Whats your favorite Encoder?

[simon1987]

And is CCE worth the price?

[Treebeard]

I like Tmpgenc for its excellent quality & simple interface yet has great features/controls. I use it to convert my minidv to dvd.

[Will Hay]

Whilst it goes against every single component in my body, every single belief I have and flies in the face of everything good in this world I have to agree with treebeer, TMPGEnc for me.
Will

[Craig Tucker]

Add me to the list.

[energy80s]

TMPG here too. It's just so customisable. It's the Windows 98 of the encoding world!!

[Treebeard]

Whilst it goes against every single component in my body, every single belief I have and flies in the face of everything good in this world I have to agree with treebeer, TMPGEnc for me.
Will

I feel so special I think im going to ..

[steptoe]

I would like to use TMPGenc for conversion/creating movies as I think the quality is very good, and its also very easy to use, very easy to change settings, and very easy to 'fiddle' with all the settings to tweak away to whatever you wish for

There are loads of guides on getting the best out of it, and also guides on how to do various things, like PAL to NTSC and NTSC to PAL

Bad point for me though, is its speed. Compared to the likes of MCE 1.4 or CCE, its horrendously slow, about 3-4 time slower when using VBR

My system is not bad for my needs, but I wouldn't say no to spending a silly amount of money upgrading it to something super-fast (wouldn't we all). Its running an AMD 2000+ XP with 256MB


If somebody could provide a decent guide (hint, hint) on how to cut corners on TMPGenc to get the encoding as fast as possible, without to much quality drop when encoding DVD/VCD and using VBR, then I'd go back to TMPGenc, but 'till then I'll stick to MCE 1.4

Even though I have a feeling the audio desynch problems I get are caused somehow by MCE, I didn't have this many problems when using TMPGenc Plus, but I ain't got 8-12 hours per movie to twiddle about waiting for

MCE does the same movie, same bitrate and at 2-pass VBR in roughly 2 hours, so thats why I use MCE

TMPGEnc Plus is still on my system, I would love to use it, but just ain't got that much time to waste per movie



Basically, TMPGenc for ease of use, simplicity, output quality .... MCE/CCE for sheer speed

These are my views though

[energy80s]

Yeah, speed is definately TMPG's achillies heel. For VBR I always use CQ encoding as its twice as fast as 2 pass VBR and with TMPG it is actually better quality (not so with CCE / MCE), but it is still a slow business encoding a 2 hour file!

[turk690]

TMPGEnc is really THAT slow. Like all above, it's my fave, though. Since brute h/w power seems 2 b the only way to up the ante on TMPGEnc speed, I wonder what difference an i875P-based system with 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB P4, 1GB DDR400 memory, HT and PAT enabled, WinXPPro will make.

[simon1987]

so does tmpgic give better results then cce?

sorry for posting this in the wrong forum.

[FT Shark]

TMGEnc for me as well.

However, I have read many things that suggest CCE is better with overall quality and speed. Now I chose TMPGEnc for the cost, free for MPEG-1 and $50 for the full version. CCE at the time I bought TMPGEnc was around $2000. Has anyone tried the latest CCE Basic? Its around $58, I wonder if it has the same qualities as the SP and Pro versions which cost so much more.

[lordsmurf]

TMPGEnc, Procoder and MainConcept ... no CCE anywhere on my list.

[Bodysurf]

And is CCE worth the price?

For progressive material (e.g., commercial DVD-Videos), CCE-SP is my favorite. No other software encoder I have used produces such high quality and such a high speed. CCE-Basic at $58 is well worth the price if you work with progressive material.

For interlaced material, a lot of them are pretty good. My favorite is Mainconcept's MPEG encoder most of the time because it's so well integrated and included with Sony's Vegas v4.0 (my NLE of choice).

[vcddude]

My fave used to be TMPGenc. Still is the best for VCD. Now I do DVDs. I tried CCE and liked the speed but wasn't impressed with the quality.

Now my fave is absolutely Canopus ProCoder Express. Provides the best quality overall IMO and is easy to use as well.

vcddude

[abudguy]

Vegas v4.0 (my NLE of choice).

What do you mean by NLE??? I couldn't find that in the Glossary of Terms here at dvdrhelp.com.

Thanks.

abudguy

[BJ_M]

Vegas v4.0 (my NLE of choice).

What do you mean by NLE??? I couldn't find that in the Glossary of Terms here at dvdrhelp.com.

Thanks.

abudguy

"Non Linear Editor" - as in video editing software

[tjshadyluvr]

mine had definatly has to be main concept mpeg encoder. i have kinda a slow computer and it is the fastest encoder i have used so far. tmpegenc is ok but it takes me 20 hours for it to convert one file. as for main concept it take me 5 hours for one file. big difference. it also has good quality encoding. it is my #1 choice.

[racer-x]

I have to say Mainconcept. Tempenc is OK, but I like MAINCONCEPT Quality and speed. In fact since I've been using Mainconcept, I've never gone back to TEMPEnc.

For the record, I use Mainconcept Standalone v1.4 and use the highest Quality settings.

[tigerman8u]

main concept for speed and easy to use
tmpgenc plus, only if i need extra settings plus easy to use
to my eye both appear to be of equal quality

[Tommyknocker]

TMPGEnc Plus. 'Nuff said! (This should have been a poll, with the Tgpo option being, "None, Tgpo won't let me until I pay him protection money")

[racer-x]

Hey Tommyknocker,

If you're worried about that skinny little TGPO putting the hurt on you, Then you must be some sorry little f**ker.

And I always thought you were a Ulead kind of guy?

[Tommyknocker]

Those are the ones who are the most dangerous. You never see them coming...until it's too late.

[vhelp]

I'm w/ TMPG. I love it's multi-configure'ability'features'packed'ness etc etc.

..and, for the 1$ or 2% difference in quality (cce vs. tmpg) (if one could really
notice, by close scrutinal viewing of every pixel and macro-block) is it really
worth spending $2k for it, even if speed was twice that ?? I don't know.
I should have my head examined if I gotta spend $2k, so I can encode all
my projects, and all I'm gonna see (mostly friends if any) is 1 or 2 percent
difference, and again, if I only look for them

I can deal w/ it's slowness becaues I'm not running a "factory" of rentals
or tv captures, every day, day in and day out. So, speed is really not an
issue w/ me.. plus, I feel I get the quality out of it (based upon my level of
skills and techniques - of which is always the missing key-element)

The way I look at it is like this.. if CCE is $2k:
* it better out-perform a hardware device (ie, DVC-II, PVR-250/350 etc, and etc etc)
* It also needs some improvements in it's GUI user operation.
* reduced price tag.
* and a few more nonsense issues.
.
.
Also, for a CCE vs. TMPG, it should better outperform TMPG hands
down (of which it does not - based on my experience w/ cce) It would leave
no room for a $50 TMPG to breath over in any feature or encoding
mechanism and quality. In other words, it should leave TMPG in the dust
in all forms of encoding projects.. be it VHS; LD; DVD's; Captures
etc etc.

TMPG for me, and all the way,
-vhelp

[vhelp]

@ BJ_M..

We would love to see another (part 2) all out Encoding Quality comparison
just like you did last year.

Yeah, it's time for another comparison challenge. (for our refrence and
appetite)

What'da ya say ??

-vhelp

[Craig Tucker]

vhelp, I believe you can get a version of cce for $58

[vhelp]

@ Craig..

yeah, but I think that whenever people talk about cce, they are talking about
the full product (generically speaking) The $58 one is a stripped down ver
of the full product, hence limited tweakings and quality.

What I'm saying, is that for a long itme now, the "standard" was always the
full version of cce. And, that is the "aim" that I was refereing to

.. "yea, cce 's better then TMPG" ..

Are they saying the $58 toy, or the $2k ??
As you know, there is no $2k TMPG out their true ??

-vhelp

[Craig Tucker]

I guess that would need clarification. I have never used CCE, so I don't know its capabilities, either the $58 or $2000 version. Are the encodes of the "lite" version inferior ?. Are you paying all that extra money for extra features or a commercial license.

By the way I am not a steep rugged rock or cliff

[Rookie64]

I should have my head

Vhelp, you crack me up

examined if I gotta spend $2k, so I can encode all
my projects, and all I'm gonna see (mostly friends if any) is 1 or 2 percent
difference, and again, if I only look for them

Yea, just who are we supposed to be impressing with all these pricey things...I'm about the only person who even sees my final results
For that price, it better do laundry, dishes, windows and resolve all audio sync and TBC problems

The worst of is, you spend all that money, and a month later some other program comes along that outdoes all the others.


Either Vegas 4.0 w/ Mainconcept or TMPGnc Plus - if I decide to get creative, otherwise, I just adjust the video with MMC and do a direct MPEG2 capture without going through any conversions.
Lordsmurf has a great guide on his site for MPEG-VCR - a program that'll cut the frames you don't want...without any converting involved.
Works fine for me

[vcd4ever]

The only mpeg encoder i'm using is tmpgenc. I have tried many mpeg encoders and tmpgenc has produced the best quality imo when encoding to the vcd format (yes, i'm still using vcd's ).

vcd4ever.

[vhelp]

TGIF video crazed peoples
.
.
yes, and I'd also like to point a few "key" elements here on the relm of
quality. Technique!! This has various ranges.. from

* user skills levels
* know your source.., your methods will reflect your end result(s)
* software usabiliity and tweak'able'ness
* eye for detail (has it's range as well)
* know when to quit (comprimise)
* what to take advantage of (ranges too)
* and so on and so forth.

But then, this goes for every Encoder app out there. But then, TMPG has it
all in features and tweaks.

Cheers too all, and to all a great new year :P

From the Video Workstation of,
-vhelp 2195