Cinema Craft Basic now out: $58 bucks!!

[Timoleon]

see this link:

http://www.visiblelight.com/mall/products/cinemacraft/CCEB.asp

the features list sounds very nice! Fifty-eight dollars is certainly more reasonable than two thousand dollars... :P

[hwoodwar]

I saw that the other day, but I thought this "may" be another name for Adobe Premier plugin since under system requirements it states "Adobe Premiere 6.0 or 6.5 for plug-in".

Somebody please clarify.

[SaSi]

I am downloading the test-drive version now. From reading through the specs, it appears that it is a cut down version of the SP encoder. Major difference is it doesn't do multiple pass VBR encoding. It's limited to 2 pass (like Tmpgenc). It can be used as a plug-in for Premier, however it states it can encode AVI and MOV files like CCE SP.

Anyway, I will try it out and report back.

[hwoodwar]

I've downloaded/am running it right now 2-pass VBR on a very short file. It definitely does not require Adobe Premeire, I was wrong.

[Thorn]

Wow, Cinemacraft is finally trying to compete with TMPGenc for the general consumers(at least those that pay for software)... Of course I already have TMPGenc plus but if this really is just SP with only 2 passes, I may need to get this eventually too.

[hwoodwar]

Thorn:

I haven't finished testing with it, but I found a page at Cinema Craft with a little more information on it. That page says it is meant to replace Cinema Craft Encoder Lite, which they are discontinueing.

See the first section here:

http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/topic.html#04

[BJ_M]

this is really amaizing ... huge re-thinking on someones part .. i guess main concept and tmpgenc caused this indirectly or directly ....

[RabidDog]

tmpgenc excellent BUT if this does everything it does with the added speed ... then here I come !!
Does anybody have any speed readings ... eg is it as fast.. or even faster than the older full price CCE??
Does it do the first ntsc resolution and the SECOND RESOLUTION (pal) at UNrestricted sizes??

[JCO]

Just downloaded the trial version and it encoded a 2 min. clip with 1 pass cbr in about 3 minutes - much faster than the 7 minutes it took TMPGEnc to encode the same clip. The quality also seemed better with a much sharper picture when played back on my TV.

[hwoodwar]

First let me say this is the first time I have ever used any version of CCE. So my knowledge of the previous versions is zilch.

CCE Basic does not have a template to directly create SVCDs or CVDs using 2-Pass VBR. That being said using the MPEG-2 profile I was able to get it to work with certain resolution constraints. All of the resolutions used, looked for and tested were for NTSC.

1. To use 2-Pass VBR to create an SVCD compliant MPEG, the original avi file must already be at SVCD resolution, 480 x 480 and you must uncheck DVD Video Compliance (on the Advanced Video Settings page.)

2. To use 2-Pass VBR to create an CVD compliant MPEG, the original avi file must already be at CVD (352 x 480), or 704 x 480 resolution. If it is already at CVD resolution just uncheck DVD Video Compliance. If the input file is 704 x 480 resolution you must uncheck DVD Video Compliance and check Half Horizontal Resolution.

3. You can resize the resolution of the input file (if not already 720 x 480) when using 2-Pass VBR to create a 720 x 480 resolution file for XSVCDs by leaving the DVD Video Compliance, checkbox, checked, and also make sure Half Horizontal Resolution and Half Vertical Resolution are not checked.

4. To use the MPEG-2 profile to keep the resolution you had from the original avi file, uncheck DVD Video Compliance, and also make sure Half Horizontal Resolution and Half Vertical Resolution are not checked.

Encoding times on my best system (listed in my "Computer Details") were close very close to 1:1 per pass. This is a 3-minute time limited demo. So, I made a 2 minute 40 second capture file and tested with it. It took about 2:50 per pass, or about 5 minutes 40 seconds to encode each time I used the 2-Pass VBR

I did and still do have some motion affects (jerkiness.) I didn't see any place for field order. It's probably called something different in this version. I'm sure someone else here at DVDRhelp will figure it out.

Image quality is comparable to TMPGenc 2-Pass VBR and I also suspect it is comparable to 2-Pass VBR created by other CCE versions.

I will experiment some more on Friday.

[Antonio S.]

Sometime things arrives too late. To be succesfull you have to be in the correct place at the correct time...

We are living now the "DVD2one/InstantCopy Period"...

Antonio S.

[suerpflysocal]

"We are leaving now the "DVD2one/InstantCopy Period"..."

you are kidding, right? apples and oranges

[Xtasy2002]

More speed tests please.

I would like to see some more comparisons between this and TMPGEnc. How does it compare to TMPGEnc on high quality encoding? 1/2 DV1? Etc.

[Antonio S.]

@suerpflysocal:

Sorry for my bad english!!!

I should said:
"We are living now the "DVD2one/InstantCopy Period"...

Antonio S.

[Capt Peachfuzz]

@ Antonio S.

I don't think suerpflysocal was talking about your English. CCE Basic is an encoder. It does not do the same things that DVD2one or InstantCopy do (i.e. back-up existing DVDs).

P.S. Furthermore, not all of us are living in the "DVD2one/InstantCopy Period". There isn't enough flexibility in either product to make me want to switch from using IFOEdit yet.

[Fredd]

I gave a try at CCEB, and found out that... my work does not benefit of its speed (or so little) compared to TMPGenc. It took me 15 minutes to encode 3 minutes in half D1, 2 pass VBR.
The reason is I frameserve from Virtualdub with filters, and it feeds the encoder at around 10 fps. I think TMPGenc can handle it realtime on my 1.1 Ghz Athlon, as does CCE.

Maybe I would gain significant amout of time if CCEB had a 1pass VBR or CQ mode like TMPGenc.

[Thorn]

We are living now the "DVD2one/InstantCopy Period...

No... not all of us are simply copying or backing up work that others made. Some of us need to encode new video that we've created ourselves (such as DV camcorder material or analog capture) so a high quality encoder is important. DVD copy utilities are worthless to me and any video professional (which wouldn't really include me...) for encoding new video.

[sammie]

I know they've been burned with all the cracked versions floating around, but 3 minutes encode for the demo??????? I'd like to see at least 10 min or half an hour. I'll try this weekend, but I hope lots of people post feedback here. It will be kind of hard to make judgements on the demo I'm afraid.

[Vejita-sama]

CCE doesn't have resizing or filters build in. Most people frameserve to CCE from/with AVISynth. AVISynth is freeware and a great program. So if your source isn't in the correct resolution you can resize, but it takes an extra step. As stated CCE doesn't come with 'default templates.'

CCE is MUCH faster than TMPGenc and IMHO does a better job at MPEG2 encodes, YMMV.

[sammie]

.... actually, probably the key thing we need to know is, is the Basic version the same core encoder and algorithms? The interface looks pretty much the same, if the rest, other than some limitations is the same then we'll probably all be happy.

[SaSi]

CCE doesn't have resizing or filters build in. Most people frameserve to CCE from/with AVISynth. AVISynth is freeware and a great program. So if your source isn't in the correct resolution you can resize, but it takes an extra step. As stated CCE doesn't come with 'default templates.'

I think CCE can do a limited resize. If you have a widescreen AVI and select a DAR16:1 with a 720x576 (for PAL) resolution, then black stripes will be inserted and the aspect ration will be preserved. However, it doesn't have Tmpgenc's free aspect ratio and resize functionality.

[Baldrick]

Sasi: Aspect ratio is not the same as resizing(or add borders or crop). You cant use any letterboxed movie as source in cce. The source must have same resolution as the format you are going to convert to.

(And when you post please deselect the "disable bbcode in this post" or else quotes or any bbcode wont work as they should. )

[Fredd]

CCE basic has an option in the video advanced settings called "Half horizontal resolution". I think this can give Half D1 resolution but didn't work for me, I just got garbage display...
Case study:
Quality wise, I think it's good; the 3 minutes file, PAL D1 in 2 pass VBR of a music live performance was 71 MB. To my eyes, very satisfying, maybe with visible pixels in dark areas, as often.
A night before testing CCEB, I had encoded the whole footage (Music Planet 2nite on French/German TV, anyone watching at this?) in PAL D2 with TMPGenc in CQ 65 and obtained a 1GB file for 59 minutes in around 4 hours (estimated by the encoder... then I went to sleep...).
So a quick approximation... 71/3*59 = 1400 MB. Geee... why should I keep encoding in half res? But as I stated, these 3 minutes were encoded in 15, so... 59/3*15 = 5 hours. Well, in my case, I woud get TV-like quality in 40% more space and 25% more time than what I do at the moment with TMPGenc. And I still can fit 3 hours on a DVD. Interesting!

[jolo]

One of the things that could be changing with CCE is their relationship with Adobe.

Adobe is now in business with Mainconcept.

In Adobe Premier 6.5, there is an encoder in it called The Adobe MPEG Encoder. That encoder is the Mainconcept encoder.

Now Maincept is selling their encoder as a standalone, which is a new market for them. It is $50 for Adobe Premier users and $149 for the rest of us.
You can download a demo from Mainconcept and it is 30 days unlimited, but there you see a little stamp in the corner saying MainConcept in the output file.

I would love to evaluate the new CCE encoder, but it sounds like a bit of a hassle to use. I would like to hear from some people who have encoded full movies and see how they operate, including for tech support.

Jon

[SaSi]

I did some tests with CCE(Basic). Compared with CCE SP (v.2.62) and using the same input AVI (hufyuv 2.1.1), and the same encoding settings (CBR @ 5Mbps), CCE SP appears to be faster. I get a 0.5 average speed with CCE B but 1.0 or higher with CCE SP. Encoding quality is equaly good. VBR encoding appears to be faster in CCE B, meaning the gap in speed between CCE B and CCE SP is smaller. Encoding quality is good also.

The above are very early results based on encoding a 2 minute segment out of an X-Files episode.

[Frontier]

Only one problem with TMPGenc - it's anything but compatible. VCDeasy + our DVD player (Nintaus 9901) simply won't play the MPEG's from TMPGenc, audio is constantly 2-3 seconds out of sync. No problems what so ever with Cinemacraft.

I haven't tested CCE basic yet, but if it works just as well as the SP edition, I'll buy it a.s.a.p. - the price is simply right! :)

/Frontier