Mainconcept Encoder How does it compare

[ghosty6]

How does the Mainconcept Encoder compare with CCE and TMPGenc(quality wise) ?

[BJ_M]

cce is a little better than MC 1.3 , tmpgenc has more features .. MC and CCE are both very fast

MC 1.4 (out soon) quality wise ... well you will be supprised comparing it to CCE and now many new features added .. speed is faster also ..

[Poplar]

cce is a little better than MC 1.3 , tmpgenc has more features .. MC and CCE are both very fast

MC 1.4 (out soon) quality wise ... well you will be supprised comparing it to CCE and now many new features added .. speed is faster also ..

Just curious... How do you know that? Are you a beta-tester or working with MC team?

[BJ_M]

yes

[Poplar]

That's great! But could you tell us if MC is going to officially support AVISynth and VirtualDub frameserving like CCE does ? That's my main complain about MC.

[BJ_M]

it does/will support both .. though in beta some have reported problems w/ avsynth frame serving currently .. v-dub , no problems at all ..

it also now supports qt , and has resizer and crop, video flip , noise reduction , video capture to mpeg , 2pass vbr and some other features ...

[jeex]

freakin' sweet. i've been using MC 1.3 for a few months now.. the speed is amazing, and the quality is top notch..

i have a few pal svcd's that i vidcapped from old videotapes (which are now crippled) and i converted them to ntsc dvd.. the quality & speed with MC 1.3 were great.. i was really expecting some quality loss, and i tried to find some, but i couldnt..

MC 1.4 will definetly be worth the $-ish

[jolo]

I also am a beta testing MC 1.4 and the results are fantastic. The quality is the best of any VCD or SVCDs that I have ever seen.

The speed of course is revolutionary. It iwll have two pass, but the quality is so good on the one-pass that I might stick with one pass.

I disagree with CCE being at all better than MC, but certainly CCE is a more mature product. MC 1.3.1 has more flexibility, but if one knows asynth it can be overcome. Splitting hairs really.

I wind up doing a lot of MPG to MPG stuff, changing formats at will because it takes like an hour to get done.

MC is mostly a company that does their technology for other companies.

However you view this, you can read about Microsoft tapping into MC's encoding expertise for their cable TV product. http://www.mainconcept.com/mstv.html

The Adobe Premiere encoder is MC as well.

[slash72]

I've been pretty happy with MC for vhs captures. Very little artifacts. TMPG has nice smoothing but saving a hour or so is nice. I look forward to their next release.

[Northpole]

MC 1.4 sounds very promising. Anyone know releasedate and pricing ?? Want to buy it as stand alone encoder, but if the price will be higher then 1.3 (150) it's quite pricy compared to i.e. Tmpgenc.

ALSO - I need some suggestions, please.

I normally cap my VHS source through firewire and on to either Studio 8 or Videostudio 7. Mainly because we,, these are the two programs I do have, and also these don't give me any hazzel. (Yes, that's true - even in Studio 8 I'm able to edit and produce over 2,5 hours movies from my VCR source)

BUT - Instead of letting Studio 8 do all the job from cap , edit and to produce the final DVD, maybe I will get better quality if I instead of letting Studio 8 or Videostudio 7 do the making, just render the edited movie to some file, and load that file into another encoder, i.e. Mainconcept.

What do you think of that ???

AND - if so - should I render the movie in Studi 8 or Videostudio 7 to AVI or MPEG ???

Thankful for advices here.

[BJ_M]

sonic foundry , ulead and sony (and a few other companies) .. also use main concept technology ..

pricing i expect will be the same or nearly so ..

did you know that the guy who coded bbmpeg was working for mainconcept for some time , along with some other real mpeg pioneers ..

[Northpole]

To BJ_M:
Thank you for the price info.

Could you please give me some advise about my rendering question ?

I'm going to start a big job soon converting all my vcr to dvd, and a little unsure about the right way to go consider what I told in my last reply.

thanks

-northpole

[BJ_M]

edit in your NLE of your choice and either frame serve out to MC or render to huffyuv avi and compress to mpg w/ MC

[Jukka]

Will the MC have any aspect ratio settings like TMPGEnc has , e.g. full screen keep aspect ratio, etc. so that black bars are added automatically?

Thanks

Jukka

[jtommyj]

Does the MC 1.4 have SMP capability ?
TIA

[BJ_M]

Does the MC 1.4 have SMP capability ?
TIA

yes - but even 1.3 does (and both are hyperthreaded for HT systems)

[Trident5]

I like MC speed but alot of times i find when i do an mpeg...the video stops towards the end of the audio keeps playing. Has this issue been resolved or is there a way to fix this problem already.....i never have this problem with tpmgenc using same files....its slow but at least it works

[wwaag]

Any ideas about their upgrade policy? If you already have purchased 1.3, will the upgrade be free or will you be charged additional?

wwaag

[Poplar]

It seems that there are a lot of MCE fans out there. There should be. One last wish I have for MC 1.4: fix that batch encoding auto-shutdown bug. Auto-shutdown for single job works great and it's very convenient if you have a long encoding session. But auto-shutdown for batch encoding isn't working. Hope they will fix it.

[jolo]

I someone has some real specific stuff with Main Concept they should speak to them directly, there are soem great people working there.
Also this forum which tends to be the TMPenc forum, it is a breath of fresh air to hear about other products, MORE, MORE.

Main Concept is simply the best. Save an hour or two over TMPGenc ? More like 6 to 10 hours.

MC is new at marketing this as a stand alone product, their company usually builds their advanced techology into other products and there is a reason Adobe, Microsoft (Ugh), and many others have embedded their encoder and codec into their newer software.

About the upgrade policy, ask MC, I am beta testing 1.4 now and I do not know it, but I have found them GREAT to work with. Some ofthe brightest people who have created some of the best freeware are on their team.

The audio keeps on playing thing is one of the issues from 1.3.1, I would send tech support a e-mail, or look at some of the names and the list and send the e-mail directlly.

I can tell you that 1.4 is incredibly fast with great quality, especially with the speed. Lots of flexibility especially encoding MPGs to MPGs.

After using TMPGenc for encoding VCD and SVCD for years , I use it primarily for its MPEG functions, not to encode. I am spoiled with the speed of MC.

[Fozzee]

So is the keep aspect ratio issue fixed in 1.4 or not??

Cheers

Fozzee

[jolo]

Fozzee,

I hate to speak for them. For me, it was fixed anyway in 1.3.1 by using Fit2Disc, then taking the results of that, creating a AviSynth script and loading the script in as the file name. I haven't been focusing much on that, but I have noticed that some MPG to MPG files have been encoding keeping their original aspect.

I am really focusing on other things myself. For example, no issues with 23.976 NTSC film, I don't even have to select the pulldown option. There were some issues around that.

The quality is so good on SVCD, that I am thinking of dumping thoughts of doing movies and DVD and using my new DVD reader mostly for data backup. I also have the Optorite which stores 1.4 GB on one floppy.

[Fozzee]

Hi
I knew you could frameserve to MC to keep the aspect ratio but I was looking for a simple option within the program.
Secondly the issue was only with avi so mpg do keep their aspect ratio.
I also prefer TMPGEnc and Procoder for the ability to crop within the program.
I must admit I don't have the patience to dabble with scripting.

Cheers

Fozzee

[BJ_M]

yes -- 1.4 has cropping and resizing within the program

[Fozzee]

And keep aspect ratio??

Cheers

Fozzee

[BJ_M]

keeps it for me in what i do -- which is working with original material , but then 1.3 did also ..

[jolo]

Hey Fozee,

I know what oyu mean about dabbling with scripting, but is you have used Fitcd, it actually writes the script code for you, save it and go. Great product.

I do backups of movies that I own and original material with MC. I just used the two-pass on the demo because I was out for a couple of hours I am going to compare it to a one-pass that I did.

Jon

[Skynet107]

I'm going to have give this a try. I have been using every encoder I can get my hands on, I want the best quality software before I spend my hard earned cash. :P

EDIT: MainConcept encoder works fine with an avisynth script, encoding a test now.

EDIT AGAIN: well the test failed, it encoded a green screen and nothing else. The source is an Xvid AVI with no audio. It encodes fine with TMPGEnc and CCE.

[BJ_M]

I'm going to have give this a try. I have been using every encoder I can get my hands on, I want the best quality software before I spend my hard earned cash. :P :idea:

EDIT: MainConcept encoder works fine with an avisynth script, encoding a test now.

EDIT AGAIN: well the test failed, it encoded a green screen and nothing else. The source is an Xvid AVI with no audio. It encodes fine with TMPGEnc and CCE. :?: :?: :shock: :|

tests i did w/ xvid required one of two things -- frame serve w/ v-dub (if you can see the pic in v-dub , it always worked) or turn off one of the avi or DS decoders in MC in decoder options (cant remember which one though right now) .. its like tmpgenc's vfapi settings ..

[hhamzeh]

I am not sure if this is a fair expectation or not but I am wondering if the new MC 1.4 would encode the audio to AC3?