Mainconcept Mpeg encoder 1.4

[kenmo]

I've downloaded a demo of Mainconcept. I hear it has the same quality of output as Tmpgenc for DVD mpegIIs but in less time...

My output has a slight jerkiness in areas of motion... I thought I had the wrong field selected so I tried field top and it was no different then field bottom...

I set motion search method to 11 as the website say anything above 11 is useless... and search range to 23....

Anyone have any thoughts or an url explaining how to create DVD mpegs with Mainconcept ?

I've been using Tmpgenc for over two years now...So I'm not a complete newbie....

I burn my mpegs to DVD to watch on my tv. I do not watch movies on my computer....

[kenmo]

No one uses Mainconcept ???

TIA

[rlhartman]

I'm using V1.3 as bundled with Premiere 6.5. In my short history with it, I'm quite happy with MainConcept's MPEG encoder. I WAS considering downloading the latest version (the 1.4 you mention in this thread's title), but if you're having trouble with it maybe I'll just stick with 1.3 which is working fine.

Hearing from some more people about V1.4 would really be nice!

[SaSi]

Hi there,

Motion jerkiness is something that comes up all too often with interlaced video source.

Selecting the wrong field order causes an intolerable jerkiness, when the video is viewed on TV. On the PC, the effect is masked mostly by the high refresh and redraw rate of the PC monitors.

With interlaced material, the only safe way to preview is to burn the MPEG into a sample DVD or SVCD or VCD and try that with a set-top on TV.

Each PC player application may cause different effects that don't neccecarily relate to what the video will look like on TV.

Other than that, MC v.1.4.1 is fine and the two pass encoding it introduced (since 1.4) significantly enhanced the product. It's a fine encoder that once you master how to use, can create fine results.

Try your first encodes using the pre-built DVD or SVCD or VCD templates. The settings are quite a lot and getting them wrong is easy. I believe that reading the pdf manual is well worth it.

[keckrodrigues]

Where can I get one shareware or trialware version of Mainconcept for tests?

[Gritz]

Finding it is easy .... Google search! I've used VirtualDub to capture (avi)and TMPGENc to encode (m2v) for the past year and after the learning curve (ughh) it's pretty straight forward but very time consuming. Currently I'm doing a project in Premeire and exporting (avi) and then of course the usual encoding by TMPGENc. IF and I say IF, you could cut the time in half (I'm assuming) by frameserving with MainConcept so that the output of Premeire (avi) is fed directly into MainConcept to generate the mpg, then the process would be simpler, and shorter. I tried with my Premeire 6.0 .... but it crashed, locked up many times (I tried for 2 days straight) and I had to go into XP in the safe mode to uninstall MainConcept. Now it might be different feeding the output of VirtualDub to Mainconcept ... I don't know. But it doesn't seem to work well with Adobe Premeire (and I checked the forums at MainConcept --- many bugs and complaints there). Your mileage may vary ....

[racer-x]

I use Main Concept v 1.4 with excellent results. If you want High Quality DVD video, use these settings:

In order to improve the quality of a DVD

1. change (increase) the settings under the Motion Search Region
2. reduce the value of the Noise sensitivity setting (3..12) if you have clean source or use the LineFilter
3. change the Search Method to a larger value (but keep it less than 12)
4. Use the User quantization matrices
6. Reduce the Intra DC precision to 8 bits
6. Use the LineFilter
7. Increase the bitrate



If you want to make High Quality slideshows, use these settings.

What do I need to do to encode still pictures with the best quality?
The encoder does not know anything about the stream which will come in the single pass mode, it needs to guess what kind of video-content will be encoded. The defaults are optimized and tuned to the "usual" video-content (i.e. how good can a P frame be predicted from an I frame and how good can a B frame be predicted etc). The defaults work most of time, but in order to start encoding still pictures, some of the settings should be changed:

Motion search method = 0 (to avoid a motion search in stills)
Advanced->Advanced Video Settings->Motion search mode = 0
Advanced->Advanced Video Settings->Do half pel = 0 (disable)
Advanced->Advanced Video Settings->additional settings->
Rate Control->Initial Global Complexity Measure->
I Frame = 350
P Frame = 20
B Frame = 10

I use these settings all the time and they produce excellent results. If you use these settings correctly and your video is poor, then your source is crap.

[rlhartman]

My experience with Premiere and the MainConcept MPEG encoder is a little better than what you describe. I'm running XP SP1, Premiere 6.5, and MainConcept MPEG V1.3 (which shipped on the CD with Premiere 6.5).

Premiere itself gives me outright machine resets once in a while (theoretically impossible with XP, but nobody told Adobe). But the MPEG encoder has been flawless. Zero machine problems while using it, it's reasonably fast, very good quality, and I like the degree of fine tuning which it makes available.

The documentation could be more thorough, but then I like lots of detail so most people may not be bothered by that.

I'm tempted to download (and pay for) V1.4, but I'm going to let other people be the beta sites before I do so.

[hakeemshabazz]

Sasi: this is in response to your post on this thread...

How can you tell if a source from DVD is progressive or interlaced? I thought all DVD material was progressive, but i recently read that it is mostly interlaced...is there a way to tell? Because before I go re-encoding a ripped mpeg2 video with mainconcept (within premiere) I have the option of progressive or interlaced (and I wanna keep it whatever the source is).

I'm a newbie....obviously, so any clarification would be helpful.

[kenshin himura]

u could try using dvd2avi or bitrate viewer. they should tell you if its progressive or interlaced.

[SatStorm]

I use currently the latest version, 1.4.1
It is a very promising encode but (IMHO) not better TMPGenc in terms of quality. Also, looks "delegate" on sources. It can't encode for example any mpeg 2 file from DVB transmissions.

What makes this program amazing, is the realtime capture tool it has. It works with all the cards (the ones I have at least), don't drop frames (only rarely), don't loose the lipsynch and you can use extremely low bitrates for realtime captures, with great results!
For example, I used 2 pass VBR (which seems to work more like CQ on realtime captures....) with 1150 min, 2300 average and 4000 maximum and the results was great! No macroblocks, no artifacts! I'm really impressed by this!
The files are full compatible with DVD video, so it is possible to load your mpegs direct to your authoring application (like tmpgenc author) and burn as is. Fastest method to create DVDs from realtime captures. Don't need CPU power also: About 1Ghz is enough!

[SaSi]

Sasi: this is in response to your post on this thread...

How can you tell if a source from DVD is progressive or interlaced? I thought all DVD material was progressive, but i recently read that it is mostly interlaced...is there a way to tell? Because before I go re-encoding a ripped mpeg2 video with mainconcept (within premiere) I have the option of progressive or interlaced (and I wanna keep it whatever the source is).

I'm a newbie....obviously, so any clarification would be helpful.

Actually, most DVD material is interlaced. I have heard about a few progressive video DVD productions, but I think they must be rare.

Most high quality DVD players include a de-interlace circuit, or high-end freaks buy a Farudjia device to achieve this.

The tool I use to verify not whether a video is interlaced (as all I've seen are) but the field order, is Restream. It's a handy tool, listed in the tools section, that allows you to do several useful things. Like, change the field order of an encoded mpeg file! I encoded a capture with the wrong field order and the TV display was a mess. Being lazy and not wanting to do a 2 pass re-encode of the 2:30 h movie, I tried restream to change the field order and reauthored the DVD. Playback was now perfect.

Another interesting and useful thing it can do is to patch the timecodes of the file to reset it's start time to 0:00:00.00, instead of any garbage a ripped DVD may give or the 1:00:00.00 that is the default of CCE.

[kenmo]

Still getting jerky mpegII files when using Mainconcept. I tried top field order and bottom field order and it makes no difference in the output.

I tried different motion search and range settings. Still the same results.

I do not have this problem with Tmpgenc. The Avi's always default to top field order in Tmpgenc.....

Any other tips ?

Thanks

[FulciLives]

Still getting jerky mpegII files when using Mainconcept. I tried top field order and bottom field order and it makes no difference in the output.

I tried different motion search and range settings. Still the same results.

I do not have this problem with Tmpgenc. The Avi's always default to top field order in Tmpgenc.....

Any other tips ?

Thanks

AVI files as in downloaded DivX/Xvid MPEG-4 files?

These are usually PROGRESSIVE and my guess is you are incorrectly encoding them or encoding them correctly but not doing your PULLDOWN.EXE step.

I'm not about to explain but maybe someone else can.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[kenmo]

FulciLives...

Thank you very much for your reply...I am encoding avi's I've captured with my ATi TV wonder card and VirtualVCR...These Avi's encode fine in TmpgEnc but are jerky in MainConcept irregardless of what field order I choose....

In Tmpgenc I select filed order top (aka A)...

Again thanks

[FulciLives]

FulciLives...

Thank you very much for your reply...I am encoding avi's I've captured with my ATi TV wonder card and VirtualVCR...These Avi's encode fine in TmpgEnc but are jerky in MainConcept irregardless of what field order I choose....

In Tmpgenc I select filed order top (aka A)...

Again thanks

If you want something FASTER than TMPGEnc then look at CCE BASIC

Not only is it cheaper than MainConcepts but the quality is every bit as good as TMPGEnc plus it is MUCH faster.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[johns0]

I found main concept mpeg2 codecs caused jerky pictures with mpeg2 files with pulldown until i uninstalled it and let powerdvd codecs take over the mpeg2 playback.

[proxyx99]

As far as I remember Pulldown is automated in MC encoder (it kicks in automatically when needed). Overall excellent encoder, very fast, v.good output.

[kenmo]

Many thanks to those that took the time to reply...

I noticed in the demo of Mainconcept in advanced settings it has two settings for frame rate of 29.97. One is NSTC non-drop frame rate and the other is NSTC drop frame rate...

Can someone explain them ? I have the PDF document for Mainconcept demo but I can not find an explaination for them...

I do not see these settings in Tmpgenc.... That is other than just general frame rate settings....

[andie41]

Try this:

http://www.ledet.com/coolstuff/software/premiere/timecode.pdf

Probably more than you need , but it is good info.

[kenmo]

Andie41 - thanks very much for the pdf....I'm reading it now...

Thanks

[kenmo]

Thanks very much...It was heady stuff...

I still am unable to resolve the jerky motion when encoding with Mainconcept...

Thanks everyone for your reponses....

[mattraper]

when i encode some mpgs vids to mpeg2 vids on mainconcept sometimes u get halfway through watching them they freeze but the sound carries on any suggestions on wat i'm doing wrong it only happens on certain one's

[KwJander]

MC is a very fast AVI --> VCD Encoder but ...
How or can it be encodered AVI with subtitle? I try to encode a AVI with "sub" subtitle but VobSub didn't active during encoding.

[masterpug]

Kenmo,

I finally figured out for my tv captures converted to dvd spec using MC 1.4 to get smooth set top tv playback I had to setup the field encoding parameters as follows and all is well: (under details from main screen)


Field Encoding: "bottom field first"
Deinterlacing: "use top field"

that's the only configuration that will get the normal smooth playback on tv that you're after if your captures are like mine. I use Hauppauge WinTV USB PVR breakout box and capture to high bitrate dvd spec mpg2's and shrink down using MC 1.4 (always best to capture tv stuff high as possible and encode down). Good Luck! Mike

[spectroelectro]

MainConcept's standalone encoders do a fine job but not quite as good as TMPGenc or CCE on slow vertical motion. For horizontal motion I see no difference in smoothness twixt MainConcept and TMPGenc. Even with all the settings tweaked to prefection, as you describe, you will see a very slight (almost imperceptible) visual stutter in slow vertical motion. (Not on fast vertical motion.) TMPGenc-encoded video doesn't exhibit that particular encoding artifact. However, TMPGenc-encoded video does exhibit some blotchy color noise on dark backgrounds, whereas MainConcept-encoded video doesn't. Also, MainConcept-encoded video looks somehwhat crisper and sharper than TMPGenc-encoded video; I find that TMPGenc-encoded video has a slightly blurry look which considerably improves encoded VHS video and older prints captured directly from cable TV, but produces a different overall "look" from MainConcept-encoded video. So it's pretty much 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Both produce superb MPEG-2 output, and any problems (once you've tweaked the settings) are virtually imperceptible.