) ? pls give me a number like 10/10 is perfect, 1/10 is really bad...
3) encoding speed on a 1.2GHz Athlon ? 2X, 3X or ???

Thanks for any info.
P.S. I already installed the demo version, but did not have time to experiment with it so it expires.

[edsmith77]

ktnwin,
I just recently purchased CCE Basic and for my money, I wish I had bought it sooner.
I started out converting my VHSs into Mpeg2 files but using Tmpgenc was really annoyed with the time it was taking. ugh!!!!
I had heard about the significant speed increase with CCE, so what the heck, I bought CCE basic. And I can say that the time to encode has been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. My system is an 800 PIII and my encoding time has been cut by at least 50% and in some cases even more. Loss of quality from Tmpgenc to CCE. Negligible to non existent. I only use tmpgenc now a days for splitting files.
I can say the user interface with CCE is less than useful but a few trips around the settings and it is not to terribly bad. Certainly could be a whole lot better though.

Now for the change, when I use CCE to encode to 352x480 vice tmpgenc, I noticed that there was a noticeable increase in blockiness, not much but you could see it. I did not want to have that (I suppose I am getting a bit more pickier these days) but anyway, I did not want to up the bit rate to get rid of the blockiness. So I cut the vertical resolution, and solved my concerns. No more blockiness. So I now have, an MPEG2 encoded file that is 352x240 that plays VERY nicely (albeit with the VCD header trick) in my standalone. Now, from what I understand, when it comes time to convert into DVD, all that is required is to covert the audio and re-author with a DVD authoring program. I think that DVD will support 352 x 240 thus, I do not think I will have to resize as well.

Thus, for your quality number, I would have to give it a very solid 8-9/10.
And since your machine is faster than mine, you will be pleased with the speed increase in encoding. If my memory seves me, 1 pass CBR for a 97 minute film was about 45 minutes to mpeg2 file. 2 pass CBR about 60 minutes and 2 pass vbr about 1hr 54 minutes.
Overall, I am very satisfied with CCE Basic, including the cost ($58 USD).

Try it you'll like it.

Ed