tmpgenc motion search precision

[zl1corvette]

Is highest quality motion search precision really any better than fast low quality? I am looking at two days for a 2-pass vbr at highest quality, is that normal?

[teegee420]

You'll need to describe your computer's specs. Personally, I don't see any difference in quality. Especially in VBR mode.

[zl1corvette]

the pc is a 1.5ghz p4, 256k cache, 256mb ram, is probably doesn't matter but win2k

[thor300]

the high precision setting is the only one you should use for high quality sources. It takes long time, but can do it faster over the parts with less motion and few scene changes, so the 2 days could be reduced to 1 if the video is full of action in the beginning and less more into the movie. Your pc isnt so very well suited for tmpgenc 2-pass, i would use only CCE Basic or mainconcept with 2-pass, tmpgenc doesnt give a result its worth waiting 2 days for, it is the very slowest of all commonly used encoders.

[ZippyP.]

My system isn't much faster, I use 2-pass VBR and motion search estimate

[zl1corvette]

How does mainconcept's encoder stack up against cce? I haven't heard a lot about it. If I am going to buy an encoder which is accepted as better cce or mainconcept?

[reboot]

"Better"...you are the only one that can decide.
I personally like Mainconcept, both for it's speed, and quality.
The only "better" quality, is 2 pass VBR in tmpgenc or Canopus.
I don't consider CCE great quality, nor do I like it's lack of interface and difficulty in using.
Hard core encoders may scoff at Mainconcept, but it has all the options tmpgenc does, and some that it doesn't, if you know where to look.

[Josef K]

If I am going to buy an encoder which is accepted as better cce or mainconcept?

In this situation, I would choose CCE, purely for the fact that you can use it on DVD2SVCD.

From the DVD2SVCD Q&A:

Q2: What commercial software is required?
A: As of verion 1.0.7 no commercial tools is necessary. You can use all versions of TMPGenc (including the older versions which are freeware). However, the general opinion is that Cinema Craft Encoder delivers the best quality when converting to SVCD and is recommended to use.

As you can see, though, you can use the older freeware versions of TMPGEnc. Nothing beats CCE combined with DVD2SVCD, though.

[thor300]

I disagree with reboot about the CCE quality, but its for sure true that Mainconcept is good. It cant quite match the speed of CCE used with AviSynth, but close. I just played around with MainConcept trial version, its the better choice if you are not familiar with frameservers, and it is great for realtime encoding if you ever plan to get into capture.

[thor300]

Josef is right, no encoder gets close to CCE for SVCD encoding, i have some old SVCD's encoded with tmpgenc, incredible bad compared to CCE. Tmpgenc is not able to make acceptable quality at low bitrates. I never tried MainConcept for SVCD, but i cant imagine any encoder doing a worse job than tmpgenc for this, especially if you sqeeze long movies onto only 2 svcds.

[Josef K]

It cant quite match the speed of CCE used with AviSynth

Agreed. When I've made SVCDs with DVD2SVCD I can get a 4 pass VBR done on a 1:30-1:45 film done in around 6 hours. If I want to convert an .AVI to DVD I can do that at CBR in a little bit less than 2 hours and with great quality.

[reboot]

I said I don't consider CCE "great quality". It is good, and far better than tmpgenc in most cases. Combined with dvd2svcd it's just too slow a process imho.
For "Great Quality" I use Canopus Procoder.

[zl1corvette]

dude thanks for all the input guys