Procoder 2 vs MainConcept

[choirislife923]

In general, which one is considered "better" (most hardware-like, less marcoblocking noise, etc.) for encoding mpeg2 for DVDs?

Also which one is faster; or do they take about the same to encode?

I've been using MainConcept for about 1 and a half years now, but I am seriously looking into switching to ProCoder 2 has a possibility, if it is better.

[BJ_M]

MainConcept can be a bit faster

procoder is better quality - though you can tweak the heck out of MC

[reboot]

Better, depends on the source material.
MC is better at some things, Canopus better at others.

[Wile_E]

I tried the Canopus encoder demo. It is quite good, but it seems to do something with color. Color is not exactly the same, compared to my DV sources. Mainconcept seems to leave the color alone.

[vhelp]

@ Wile_E

In your case, you need to go into Advance and select ADD,
and the File: 601 Correction - Shrink Color space

This will undo the impression that Procoder does to any
source files. Specially when the source is DV.

However, in a test scenario I ran in prevous months, I did
notice that Procoder still does something to the color, though
only slightly noticable (after the above filter)

If you do *not* select the above filter, and just encode as-is,
you will have an issue with the MPEG 's final color reproduction.
When run through vdubMOD, both the MPEG and the DV avi (or other
AVI format) the MPEG 's color will be off (usually darker)

My suggestion for you, would be to use the above color filter,
and test this out for yourself, w/ the above steps.

-vhelp 3382

[paulw]

The one thing that Procoder does not do for the high price they ask is AC3 audio. It's PCM or Mpeg. Don't know about Mainconcept..

[lordsmurf]

MC is softer.

[BJ_M]

The one thing that Procoder does not do for the high price they ask is AC3 audio. It's PCM or Mpeg. Don't know about Mainconcept..

prococoder is like Cleaner - in that it can encode to a number of different formats, as well as excepting many different types of sources (more than most). It also has watched folders and que .... that is why it is expensive, but not a high price ..

there are 5.1 ac3 software encoders sold for over 500-1000$ btw .....

[dipstick]

Both are good, but I prefere MC.

Procoder is good on Interlaced source, but poor on Progressive source(my tests anyway).

Main Concept can be tweaked to do an excellent job on both sources. I save custom templets for all projects (30i, 30p, 24p, hi motion and low motion), then I use them as needed.

[reboot]

Main Concept can be tweaked to do an excellent job on both sources. I save custom templets for all projects (30i, 30p, 24p, hi motion and low motion), then I use them as needed.

Heh. I have so many templates, I have to keep editing them to find out exactly what they do, so I can figure out which one to use.
Although Canopus is great for DV stuff, I use MC about 90% of the time, just because it's (almost) infinitely tweakable.