Main Concept Encoder

[pepegot1]

It's faster than TMPGenc, not as well endowed with features, and cost almost three times as much. If their price was $100.00 less or so, I would get it, but not at that rapacious price. Coding with the Logo is not too bad, as this is what you see on TV. The logo is small and in the upper left hand corner of the screen. When they make it worth $149.00, I will get it logo free.

It encodes very well, perhaps a tad better than TMPGenc, but not worth the monetary difference.
What do you think?

[BJ_M]

well look at it another way - procorder , HEURIS , Ligos and CCE all cost a lot more (or a LOT LOT more) and don't come with "mpeg tools" and some of the other features of tmpgenc (or MC in some cases) either ..

MC does a very good job of encoding and if you delve into its advanced features, has as much as if not more than tmpgenc (which also is very good and a fantastic bargin) encoding settings plus a few additional features , MC's multiplexer is first rate.

TMPGenc has filtering, sizing and a host of other features which make it a complete program which NO other encoder has ..

MC is adding a lot of nice features in its next version come january .. plus they have a huge amount of talent on board there ..

[sammie]

Beat me to it BJ_M....

There are no perfect solutions right now (will there ever be?). TMPEGEnc is definitely the best value out there. Only a slight second to CCE for quality of encode. Plus all the features mentioned. BUT.... it's really, REALLY slow. For some encodes of 50 minute kids Christmas videos at highest quality it's taking close to 32 hours!! But I'm using it because of the quality and features.

For things I won't keep for a long time I'm almost always using MainConcept now. It's as fast or faster than CCE and it's quality is excellent for a one pass encode. I'm holding my breath for the upgrades mentioned by BJ_M. 1.4 is supposed to be a major set of improvements If they deliver on the promise I'm betting it will pass TMPEGEnc as a best value, even at the price difference. I'm also guessing it might eliminate CCE from any use by me except where CCE is hard coded in as the encoder (as it is in several aps).

[EricB]

Well maybe I'm looking at the wrong versions (Premiere 6.5 and Vegas 3.0) but I thought both of those use Mainconcept. To me it seems ok, but not really up to par with TMPGENc.

I tend to use single pass encoding exclusively and have never had TMPGENc go slower than 4.5x realtime on a 1GHZ system. To me, it still seems to be the most artifact free encoder available.

[BJ_M]

Premiere 6.5 has a major update of the encoder -- get it at adobe or main concept ..

vegas encoder (MC also) is a more basic version ...

[EricB]

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize there was an update.

[EricB]

BJ_M

I tried the update, but it won't allow bitrates or frame sizes outside the "standard". For example, if I want to make an xVCD with a bitrate of 1400, I check "Relaxed standard" and it immediately gives the error message
Error: Invalid mux rate (0) for VCD, should be 3528.

If I try to make an SVCD with 352x480 again I get an error message
Error: Invalid video horizontal size (352) for SVCD, should be 480.

Both of these options worked in the previous version and it would seem the "Relaxed" selection was put there to handle this. Any ideas?

[BJ_M]

check at the adobe/main concept mpeg encoding forum .. people there would know more as i don't use premiere much at all (but follow thier forum) .. http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.1de544a8

[vhelp]

Well, for me, I'll stick w/ TMPG. But, just not the higher versions ie
greater than v2.53 And, if you have the older ones like v12a, you really can't
beat the MPEG1 and MPEG2 quality. I still can't seem to find anything beating
it (low bitrate) IMO. And, as for Interlace, IMO, the older versions handled
it much better than all these newer one (including v2.53 and greater) But, that's
just opinion. If I really want the best quality, and don't care about SPEED,
than 12a it is for me. However, as I said, SPEED is very slow on this.

12a, MPEG-1 quality is VERY good. To this day, I STILL have some old 12a
encodes of clips laying around on my HD for comparisons of my newer encodes.
It still amazes me how a standard VCD looks much better than even v2.53 and
at 352 x 240. ..was looking at one just yesterday, and I paid close attention
to the details (quite analy) and I noted how nice and grainy my 12a clip
looked compared to my v2.53 encode (same clip) Not the grainy you may be
thinking though. I'm talking the grainy when you look at a DVD say, in dvd2avi,
and notice how nice an fluently grainy it looks. Nice. Not blocky or pixely
as in todays versions of TMPG's.

I don't know. I still think it's all a conspericy. It don't make any sense.
Unless you think about money. Some people get the idea that if they lesson
the quality of one or two items, in later versions or maybe their official
versions, they would include it, but at a price. This kind of conspericy
or deception I don't stand for. But, who am I to complain.

BJ_M,
I still have those clips you posted months ago, when you started on MC, based
on your claim. The clip that interested me most, was of course the filename
"30sec spot ad.cce.svcd.mpg".
In the confusion, I had mistaken the above clip to be from MC's encoding back
then. Course, I now understand it was CCE that you used. What interested me
was the TEXT (not the video) In all the other ones, you encoded, the quality
was quite dull, blacks looked browny-like or gray, and lettering was ruff.
Anyway, that article made interesting reading, if I recall back in Sept, 2002 was:
--> Comparison of TMPGEnc 2.56 vs. CCE 2.64 vs. Main Concept

As far as "the next MPEG" encoder I try ?? it may be the one I create instead.
Like that'll ever happen, he, he...

Later on all.
-vhelp
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Happy HOLIDAY all.

[vhelp]

..sorry about the link above. ..was broken, and missing a "]"
Later.

[Bstansbury]

"Vhelp"

Do you know where we could get and old copy of TMPGen, like the version you talked about. I have so many programs now, I can't find my way through them. Most of the encoding I want to do can be done with Mpeg 1 and in VCD or CVD mode. If your correct, the older .12A (???) would be the best encoder.

[vhelp]

Bstansbury,
Hori no longer wants those older version distributed. If you are at all
comfortable at searching the web, there is nothing wrong with putting on
the white glove for dust checking. It was suggested here on this FORUM that all
links to any of the older versions be eliminated. the end.

As far as my 12a version being the best, I guess I souldn't have said this.
However, I did say it was my opinion, take w/ a grain of solt, but IMO, I
feel that v2.53 is almost or is as good, but only a lot faster at it.
I heard that v2.01 was good too, but I never really quite got off the ground
w/ it.. shortly after D/L'ing, I was beginning to like v2.53 and pretty much
took to it since. After Hori sold us out w/ this VFAPI requirement thing,
(thanks to MPEG-2 licensing issue) I made up my mind that I was not going to
bother w/ any more of his so called upgrade versions, ..also, because he STILL
continues to add and remove code or features, (same or old) from one month to the
next, and to this day, he STILL practices this. No effence to Hori - I just got tire
of it. Still, TMPGenc is a very good Encoder, and it's the only one I use,
considering all that I said above.

CCE, I can deffinately live w/out. I'm not equipt to demonstrate MC's quality
vs. TMPG's, as I don't have MC installed. I'm pretty much sold on TMPG for the
time being, until I create my very OWN MPEG-2 encoder, he, he... Well, it is
a nice thought.

Hori made some good encoder versions before v2.53, w/ lots of features and
things to tweak, but the more he builds on it, the lessor he is availing us
to these tweaks or making it error problematic or other, hence the reason why
I'm sticking w/ v2.53 or earlier versions. As to speed, I'm pretty much settled
with it, but as time goes by, well, perhaps things will change, either in my encoder, methods, processes, video device(s) or any number combo of things. My latest
change is adding the ADVC-100 to my Video Repituar (spelling) No regrets here.

-vhelp
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Happy HOLIDAY all.

[pharries]

Main concept is great. Love it!
Their support staff are superb!
My experience:-
I tried the demo versions of Cinemacraft - crashed with big files, very expensive
LSX - poor end result
TPMG - Sloooooooooooooooooow
Right now with an Adobe Premiere serial no you can buy the main concept encoder for $49 from the mainconcept web site!
It is worth picking up an old copy of Premiere just to get their program for $49!!
Main concept encoder plug in is also bundled with Adobe Premiere 6.5.
The Main Concept program has cured my encoding headaches!
I only hope someone comes up with a DVD authoring program which is as slick for $49!
10/10 to Main Concept.

[Bstansbury]

In checking the comments within this post, there seems to be some doubt about the performance difference of Main Concept, CCE, and TMPGen. I looked at the most recent comparisons in VCDhelp files and the large post made by BL_m back in September,... it seems clear that his tests indicate that Main Concept was more than twice as fast as CCE. Also, in the Comparisons section, the information there indicates that CCE is twice as fast as TMPGen.

One person indicated that for a 1 pass encode in TMPGen, it only took 4.5x encode time. For a 1 1/2 hour movie, this would be 6.75 hours. Again, this was for a 1 pass encode,... and most of all of the comparisons were for 2 pass encodes. Either I missed something or Main Concept is the winner by a long way over TMPGen. Looking at the quality comparison, there was not that much difference.

This last question may be a leap but since this forum covers all conversions,... what is the best way to convert Digital Photo's, 1600x1200 pixels, toVCD, SVCD, or DVD. I realize the capacity difference, but once you make the conversion, the diffenence in cost is very small when you compair the amount of time it takes. I just finished about 800 Digital Photos using Ulead VideoStudio with the DVD plugin and burn. It took over 16 hours for VS 6.0 to resample to DVD files and 1 more hour to burn. I'm not very happy with the output. A simple slide show on my Processor looked a lot better.

Looking forward to responses to the first part as well as suggestions on the second part.