Recommend a cheap MPEG2 Encoder please

[Martin1962]

PAL

I want to convert 16x9 B leading AVI to MPEG2 and also 4x3 A leading AVI to MPEG2.

The encoder in my DVD software (ULead DVD Movie factory) is poor, TMPGENC is SLOW and crashes.

What is CCE basic like?

I want control over bit rates, ect basically a fast non crashing TMPGENC would do!!!!!

I run at high bitrates for holiday videos and archiving my Beta tapes.

[fmctm1sw]

A lot of people like CCE. I've never been able to get it to work right for me. It's not as user friendly as some of the others. Can you use avisynth?

[mats.hogberg]

I agree on CCEs "barren" approach to user interface - Did you look at MainConcept?

/Mats

[fritzi93]

Quenc is free, nothing to lose by trying it. Avisynth required. I've been testing it with DVDRebuilder, overnight did a 2-pass VBR encode of a 3 1/2 hour DVD, took just under 6 hours to complete. On my machine TMPGEnc takes over 3x real time to do that. To my eyes the quality is comparable to TMPGEnc. I have no experience with the other encoders mentioned already, they're supposedly faster (?) Good luck.

[Oscar wallace]

MainConcept is worth a try, much faster then TMPGEnc and gives excellent MPEG2 results.

[Martin1962]

Never used AVI Synth, so would I be best off staying with TMPGENC for normal use because if it didn't work I could at least hassle them to fix it?

Yes I am after good levels of control with easy to follow controls

[reboot]

bbmpeg with the gui. quick and dirty, get's the job done.
Mainconcept for speed.
Canopus for quality/speed.
Tmpgenc for those who refuse to try anything else

[Martin1962]

Quality is my main concern, I don't need much over 1 1/2 hours per DVD and I am not bothered about using multiple discs as one holiday per disc or one transfered tape per disc will be fine (Ritek G04 )

However I am not made of money - have a family to support.

[SatStorm]

TMPGenc 2.5 for general use
TMPGenc plus 2.5 for general use

Canopus Procoder for Speed / quality: Mostly for NTSC users

Mainconcept 1.4.2 for Speed / quality: Mostly for PAL users

CCE basic with avisynth for students / nerds: Speed and quality at it's best

BBmpeg for freeware (good quality, slow encoding)

[reboot]

Just out of curiosity, why would you say Mainconcept is mostly for PAL users? Why would Canopus be mostly for NTSC? I don't follow the reasoning behind that assumtion at all...
We do agree that bbmpeg is for the el-cheapo crowd

[SatStorm]

Because if you test both encoders, you gonna see that mainconcept produce better picture results with PAL material and procoder produce better results with NTSC material....

Of course this is my opinion, others may have a different

[reboot]

OK, I guess I haven't looked that close. I have no issues with Mainconcept's NTSC output. I would think it's got more to do with the input quality/framerate than actual encoder engine quirks.

[Abond]

@Martin1962
I would suggest MEncoder (command line) with MencodeMe (GUI). The quality is good (better than QuEnc) it is fast, Avisynth doesn't require. You can download the package here

[Martin1962]

Thanks - I'll download and do some tests

[flaninacupboard]

i'm amazed to see someone bitch about TMPGenc being slow on a 2.4 ghz machine! I was running it three years ago on an athlon 650...

It shouldn't be crashing though, since the "plus" release it's been very stable for me at DVD resolution.

[Ejoc]

I've switched to Quenc and I'm really happy w/ it