My take on various MPEG encoders

[vcddude]

Well, I've tried them all, here is my take:

- MainConcept 1.4 - Good quality and speed, but has audio/video sync
problems when encoding to elemental m2v/wav streams.

- CCE - Doesn't work for me at all, always encodes a mess of garbled
multicolored blocks.

- Canopus Procoder - The best quality, but seems to have a serious
bug where the encoding rate slows down so that encodes take
forever. Last night I tried to encode a 1hr 20min DV AVI in 2pass
VBR mode at high quality setting -- it estimated 5 hours to complete.
When I checked it in the morning, it was not even 25% complete
and was estimating an additional 18 hours to completion (and had
already been encoding for 10 hours!). Not usable at all. Tests
on short clips showed no audio/video sync problems when encoding
to elemental streams. Also very expensive. Too bad because
the quality is excellent -- the best I have seen.

- TMPGEnc Pro - The best choice for price and quality. Reliable but
slow. I've been looking for faster alternatives but it looks like
TMPGEnc is still the best way to go.

I don't know why I have had nothing but bad luck with the others,
but TMPGEnc is the choice for me.

Anyone else have the same Procoder problem I saw and have a
fix? I'd like to use Procoder but this problem makes it unusable
and even the Canopus forums don't describe a fix other than "get
a faster PC" and I already have a good PC -- 2.4GHz Intel P4, 200GB
HDD, and 512MB RAM.

vcddude

[johns0]

I`ve tried all those encoders and they all work fine for me,i prefer cce cause its the fastest with good quality but also use tmpgenc for the easy use of its filters and clipping and cropping.

[lordsmurf]

No problems with Canopus here. Works great.

[g_shocker182]

If I remember an article posted here somewhere by BJ_M it said that TMPGEnc was in fact the best in terms of quality and overall efficiency for the price.

[BJ_M]

If I remember an article posted here somewhere by BJ_M it said that TMPGEnc was in fact the best in terms of quality and overall efficiency for the price.

that was awhile ago ... but still holds true if you are looking for the swiss army knife of encoders ... its still really great value ...

since then main concept, CCE and a few other encoders have released new versions at price points that are more in line with tmpgenc ...

CCE SP gets mentioned a lot but I wager if a few other 1000-2000$ ++
encoders were so "available" -- they would also be considered great (in some cases - not , hahaha - some are pretty lame)

[vcddude]

Okay, how weird is this?

I forgot to mention I am runningWin XP SP1 and I saw an old
post here stating that CCE 2.50 SP has a problem with Win XP.

I just discovered that CCE 2.50 SP on XP will NOT properly
encode files that are simply dropped into CCE, but it WILL
correctly encode files that are frameserved via VirtualDub.

Go figure.

At least now I know how to get it working again.
Anyone else have XP issues with CCE 2.5 SP?

Thanks,
vcddude

[Adder_78]

The OPV is nice feature in CCE SP... It's shame that it's not in the CCE basic too...

[bode]

@vcddude

I tried Procoder for the first time tonight, great interface!

I encoded a 20 minute DV file with no problems. Did you have it set at Best or Master quality?

It reports that encoding will take 10-20 times longer in the master mode. So it obviously has difficulty in estimating times when times are lengthy.

[vcddude]

My encode was a 1hr 20min DV AVI in 2pass VBR mode at high quality setting -- it estimated 5 hours to complete.

When I checked it in the morning, it was not even 25% complete and was estimating an additional 18 hours to completion (and had already been encoding for 10 hours!). I gave up on it.

Have you tried a 60min+ encode?

vcddude

[jledhead]

CCE is the best IMO if you are trying to make highquality stuff. by itself it is hard to use, but if you frameserve to it with vdub or avsynth then it is the best, again IMO.

easiest way to use CCE is with dvd2svcd, it can take DV, AVI, and dvd input and then use CCE as the encoder.

[bode]

My encode was a 1hr 20min DV AVI in 2pass VBR mode at high quality setting -- it estimated 5 hours to complete.

When I checked it in the morning, it was not even 25% complete and was estimating an additional 18 hours to completion (and had already been encoding for 10 hours!). I gave up on it.

Have you tried a 60min+ encode?

vcddude

I am still testing, so haven't tried anything long yet. Do you need to use 2 pass? How about CBR?

Try the Canopus forums:

http://forum.canopus.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=ProCoder

[DaveS]

Anyone else have the same Procoder problem I saw and have a fix? I'd like to use Procoder but this problem makes it unusable
and even the Canopus forums don't describe a fix other than "get
a faster PC" and I already have a good PC -- 2.4GHz Intel P4, 200GB
HDD, and 512MB RAM.

vcddude

vcddude - just wondering, were you running any filters in procoder? I've noticed that w/ even the single pixel noise reduction filter, encodes take signficiantly longer (fwiw I didn't even like its filter - too strong).

My PC is similar spec as yours although only 2ghz. I've had it misestimate, but think my longest encode of DV to NTSC DV template mpeg2 has been about 24-30 hours in mastering quality (for somewhere between 1-2 hours - can't recall), less time for others.

I have had it misestimate, but not by that much. Frame rate on encodes seems to slow to 7fps in mastering and anywhere from 14-22fps for lower quality.

I have noticed for 2pass encodes that until it's taken the full first pass, it doesn't estimate as well. Once the progress bar hits 50%, it's taken the analysis pass and after it gets a frame rate for the conversion, that estimate seems to hold.

As a test, I would try encoding a small portion of your file w/ CBR, using the same settings, filters, etc. as you did for your VBR and see how long the whole file would take in CBR.

Also, again, are you using any of it's filters? Also, be sure to uncheck (e.g. turn off) the video preview).

[vcddude]

Nope, no filters. I will try a CBR encode in ProCoder to see what happens, but at this point I am inclined to stick with TMPGEnc... This has become a hassle and its not clear it's worth it... Thanks for the tips!

vcddude