Main Concept Encoder, I dont see why people are so impressed

[Umen Pich]

I compared tmpgenc and Main Concept Encoder, and the later is not so quicker as some people claim. All in all 13% quicker (on Pentium-4)
tmpgenc was in CQ85, normal, and in MainConcept everything was by default.

I have to say, in both cases I served with virtualdub, and did resizing (Lanzos) and letterboxing in there.


Question 1 -- is there a way to do letterboxing in Main Concept itself ?
If not, then the speed of the system virtualdub-mainconcept is obviously limited by the resizing in virtualdub.

Question 2 -- How do you handle the program streams which mainconcept outputs. Nero doesn't like them before converting first with tmpgenc to svcd. "Doesn't like" means -- they take more space i.e. 700Mb file would fill a 80min CD while 800Mb which should be normally ok makes a BIG red zone. The only way to solve the problem is to simple-multiplex the clip in tmpgenc to SVCD stream.

Question 3 - What could be wrong in my comparizons. After all everybody praises the speed of MainConcept, while in my case outperforming of tmpgenc is very modest

thank you

[BJ_M]

your speed would be limited by v-dub ...

1. yes -- it has complete letterboxing, cropping and centering built in ... its in the advanced menu..

2. it can output program or system streams .. perhaps don't use the default settings ... it can output any way you want .. it can directly output svcd program streams if you wish and has a very good multiplex for this built in ..

3. on 2 pass VBR -- all other things being equal , it shoulld be about double the speed on your system .. it is close to or same as (on some systems faster) than real time (1 pass)..

[racer-x]

I agree, Main Concept Encoder is the BALLS! After you tweak it to produce High Quality, it will equel the highest quality settings in TMPGEnc, but will be about 10 times faster.

[johns0]

Is it possible to do pal to ntsc framerate conversions with Main Concept Encoder?I tried it but it kept changing the framerate to pal output.

[BJ_M]

Is it possible to do pal to ntsc framerate conversions with Main Concept Encoder?I tried it but it kept changing the framerate to pal output.

i dont really recomend it ..

[zworg2]

I have just started using Main Concept.

An AVI to DVD tranfer i wanted to do would have taken 14h hours in TMPGEnc (with the settings to make it as fast as possible)

But the same conversion in Main COncept with a higher CBR took just short of three hours....

wrote:
Is it possible to do pal to ntsc framerate conversions with Main Concept Encoder?I tried it but it kept changing the framerate to pal output.
i dont really recomend it ..

ok,but does it work? and what do you recommend to do PAL to NTSC and visa versa conversions.....

thanks in advance

Zworg2

[andie41]

Umen Pich

I compared tmpgenc and Main Concept Encoder, and the later is not so quicker as some people claim. All in all 13% quicker (on Pentium-4)
tmpgenc was in CQ85, normal, and in MainConcept everything was by default.

I agree with you. I don't undersrtand the fasination. MC is good - so are many others. I have tried MC so many times, because I keep reading all these glowing recomendations, and then I try it and take it off my computer. It iseems to be a bit faster that other encoders (you indicated 13%, with a straight encode I have found closer to 20 %), and a little lower quality. Someone wrote 10 times faster - I kept looking for the punch line but couldn't find one. Pity the person starting out reading that. You get what you pay for - money, time, effort, bitrate.

[alenhard]

MC is the best in my opinion.

Unfortunately lots of people just hit "encode" and never think to tweak any settings. The results are very impressive...

[racer-x]

andie41 wrote:

Someone wrote 10 times faster - I kept looking for the punch line but couldn't find one. Pity the person starting out reading that. You get what you pay for - money, time, effort, bitrate.

I said TMPGEnc set at High Quality not CQ85. I used these settings:
http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

I also tweaked Main Concept to produce High Quality. And the results on my system were:

Main Concept = 2.4 x Real Time

TMPGEnc = 20 x real time

As always your settings and results will vary.

[wwaag]

racer-x

How about sharing some of your "tweaks" to produce high quality? Thanks.

wwaag

[zworg2]

racer-x
How about sharing some of your "tweaks" to produce high quality? Thanks.
wwaag

just follow the link in his post.....

reproduced here..........http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

Zworg2

[wwaag]

zworg2

The referenced post is for Tmpgnec, not Main Concept. Thanks anyway.

wwaag

[zworg2]

zworg2
The referenced post is for Tmpgnec, not Main Concept. Thanks anyway.
wwaag

DOH!

Yeah sorry about that, I followed it and as it was familiar i assumed .........

Unfortunately that logic was flawed as I use both

Zworg2

[andie41]

I think these discussions have very little real value unless we are quite specific and detailed with our settings and techniques.

I don't make highly compressed Mpegs, using 2 pass VBR, trying to squeeze a movie onto a single DVD, or convert to and from PAL/NTSC or resize - I would expect that doing so would significantly impact many aspects of the encode. I use 8000 kbps, either "Constant Quality" of "Automatic VBR" at around the 100 setting, straight 720x480, NTSC, audio in a separate program, little or no noise reduction, and of course, I get relatively fast and quality results no matter what program I use.

I generally encode short clips - 5 to 15 minutes. Someone in another thread, talking about the speed of CCE/Avisynch stated it really needs long clips to show it's strengths. I don't know about that, I don't use long clips.

I have used TMPGenc quite extensively and when I read "high quality" settings, I never think of the "highest quality" setting in motion search precision, because, for me, it is totally a waste of time - I never use it; I generally use "motion estimate search", and I consider my settings and my results "high quality". I read on a website explaining how to tweak TMPGenc (not the one listed above), that the author didn't really know what "highest quality" setting meant, but always used it anyway - it sounds better. We need to do our oun tests, and see what works for us. I just don't get stuttering, blockiness, pixelization, etc. with my encodes.

As I stated in a previous post, I think MC is good (the latest version seems perhaps a bit better, as well), but is still doesn't seem quite as good to my eye, a bit more noise, especially apparent in the background - but that is just my eye. And it is faster - for me and my "high quality" settings, approx 25% to 35% faster, in my latest tests. And of course, it costs approx 3x more than TMPGenc.

[racer-x]

wwaag wrote:

How about sharing some of your "tweaks" to produce high quality? Thanks.

I got these settings from a Main Concept Forum. They work great for me

For DVD Video:
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

For Still image slideshows:
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

Also, encoding your slideshows in progressive video makes for better quality, especially when you hit the pause button on your DVD Player. Your images must be progressive though!

[SatStorm]

- TMPGenc is better (sharper) Mainconcept.

- Mainconcept is faster TMPGEnc plus. But if you frameserve with Virtualdub, the speed difference ain't that much (about 15%)

- Mainconcept seems to handle better the static background scenes, if you set low bitrates and 2 Pass VBR encoding, compared TMPGenc plus.

- Mainconcept has an amazing built in capture feature, which allow you to capture from any analogue source direct to mpeg 2, using a 2 Pass VBR method. You need of course a powerfull CPU for the best possible results.

- TMPGenc has mpeg tools and flexibility, plug ins and filters.

- TMPGenc is cheaper Mainconcept. Also, a free version is avalaible for anyone intereset (and which last forever if you live in the future )


Personally, I use mainconcept 1.4.1 only when I want to capture direct to mpeg 2 with my cards. I don't use it to encode my avis / DVB mpegs. What I also like to this encoder, is that someone familiar with TMPGenc, can easily use it and someone never used a encoder before, can easy learn it! IMHO mainconcept has the features less hidden that TMPGenc, and that by itself make the program easier for new users.

[migf1]

Hi guys,

I have tried twice (in the Capture forum) to get an answer regarding capturing with MC , but both went wasted since no-one got back to me. So perhaps I have better luck if I ask again here.

I'm capturing Half-D1 PAL standard TV broadcast soccer games (DVD compliant) with MC 1.4 but I'm getting jerky output in quick scenes when playing the thing in my standaolne.

I played around with various settings, but no matter what I do the problem stays (it's of course highly possible that I'm missing some important settings).

I noticed that the output becomes a little better if I disable the "do half-pel" setting, but still quite annoying playback. I know I'm not lucking horsepower and my system is properly configured, so it has to do with MC 1.4.

Any hints or pointer to decent settings for capturing sport-action programs directly to 1/2 D1 PAL MPEG2 would be greatly appreciated.

Bets regards...

PS. The relative link of my post with a lot more details of my settings (in the Capture forum) is the following: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=208321&sid=0174dda84fc2c06f8f5bcc5f883c4afb