New Ligos 2.0 release - excellent results!

[ninja.rogue]

I have first tried then bought the last Ligos 2.0 Premiere plugin release.
It is very fast - as fast as CCE on my P4 1.9 w/512mb Rambus
I have been using CQ setting, with Q set at 2, and indeed I have final Bitrate viewer results of average Q as low as 2.5 - 3.
Using on the same DV AVI source file other encoders, like CCE or Tmpgenc 2.54a, with enabled filters for noise (both in CCE and in Tmpgenc) leaves me with files having a much higher value for Q - from 6 to 7.
Image quality is perfectly crisp, and the program does support Premiere chapter markers in the case you want to use them to set scene changes!
Are there any other users experimenting this?
I am curious about the fact that everybody is not commenting LSX as an encoder...
Let me know
Cheers

[Anonymous65]

I also found this about their new Gomotion encoder:

In addition to the new codecs, Ligos has also made a number of major quality and performance enhancements to the original GoMotion.MPG codec for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. One of the most exciting advances that will be shown at NAB2002 is Ligos' unique method of encoding a standard MPEG-2 stream at near-DVD quality at only 1 Mbit/sec. This "holy grail" of MPEG encoding opens a range of possibilities for DVD-Video, personal video recorder, and broadcast and networked video applications.

Wow, near DVD quality at 1Mb/sec! You should then be able to put a 2 hour movie on a single SVCD disk with pretty good quality...

[SVCDUser]

I have doubts that the encoder will get near DVD-Quality. This depends on the quality of input material! I suppose DV AVI will be fine, but others not!

[AmeliaK]

So let me get this right . . . the new Ligos Premiere enables you to output your time line direct from premier at better quality than encoding the time line with TMPEnc ??

Is this correct?

Best Regards
Amelia

[AmeliaK]

Just tried it out and I personally think TMPEnc encodes better. I must admit that it is much better than when I first tried out their codec (a couple of year ago now).

Best Regards
Amelia

[alfa1234]

Hi,

Where did you buy the Ligos 2 plug? As from last night the Ligos Web site(www.ligos.com) is unavailable.Thanks for your info

[AmeliaK]

Looks like their site is down . . . or gone

Regards
Amelia

[Bobzilla]

I'm also a bit disappointed that no one else seems that impressed with the new LSX plugin. I guess because most folks here prefer standalone encoders, or frameserving to Premiere if they have to use it. Or maybe they're just too entrenched with the "CCE vs Tmpgenc" arguments.

But I got my upgrade for LSX 2 for AP with a special they had last week, and it's turned out to be the best encoder in my toolkit. They must have made some *major* changes in the past few months, because the new version rocks in both speed and quality improvements. Not so impressed with MPEG-4, but I suspect that's MPEG-4 and not LSX. I haven't seen any MPEG-4 yet that seems worth the trouble.

Worth noting that it is now version 2.01, they posted a patch the other day with a few fixes. Anyway, I highly recommend this new LSX. I'd love to see a new standalone (DirectShow compatible), but most of my projects are in Premiere anyway. It really gives CCE (even in multipass) a run for its money, and I get far better results with it than Tmpgenc.

[AmeliaK]

Hi Bobzilla,

I don't know, but I guess I must have missed something. When I tried it the results were far better than the version that came with my Matrox Marvel G-400TV (over a year ago), even so I didn't get near the quality of TMPGEnc.

I may have to give it another go and see how I go with it.

Best Regards
Amelia

[mb1]

Even LSX plugin 2.01 has its old 'disadvantages':

- bitrate in Kbps not kbps
- no alternate scan order for interlaced encoding
- always sets nominal bitrate to 104857200 Bit/Sec while encoding to mpeg1 vbr which is completely wrong

and some more findings ...

regards
mb1

[Jaspa]

i like the ligos lsx plugin, for making one pass vbr svcd´s
with an max bitrate set to 2500kb/s and an average bitrate to 2100kb/s
and have good quality movies,and the best is most movies with a max playtime about 100 minutes,can get to 2 Cd´s.

I have the ligos lsx2.0 suite,but no mpeg4 conversion in it.

are there newer versions avalible? and when,are the svcd encoder ingines better or the same?

[Anonymous65]

Even at 6000Kb/sec, Mpeg-4 looks poor. I just don't see any quality in mpeg-4, and the artifacts are really annoying.

[mb1]

@ skittelsen

Maybe you did not notice that mpeg4 in ligos plugin supports maximum "simple profile" level 3.

This means max resolution of 352x288, 384 kbps.
So what quality do you expect ??

regards
mb1

[Anonymous65]

I did not use the Ligos Mpeg-4 plugin, I used another mpeg-4 encoder that could do 720x480 at 6Mb/sec. The quality was poor compared to mpeg-2.

[mb1]

Hmmm, must miss something. Always thought we´re talking about Ligos 2.0x plugin in this thread.

If you are stating that mpeg4 generally looks poor with lots of artifacts then you did use the wrong codec and/or settings.
But you only give the information that it looks poor at 6.000 kbps.
Mpeg4 never reaches 6.000 kbps it is saturated long before ...
Also nobody uses 720x480 for mpeg4 encoding.

How about trying Nandub, Vidomi and XviD ...

regards
mb1

[jolo]

Ligos users. I'm trying it but .... how do you encode when the original has a frame rate of 23.976 ?