What's the fastest conversion tool?

[alanfox]

Have some AVI and SVCD to convert to DVD. Have used TMPGEnc (not express), DVDSanta and WinAVI. Any reasonable benchmarks on which tool is fastest?

[guns1inger]

DivxtoDVD will do a 90 minute avi in under an hour on my AMD 1800+

[redwudz]

Not what you asked but IMO, VSO DivxToDVD is faster than the three you mention. TMPGEnc is probably the slowest, but the other two are using different methods so they are a little hard to compare to each other. If you were looking for quality instead, TMPGEnc would get my vote.

[TBoneit]

Most likely Cinema Craft Encoder Basic @$60 for speed not ease of use.

For easy good quality output I use TMPGEnc Xpress with the AC3 plugin. It lets me add several files and output either as separate files or one big file, it autosets the bitrate for single layer or dual layer DVD, easy to over-ride, Settings to optimize speed or quality, more features than I've touched on. Really nice output. Output settings for DVD, XDVD, SVCD, VCD, MPEG, AVI, Wave , and Windows Media Video. 4 sizes of DVD output resolution for NTSC or PAL.

DVD Santa for ease not much control of output though. However it did convert a troublesome avi that other stuff wouldn't do.

TMPGEnc Plus: I still use it for small files in a Q&D mode.

I Own all of the above and use Xpress the most. As I sit here typing this at work it's busy running at home converting some PAL to NTSC

Both TMPGEnc products choke one MP3 VBR audio.

I've heard that MainConcept MPEG Encoder v1.4, is the one I heard, can handle MP3 VBR audio ok. Cons to it are cost $150 according to the Tools menu at left.

Why not try the trial versions of all these on a 3 minute clip and let us know what you liked. IE Speed, Quality, Ease of use. I may do an unscientific test myself when I get a free period of time. say unscientific as I suspect input format can affect ratings as can output settings.

For example Xpress in my own usage is quick enough to set up to overcome any speed issues except when converting a PAL DVD to NTSC where the output looks good to me but it is really slow compared to converting QT, AVI or WMV files.

Good Luck

[soundforbjt]

MainConcept is the speed king..Hands down,
Does a 90min film in 42min single pass on my rig.

[tigerman8u]

I have cce sp 2.5, Tmpgenc plus and mainconcept. Mainconcept is definitely the speed king and IMO the quality is as good as any of the others.

[Baldrick]

All-In-One DVD Converter speed comparison

Source: AVI XviD, MP3, 83 minutes
Output: DVD, default settings
Computer: Athlon64 3000, 1 GB MEM, WinXP SP2

Tools:
avi2dvd 0.3.0 beta using quenc 0.61, 1 pass, no high quality
50 minutes, 1.66x realtime

DivXtoDVD 0.5.2
56 minutes, 1.48x realtime

Nerovision Express 3.1.0.7
56 minutes, 1.48x realtime

WinAVI Video Converter 6.3
61 minutes, 1.36x realtime

dvdsanta 4.00
crashed

[TBoneit]

I wonder if DVD Santa didn't like MP3 audio? I mostly use it for two things slideshows and as a fallback to try when other s/w fails to convert. It wasn't to expensive of course so I added it to my s/w collection recently.

Baldrick Was the MP3 a VBR or constant bitrate? I've noticed that TMPGEnc doesn't crash on either but will give very long erroneous clip times with VBR audio but works ok with regular non-vbr mp3.

Cheers

[Baldrick]

yep, VBR MP3.

[TBoneit]

I'll bet it was the VBR MP3. You wouldn't want to test with MP3 non-VBR audio, just from curiousity. If not I'll try and find both tyoes of clips on my HDs and test as I'm curious myself.

Did the other applications work properly with the VBR audio?

Thanks