Mainconcept Encoder How does it compare

[BJ_M]

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?

nope ..

[bmiller]

I am interested in the new Mainconcept 1.4,and if the quality of Mpeg's are equal to or better than Tmpeg.I also read a review on this site and someone complained that there are issues with directx9,at least in version 1.3
Do any of you beta testers have any problems with directx9,and is the quality as good as Tmpge? It might be worth it for the speed alone.
Thanks Brad

[BJ_M]

no issue w/ dx9 ..

quality better than tmpgenc (though tmpgenc can be very good also within certain parameters)

speed MUCH better ..

[calx]

I like MC a lot, but I have had a problem converting PAL 25 fps source avi files to NTSC DVD and maintaining audio sync. Anyone have any good suggestions?

[BJ_M]

I like MC a lot, but I have had a problem converting PAL 25 fps source avi files to NTSC DVD and maintaining audio sync. Anyone have any good suggestions?

run it through avsynth or v-dub (via frame serving) and change fps rate to 24 from 25 ...

my sure fire way to then sync the audio is to not worry about it at this point but encode to mpeg2 ... dump mpeg2 when finished (at the new frame rate) onto vegas timeline (frame serve or just multiplex w/ tmpgenc w/ no audio - yea , i got lots hd space) , dump pal audio tracks (6 wav or stereo) in vegas time line .. hold shift key and click on end of track and move all audio till it ends up the same lenth as video exactly...
check with loop playing at a dialog point and use 1 frame adjustment if nessessary (may be out 1 frame untill adjusted) .
set audio media properties to preserve pitch and change lenth ...
render audio as ac3 ..

perfect everytime and never a sync issue ..

[digitalmaster]

MainConcept 1.4 is out. Check the Latest News forum.

[SaSi]

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 ..

BJ_M, I've tried the MC beta for a couple of weeks and I will agree with the postings that quality has improved significantly - not that it used to be bad.

However, for low bitrates (2,700~3,000kbps) there is still no comparison between MC at 2 pass and CCE at 1+3 passes. I've tried copying the very low bitrate QM values from CCE to MC, just to make sure, tried a couple of adjustments, like enabling and disabling half-pixel motion search and increase motion search length to a high value, but still the MC output becomes "rough" - like quantization noise becoming apparent while CCE maintains a very soft and smooth picture. Perhaps it's my taste here.

However, looking a the bitstream with a bitrate viewer, I realize that CCE is able to reduce bitrate down to the selected 200bps I set (e.g. when the screen blanks for a couple of GOPs or a steady scene is displayed, while MC doesn't seem to be "able" to drop the bitrate that low.

I believe that this causes some level of bitrate starvation in high motion scenes - hence the roughness in the picture.

Another nuisance I've noticed is that when a scene change occurs, MC sometimes totally destroys the picture quality of the frames (1-2) before the new scene frame. I've not checked but I am guessing that the scene change may be happening where the encoder decided to place a B frame and it's not "clever" enough to break the sequence, start a new GOP and insert an I-Frame there. I will check it closely when I get to find the time.

Anyway, I am not known to hate MC; in fact I use it a lot and like it. It's just that when I want to cram 3-4 hours on a DVDR I use CCE without a second thought. But even then, I am doing proof-encodes and for draft authoring with single pass MC. It's a wild lot faster than anything else.

Hint:Try encoding with the search method slider set end-left (Fast) and the Search Range slider set end-left (short). This is supposedly the worst settings you can select. You will be surprised with the overall quality and the speed.

[jtommyj]

For anyone wanting to know, the Main Concept 1.3 serial number will work if you upgrade to 1.4. A friend had purchased the 1.3 and just upgraded to 1.4. You must uninstall 1.3 first he said.

[jolo]

Hurrah,

I have been doing to demo for 1.4 and can't wait to get it.

Sasi,
Which version of CCE are you referring to ?
I have used MC 1.3.1 hundreds of times, but I don't think I have ever heard anything about issues with low bitrates, and I know that I have encoded MC with some low bitrate videos. I also have used CCE, Are you saying that their 3 or 4 pass encodes for low-bitrate items come out better than a two-pass MC encode on low-bite rate items.
I believe also that to do anything more than a 2-pass on CCE cannot be down on their basic version and requires at least their SP ($2,000), version). I can't even find out how much CCE's pro version costs. requires their SP pprofessional level 2,000 product,


Another nuisance I've noticed is that when a scene change occurs, MC sometimes totally destroys the picture quality of the frames (1-2) before the new scene frame. I have never, ever seen this occur.
Are the people at MC aware of this ?

Jon

[BJ_M]

i havnt seen those issues either, thoug it is true that scene detection doesnt always start a new I frame - that i have seen ..

- but one little bug about MC is that when you select progressive encoding - you have to manually change it to zigzag ...

another small bug (a bit bigger) is that the final release version seems to be a bit shy on bit rate .. say you select 7000 as your avg in both cce and MC and use same settings elsewhere .. measured avg bit rate in MC comes in at around 5000 and cce at around 6500 on a little 4 min. test piece i have.
file size is 165,000 for Mc and 215,000 for CE .... a big diff..

i'm still looking into this - as it didnt happen on prev. versions .


another thing on the final -- using CQ instead of VBR (or CBR) w/ MC seems to have a bug in it and doesnt encode anything sometimes ..

[q1aqza]

BJ_M,

Being a strong fan of the Adobe MC encoder I would be very keen to know if there is going to be an equivalent 1.4 update for the Adobe Premiere version?

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

BJ_M,

Being a strong fan of the Adobe MC encoder I would be very keen to know if there is going to be an equivalent 1.4 update for the Adobe Premiere version?

Thanks.

Historically, the MC updates always find their way to the Adobe flavor.

[BJ_M]

yes -- also vegas at some point ..

in the meantime (in vegas anyway) - notice that you can replace the dll's and the 001 - 004 files that both vegas and MC uses with the new 1.4 versions

i tested and do this ....... no issues ..

[BV2001]

can someone put a VCD setting for Mainconcept. I try but quality is way worst than tmpgenc. As reading this , I know my setting isn't right, that's why the quality was so bad
thanks

[BJ_M]

never used MC for mpeg1 (VCD) .. tmpgenc does such a good job and its free for mpeg1 ..

[sammie]

Wow, huge thread. BJ_M's done a good job, so I'll just put in my 2 cents. I've been beta testing 1.4 for several weeks. I'm comparing it mostly to CCE Basic, TMPEGEnc and CCE 2.5. Like BJ_M this is for CVD/DVD encodes only. For VCDs to my mind with all the profiles and the cost :P there is nothing better than TMPEGEnc.

1) It's fast. On short runs maybe 50% faster than CCE. In real world 2 hour movie runs only about 5% faster, but CCE is the speed standard in my book, so I would now probably consider MainConcept the fastest.

2) The quality is excellent. A slight tendency towards oversharpening, so if you use a sharpening filter turn it off or dial it back down. Playing wiht the matricies would help, but I'm not good at it and haven't had the time. Overall, my standard set of vicitims, errrr judges picked the MainConcept encoded clips as best pretty close to 100% of the time. I'd say I still pick CCE, but I'm proficient at CCE (not much to tweak in Basic) and I'm a long way from expert at all the controls in MainConcept (more on that later).

3) Limited to 2 pass encodes. So are TMPEGEnc and CCE Basic so not that big a deal, but the 3 pass with CCE 2.5 still seems to be the quality standard.

4) I haven't done an exhaustive comparison, but it's probably as tweakable if not more so than TMPEGEnc. Unfortunately, it's not as clear or user friendly to me as TMPEGEnc when it comes to settings. Hopefully, folks will start sharing good set up profiles like everyone has for TMPEGEnc and the quality will really improve.

5) Frame serves from VDub are fine. I still have problems with it crashing using Avisynth 2.5. If you use a VFAPI wrapper though, no problems.

6) Again, BJ_M has already mentioned a lot of the new tools and add in's so no need to go there. Way more toys than CCE, not quite as many or as good as TMPEGEnc.

My personal feelings is that it's definitely faster than TMPEGEnc, and probably faster than CCE, so I'd say it is the current speed leader among the top encoders. Quality wise, I rank it above TMPEGEnc and just behind CCE basic. With that said, it's close enough that I'm quite sure that as I learn to optomize the settings better it will pass CCE basic. Price wise it's roughly double TMPEGEnc and CCE Basic. I bought my license when CCE Basic wasn't around so it seemed like a good deal. If I can't get the quality a bit better than CCE Basic, then CCE Basic will probably continue to be the best buy and my main encoder.

[jolo]

Thanks BJ,

I general, I have notices a distinct improvement in quailty and encoding is fo fast, I am going to re-incode some of my other videos.

I also noticed a capturing feature which I did not stumble on before, it seems like there is a incredible choices on that.

But BJ, I would like to ask you somethimng that I am confused on. I just got a DVD writer and I am trying to make theall of the MPEG-1 and -1 videos more DVD "compliant videos before integrating them into other software, then burn them.
I will re-encode these mpgs to mpgs where they are all NTSC 29.97, make the audio 4800, then I look at thbe VBR MC has set for DVD compliance and I am thinking of making them CBR, at about 4500 or even 352 x 480. I want all of these files to have the same charactoristics.
I see where some people then merge the files together, before converting them to, maybe put chapters on a large file, rather than have several similar files.

Any opinions on this ?

Jon
I also am thinking of bringing the resolution down from MCs DVD automatic to 704 x

[ghosty6]

How do you apply a noise reduction filter in Mainconcept like the one in TMPGEnc ?

[sfxwe]

BJ_M,

I don't know if I should start another thread or not, I guess I will ask here 1st. I am very interested in updating VV 4.0 with the new MC 1.4. So could you elaborate a little more, please . Are the files that you stated above the only files that need to be moved over to get VV to use MC V1.4. If so will there be any problems? And will VV 4 truley be using MC V1.4 with all of MC 1.4 features?

Also are there some tweaks you prefer over the standard default settings for DVD encodes?

I think MC was very close to CCE in V1.3, so I would be willing to bet V1.4 Rocks. Thanks for all your info BJ_M, it is greatly appreciated.

[Cecilio]

i just got Main Concept 1.3 like 2 days ago, and man its the bomb bay. the quality is very very good. i was amazed by the speed and the quality. the only problem i have is when i convert videos that are 23.973 fps. if i encode them as 29.970 ntsc it encodes the video but when theres like 30 or 45 seconds left it freezes on one image. ive tried CBR and VBR. i also tried encoding at 23.973 fps with 3:2 pulldown. no luck. so thats my only problem encoding 23.97 video, but ill figure it out soon.

[BJ_M]

How do you apply a noise reduction filter in Mainconcept like the one in TMPGEnc ?

go to advanced and see where there is a little button that says something like N somthing (i dont have here in front of me) and click it with your mouse and it will depress and change to NR (noise reduction) ..

for noise from vhs set it at 20 (start there anyway) , dv (most daylight) 5 (if required) , dv low light (10-12) ..

these are starting points -

for a CLEAN source .. use the oppisite of the radio button .. perfectly clean (like off a dvd most often ) set at 0

[BJ_M]

sammie above asked about matrixs .. use the ones floating around for CCE (there are about 20-30) or the ones found in dvd2svcd (they are the some of the same found in cce ones mentioned above) ....

just manually enter each one and save that as a new template .. ussually 4- 6 work fine ... the one MC uses is the mpeg2 standard (same as found in tmpgenc , cce , ligos and others) ...

[BJ_M]

BJ_M,

I don't know if I should start another thread or not, I guess I will ask here 1st. I am very interested in updating VV 4.0 with the new MC 1.4. So could you elaborate a little more, please :). Are the files that you stated above the only files that need to be moved over to get VV to use MC V1.4. If so will there be any problems? And will VV 4 truley be using MC V1.4 with all of MC 1.4 features?

Also are there some tweaks you prefer over the standard default settings for DVD encodes?

I think MC was very close to CCE in V1.3, so I would be willing to bet V1.4 Rocks. Thanks for all your info BJ_M, it is greatly appreciated.

yes move the files i mentioned . no- not al lthe features (or ANY addition features will be there) -- as the settings and gui is 100% totally done by Sonic Foundry.. i have had no problems - been doing it like thissince the first beta came out andi was fooling around with it ..

yes - i change almost ALL the settings for DVD , depending on the source material .. as to what those setting would become .

[BJ_M]

Thanks BJ,

..............................................I will re-encode these mpgs to mpgs where they are all NTSC 29.97, make the audio 4800, then I look at thbe VBR MC has set for DVD compliance and I am thinking of making them CBR, at about 4500 or even 352 x 480. I want all of these files to have the same charactoristics.
I see where some people then merge the files together, before converting them to, maybe put chapters on a large file, rather than have several similar files.

Any opinions on this ?

Jon
I also am thinking of bringing the resolution down from MCs DVD automatic to 704 x

you can input any (supported) file type and if you use the batch mode , you can join them together (mc willdo it for you and even split the files for you to cd size/

[Tihomir]

Yesterday I made some test and my impressions are very nice: the fastest available software MPEG1/2 encoder, improvements in quality (compared with version 1.31) are significant, especially for small bitrates (SVD/VCD). All standard formats - VCD, SVCD, DVD - are recognized by VCDeasy & U DVD workshop without remarks and warnings. Second pass mode works very well especially for SVCD template. I think TMPGeNC is now pushed on the second place....
Regards
Tihomir

[wwaag]

Been using CCE Basic for some time now. Upgraded to MC 1.4 and did a head to head to comparison on a 5 min 3 sec video clip (DV footage of a grizzly bear catching and devouring salmon). First part in daylight, 2nd later in the evening with fairly low light levels).

I used the same settings for both encodes (2 pass VBR, 6K avg bitrate with min 2000 and max 8000, mp2 audio 224KBs) to produce elementary streams.

First, speed. I have a 2.53 GHz P4 system and used my "video" OS (XP Pro) that has little else running in the background. No hyperthreading. MC took 10 min 28 sec to encode--CCE took 8 min 42 sec.

2nd, quaity. Very subjective, but to my old eyes, CCE had far fewer and less noticeable artifacts, especially in the video filmed in bright daylight (lots of trees, and a moving stream). There was a much more noticeable "shimmering" effect with MC--something I had also noticed before when using MC 1.3.1.

The resulting file sizes were pretty much the same 221.8 MB for CCE and 222.2 for MC. Audio files were identical.

Overall, I'll think that I'll stay with CCE basic. Quicker and looks better for 2-pass encodes. Would like to try the noise reduction though.

Just my nickels worth.

wwaag

Incidentally, if you own Premiere 6.5 or Pro, you can purhcase 1.4 for $50. You also get their DV codec which is quite good.

[sammie]

Thanks BJ_M, that's what I was planning to do. Just haven't had a chance, ok or more likely the ambition to go through and re-pick better matricies. Plus, I'm guessing based on what I've seen what is best for CCE won't necessarily be what's best for MainConcept so even more work. If you have a couple you've tried and are happy with could you give me a point?

@waag Interesting on short clips like you describe I typically got vastly faster times using MC than CCE on short clips. The differences equaled out on longer full movie type clips. The only two things I can think of are I was using DV2 for my inputs and I was always frame serving using avisynth. Wonder if MC is better at using one those sources. I agree on the quality, but it was close enough that the non-encoder obsessed (i.e., not me) group always picked the MC clips. I think novices when trying to look critically always pick a slightly oversharpend clip. With that said, the quality was really, really close.

[BJ_M]

the standard default settings are for interlaced dvd material

if you accept default settings most of the time your program will looked "washed out" a bit on a pc as it will clamp the video to IRE7.5 , make sure you check off what you need (this is covered in the manual) ..

i dont have nay problems with pixelization -- if you seem to get some , you may need to either adjust noise sensitivity (5-12 are good value range or 1 for very high quality), or add noise reduction or increase motion method and search (11 and 31 (43 for fast scene change material) is good start) .... in advanced you can go a lot more in depth ..

another good idea for dvd is to use 10bit instead of 9bit for intra DC IF high bit rate..


The motion search pixel movement is a very powerfull setting -- raising these values will greatly increase quality - but can cut down on speed .. mostly static or low movment require default -- high motion may need higher values .. 3 is good start -- 12 is very good .. values can go to huge values .. try these out .. Horz. often can have a slightly higher value than vert.

for DV or lower bit rate capture use this matrix :
8,13,13,17,17,21,21,28,
13,13,17,17,19,21,23,30,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,34,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,48,
17,19,19,19,23,28,34,48,
19,19,23,25,28,32,34,48,
19,21,23,25,28,32,34,48,
21,21,25,25,28,32,34,48

8,11,11,15,15,17,17,24,
11,11,15,15,17,17,21,24,
13,15,15,17,21,21,26,34,
13,17,15,17,21,21,26,48,
17,21,21,23,21,30,34,48,
17,21,21,23,28,30,34,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48

for divx or xvid conversion (interlaced) or video capture use this (high bit rate) -also for high bit rate DV.
8,13,13,17,17,21,21,28,
13,13,17,17,19,21,23,30,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,34,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,34,
17,19,19,19,23,28,34,34,
19,19,23,25,28,32,34,34,
19,21,23,25,28,32,34,34,
21,21,25,25,28,32,34,34

8,11,11,15,15,17,17,24,
11,11,15,15,17,17,21,24,
13,15,15,17,21,21,26,34,
13,17,15,17,21,21,26,34,
17,21,21,23,21,30,34,34,
17,21,21,23,28,30,34,34,
19,19,25,26,28,30,34,34,
19,19,25,26,28,30,34,34

for dvd film source high use this matrix (option 1)
8,16,16,16,24,24,32,32,
16,16,16,24,24,32,32,32,
16,16,24,24,32,32,32,32,
16,24,24,32,32,32,32,32,
16,24,32,32,32,32,32,32,
24,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,
24,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,
32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32

16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16

for dvd film source high use this matrix (option 2)

8, 8, 8, 8,16,16,16,32,
8, 8, 8,16,16,16,32,32,
8, 8,16,16,16,32,32,32,
8,16,16,16,32,32,32,32,
16,16,16,32,32,32,32,32,
16,16,32,32,32,32,32,32,
16,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,
32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32

8, 8, 8, 8,16,16,16,16,
8, 8, 8,16,16,16,16,16,
8, 8,16,16,16,16,16,16,
8,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16

[wwaag]

Incidentally, if you own Premiere 6.5 or Pro, you can purhcase 1.4 for $50. You also get their DV codec which is quite good.

I made a mistake. The DV codec is NOT included in v1.4. It was only included in their original version 1.1. MC told me that, since I had purchased 1.1, I was elegible for the upgrade to 1.4 but not eligible for the DV codec upgrade, despite the fact that it was originally included in the purchase price. The upgrade is $50.

wwaag

[zanos]

Mainconcept is extremely fast when compared to Tmpegenc but I find the lack of extra features very limiting. It also creates much larger file sizes than Tmpegenc in default mode.