What is the "best" freeware MPEG-2 DVD Spec encoder?

[FulciLives]

Well the topic says it all ...

What is the "best" freeware MPEG-2 DVD Spec encoder?

I have tried QuEnc based on some suggestions a while back but compared to CCE I found QuEnc to be vastly inferior ... for instance I had noticeable macroblocks on the output compared to the same source (same AviSynth script) using CCE. This was a fairly "clean" source with a decent bitrate and using 2-pass VBR with each encoder so I don't know why QuEnc had the macroblocks issue (it was as you might assume on fast action sequences).

Now I have CCE but I was thinking of writing a guide on this thing I wanna do and I thought it might be "neat" to go with a freeware MPEG-2 DVD Spec encoder for the guide. Hence my question.

So please suggest something you experts :P

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[lordsmurf]

I don't think there is one. I gave up.

[FulciLives]

I don't think there is one. I gave up.

heh.

Perhaps.

I heard such good things about QuEnc but it turned out to be blah ... maybe I'll try HC or FreeEnc although FreeEnc just sounds like a clone of QuEnc so I dunno.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[lordsmurf]

They remind me of BBMPEG, similar to TMPGENC but lower quality. And I'm not a huge fan on the encoding quality of TMPGEnc or CCE. I prefer certain MainConcept engines and Procoder.

[FulciLives]

I'm pretty happy with CCE myself. I've tried MainConcept MPEG encoder but that was ages ago. Procoder I wasn't found of at all when I tried it but again that was ages ago.

My point though is FREEWARE though ...

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dlflannery]

How about gui4ffmpeg? If that is a dumb question, please tell me why -- I'll learn something!

[manono]

Hi-

I was pleasantly surprised with the settings available in, and the output quality of, the HC encoder. AVS and D2V input only, and it's natively YV12, so when reencoding DVDs no colorspace conversion is necessary.

[Timoleon]

HC is excellent, and rivals CCE Basic in head to head comparisons I've done.

[guns1inger]

HC is excellent, and rivals CCE Basic in head to head comparisons I've done

For speed or quality ?

[Bjs]

Bbmpeg ... everything I have encoded to mpeg2 using this encoder , wether it be via aviscripts , frameserving , or directly encoded have never choked in ifoedit , muxman , dvdauthorgui , ulead video studio , nero re-encode , sony vegas movie studio , ulead dvd moviefactory 5 plus , dvd-lab ... do I have some tool's .

Of course it dose mpeg1 / mpeg2 to many standards ... and allows for modifications ... nothing match's this amount of power , and for the price .

Hc and quenc are fine though limited ... super works well as an all-in-one sollution ...

As for all others ... dont even bother when so much well made freeware is available ... just wasting money ... donate it instead .

[Timoleon]

HC is excellent, and rivals CCE Basic in head to head comparisons I've done

For speed or quality ?

Quality

[INFRATOM]

HC is quite good, it is hard to tell the difference with CCE on normal equipment and aging eyes atleast but it takes longer minutes saved worth $50

[FulciLives]

I just tried HC with a downloaded XviD file and the quality turned out very nice but this was a very high quality XviD and it was also short enough in running length that I was able to use a very high bitrate (2-pass with an AVG of 6500kbps and a MAX of 8000kbps) but still the output looks as good as what I think CCE would have done.

I am curious though how HC deals with the MIN since it doesn't ask for that ... only AVG and MAX. I must admit that when using CCE and before that when using TMPGEnc Plus I tried to not set the MIN below 2000kbps and in this example ... where the AVG was 6500kbps ... I would have set the MIN at 2500kbps.

Anyways I will continue to use CCE but I have this new guide I wanted to do and in order to make it as accessible to as many people as possible I wanted to do it with a freeware MPEG-2 encoder.

So I think HC might just be that encoder.

BTW are there any good guides to HC? The only one I found was at doom9 but was very ummm bare bones.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I am going to burn this HC encode to a DVD-R and watch it on my 51" 16x9 WS HDTV but based on sampling it on my 17" CRT computer monitor it looks really nice i.e., I am very impressed with what HC did here.

[FulciLives]

I might have spoken too soon here about HC being so great ...

I just tried to import my M2V into TSUNAMI-MPEG DVD Author Pro and got the dreaded GOP TOO LONG error message.

I had it set to AUTO which seems to have set the GOP LENGTH at 15 ... I loaded the M2V into VirtualDubMod and when I step through it with the KEY FRAME thing it seems to skip in 15 frame intervals. That is normal, right? So why the error message from Tsunami?

The original XivD had a 23.976fps and I let HC do the 3:2 pulldown. Maybe I should NOT let HC do that and just use DGPulldown afterwards?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I am doing the encoding again and this time I am doing everything the same but instead of using the AUTO GOP setting (which set the GOP to 15, 2) I am manually setting the GOP to 12, 2 which is correct since the source is 23.976fps ... right?

When you set CCE to 3/4 doesn't that do 12 GOP and the 3/5 setting do a 15 GOP setting?

Damn I am getting all confused now LOL

[ntscuser]

I might have spoken too soon here about HC being so great ...

I just tried to import my M2V into TSUNAMI-MPEG DVD Author Pro and got the dreaded GOP TOO LONG error message.

Good point. I do most of my authoring in TDA so using TMPGEnc is a definite advantage.

The original XivD had a 23.976fps and I let HC do the 3:2 pulldown. Maybe I should NOT let HC do that and just use DGPulldown afterwards?

A free encoder that works well with DG Pulldown would be great.

[lordsmurf]

Fulci, as a point of reference, I've tried many times to make guides for a 100% freeware/donationware method, but had to give up each time. Something always sucked along the line. And in most cases, spending as little as $40-100 made a much better results (usually the encoder and the authorware).

I would not go lower than TMPGEnc on the price/quality scale, and I would not bother with anything lower than TDA or SVCD2DVD on the price/quality scale.

I wish you well, all the same. But don't be surprised if your purely freeware methods falter. It's one of the few times when the cliche "you get what you pay for" seems to still be true.

[steveryan]

I did a little test between HC and CCE and the results were pretty even, CCE wins down on speed but quality wise it was close. If I get the time tomorrow i'll post my settings and a couple of samples.

[FulciLives]

I did the encode again and fixed the goofed up GOP settings from before and again the quality was very nice. So far I am happy with HCenc as a freeware solution.

My suggestion is to force set the GOP structure to 12, 2 when encoding progressive 23.976fps NTSC material rather than the AUTO GOP setting which got it wrong. I'm guessing the AUTO GOP setting is OK for interlaced 29.970fps NTSC material (knock on wood) otherwise force it to 15, 2 for that kind of material.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Robert Simandl]

I've been a longtime TMPGEnc user and wanted to try my hand at Avisynth for a while.

Using the scripts generated by The FilmMachine as a starter template, I created a script to take my DV copy of an old Italian horror flick (recorded from the Independent Film Channel with a Canopus ADVC-100), convert to YV12, do an IVTC, crop the black letterbox bars off the top and bottom, and resize to 720x480.

I then loaded this script into HC, entered the max and average bitrates given by this site's bitrate calculator, picked Best profile, chose 16x9 aspect ratio, enabled pulldown, scene change, autogop, closed gops, and preview.

Just under 5 hours later, I had an m2v file that I couldn't tell apart from the original broadcast (that was still sitting on my DirecTivo).

For a comparison, I loaded the same script into TMPGEnc Plus and tweaked the settings to be identical to HC's. Results were also very hard to tell apart from the original broadcast. But TMPGEnc took over 12 hours for the same job.

But I had the same problem as Fulcilives. When I loaded the final m2v file into TMPGEnc DVD Author, TDA gave me an error message stating the GOPs are too long. The m2v from TMPGEnc Plus did not give this error message.

[manono]

Hehe, I never got the error message as I set the GOPs for 12/2 the first time. I don't trust auto settings. Besides, Hank315 is European, and might not have a full understanding of NTSC pulldown and how it affects GOP length. Everything worked right the first time, and as I said before, I was very pleased with the output. I've never used TMPGEnc (with that report of how long it takes, I'm glad I haven't), but it seems that HC takes almost twice as long as does CCE. Its 2 passes take almost as long as 4 passes in CCE (VAF plus 3 more). One very nice touch it has is the inclusion of a ton of different quantisation matrices from which to choose. Unlike CCE where, if you want to use one different from what's included, you have to type in the numbers, HC includes some good ones you just click on to use. Even its default MPEG Standard Matrix is better than the Standard Matrix which is the default in CCE (and every other encoder).

Check this out, FulciLives:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=117438

[vhelp]

Evening everyone

Fulci,

I you can wait till I finish developing my MPEG Encoder, you can use it
for your new guide -- but you'll be waiting a long time
(I'm being serious)

Course, mine will be more or less catored toward CBR. But, I think that
it will be slower than TMPGenc, cause I am not too bright when it comes
to things such as optimization strategies. But, who knows. Until then,
keep you eye open..

-vhelp 4119

[FulciLives]

Evening everyone

Fulci,

I you can wait till I finish developing my MPEG Encoder, you can use it
for your new guide -- but you'll be waiting a long time
(I'm being serious)

Course, mine will be more or less catored toward CBR. But, I think that
it will be slower than TMPGenc, cause I am not too bright when it comes
to things such as optimization strategies. But, who knows. Until then,
keep you eye open..

-vhelp 4119

Well as I understand it HCenc really doesn't do CBR ... only 2-pass VBR so ... that leaves a special niche for your MPEG Encoder.

But I ain't waiting forever now LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[soundforbjt]

I had the same problem with TDA reporting the GOPs as too long. This is a bug with TDA. If you load the same m2v in DVDLab, you won't get that message. If you ignore the message in TDA and author, the resulting dvd will play just fine. But like FulciLives, I now set the GOP manually instead of auto in HC.

Try a low bitrate encode with HC versus CCE Basic and you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results. HC handles low bitrates better than CCE.

[vcddude]

I think you need to pay for a good encoder. I used to use TMPGEnc but now I use both CCE and Procoder Express. CCE is the fastest while Procoder provides more flexibility in terms of multiple format conversion.

Regarding quality, I honestly don't see any difference in DVD MPEG-2 output between CCE 2.7 Basic and Procoder Express. CCE is the fastest and most convenient for my needs (converting Tivo captures and home video to DVD)..

Kevin

[FulciLives]

Well I have TMPGEnc Plus and I have CCE and so far I have been damn impressed with the quality I get from HCenc although I've only ever used the current version (v0.19.1) so maybe past versions were only so-so but this version kicks some serious ass ... as I have discovered on my own through testing it etc.

So for anyone that doesn't have a MPEG-2 encoder or you want to try something different ... give this one a try.

It does seem to have some bugs though so I will share what I have discovered.

When encoding 23.976fps progressive NTSC it is best to not use the AUTO GOP setting and instead set it manually to 12-2 and if encoding 29.970fps interlaced NTSC again set it manually but use 15-2 as your setting instead of 12-2. In short I wouldn't trust the AUTO GOP setting ever.

I use the 3:2 Pulldown option when encoding 23.976fps progressive NTSC but it doesn't seem to work correctly. Running the output through DGPulldown (using of course the 23.976fps to 29.970fps option) seems to work.

Other than those quirks (no biggie really) I am very happy with this MPEG-2 encoder.

Please note I have not used it for anything other than Full D1 NTSC encoding ... at least so far.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[vhelp]

Post removed on account of last comment (below)

-vhelp 4137

[ntscuser]

Posters seem to have lost track of the original purpose of this thread which as I understand it was to suggest a program which could be included in a list of totally free tools to be used with an online "how to" guide.

[Bjs]

ntscuser ... that should have said "some" posters .

The tool's I mentioned for encoding are freeware , and I have guide's "online" that explain most of the general knowledge for bbmpeg encoding for dvd .

[ntscuser]

ntscuser ... that should have said "some" posters .

I very much beg your pardon

[garth1138]

Well the topic says it all ...

What is the "best" freeware MPEG-2 DVD Spec encoder?

I know I'm new here, but this is the original poster's question. Frankly, I am enjoying this discussion as I am also trying to find a way to produce the best output using _some_ Mpeg encoder. (You can see my thread here.) I have access to all those encoders listed here and I am finding this discussion, and the testing done by FulciLives to be very informing. This thread could be a guide in itself

Remember, "best" is always subjective until you can back it up with proof. Even then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


-garth