Anybody tried Canopus ProCoder ?

[Fifou]

Anybody tried this piece of software ? Anybody compared it to TmpgEnc or cinemacraft ?
Let me know ...

[BJ_M]

get the demo and try it ..

[montythedog]

Search for Procoder. I found 54 entries just in this Forum alone - some of which answer your question.

[strangezero]

Fifou....

I use procoder to encode my dv avi files to mpeg2 for dvd-r....

I used cce & tmpeg and i think that Procoder in HIGHEST QUALITY setting and 2pass vbr is the best thing outhere!!!

I recommend it to u

[strangezero]

But....... The bad thing is that it's the slowest 2

[BJ_M]

cant be slower than Cleaner .. that program is so slow you might as well go on vacation and come back and it might be done .. its just as slow on a mac also . no wonder its been sold to 3 different companies in 3 years .

[strangezero]

My system is P4 2GHZ, 768 DDR/266 RAM, and 2 MAXTOR ATA133 (40GB each) connected on controller.

My source video is in d: drive and the destination in c: drive.

My settings are 2pass VBR at HIGHEST QUALITY, 8500-9000 bitrate, 10 precision quality.

My videos are ALWAYS 60minutes (no more than 60min).

Time of encoding with PROCODER ------ > 10 hours and 30 minutes.

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Quality is GREAT so i don't mind the time

[Arky]

What follows is specifically related to the MPEG encoding of PAL DVcam firewire AVI files, and to 720x576 PAL DVD-compliant files.

TMPGEnc is superbly flexible and creates great quality files, but if you are creating standard specification files, with no resizing, and no filtering or cropping, then I do not believe the time TMPGEnc takes is justified, in comparison to ProCoder.

I agree that ProCoder does a superb job with DV AVI files when used in Mastering setting, but I still tend to choose CCE for my encoding instead. Why?

Well, CCE is 99% as good as ProCoder, 10 times as fast, allows greater VBR manipulation in between passes, and (this is the contentious part!), I believe it creates a marginally sharper image than ProCoder's mastering setting.

It is my belief (based entirely on subjective analysis of encoded files from both encoders) that ProCoder achieves it's excellent results because I suspect it applies very fine and subtle image filtering/smoothing (perhaps an extremely fine median blur?) to the source footage prior to encoding it. This allows the MPEG encoding process to work more efficiently and creates a 'cleaner' looking output. However, the downside is that some image sharpness is traded off.

If time is not limited; if the subject being filmed does not include fine details (such as grass, for instance); and if the duration does not require 'squeezing' of the footage onto a DVD-R, then the case for using ProCoder instead of CCE becomes stronger, and vice-versa.

Since virtually all my jobs are edited in Edition, and rendered automatically as I work, I do not feed CCE with interlaced files. In cases where I need to run a captured AVI directly through an encoder, without prior deinterlacing, I tend to favour ProCoder because CCE does not handle bottom-field-first DV files correctly. Other editors may prefer to remain in the interlaced domain, in which case ProCoder may be more appropriate for them. My opinion on this particular point will alter once Custom Technology get their arses into gear and rectify the ludicrous situation of their $2000 encoder not handling bottom-field-first material correctly - that's precisely the number1 main type of file customers will be wishing to transcode!!!

Anyway, that issue notwithstanding, it's a subjective thing. Both encoders are superb and I very much like them both.


Arky ;o)