Mpeg2 decoders for TMPG

[lex7]

Which Mpeg2 decoder works better with TMPG?
They introduced their own decoder recently but I had some problems with it. I saw in one of the posts that m2v.vfp plugin is OK but it is better to use Cyberlink, Ligos or Elecard decoders. So, which one is better?

Thanks

[bugster]

If you mean you want to re-encode mpeg-2 video with TmpGenc, yes it can be done by installing the right mpeg-2 codec. But in my experience the most reliable way is to open your mpeg in dvd2avi. Save a project file (file.d2v) and then open that as the video source. This is a fdrm of frameserving and you can even use it to join multiple mpeg-2 sources into one large source file if you need to.

[lex7]

For some reasons my TMPG is not very fond of *.d2v projects. It works fine with CQ mode, but for 2-pass VBR it sometimes stops on a second pass because "it cannot open the source file".
And besides - what about quality of encoding?
a) I always thought that less programs involved = more quality (and less possible errors).
b) I don't know how exactly TMPG works with mpeg2 source, but if you reencode mpeg2 to mpeg2 and GOP structure and all major settings are the same - I would assume it will use it, it won't completely redo the source, so it will be kind of hybrid of encoder and transcoder and quality will be higher.

Thanks

[bugster]

I don't know how exactly TMPG works with mpeg2 source, but if you reencode mpeg2 to mpeg2 and GOP structure and all major settings are the same - I would assume it will use it, it won't completely redo the source, so it will be kind of hybrid of encoder and transcoder and quality will be higher.

No, sorry. When you use TmpGenc, no matter what the source, ie encodes from scratch.

Any encoder, Tmpgenc or otherwise, firts decodes the source material to raw frames and uses those as the input to its encoding engine. So the decoder you have installed for a particular format can affect final quality.

Surprised you have trouble with .d2v projects, I have never experienced the problems you describe. If you still want an mpeg-2 codec to open mpeg-2 files in Tmpgenc, try the one that comes with PowerDvd, the downloadable trial version should do fine.