Optimized settings for Canopus

[Lucius Snow]

Hi all,

I've been used to encode with CCE SP and i just read on different forums that Canopus procoder 2 was a better choice for interlaced sources.

So my source is a DV PAL 4/3 interlaced and usually under 60 min. I want the best quality whatever the times it takes. I selected "mastering quality" and put CBR at the highest bitrate since my films are short. No need for VBR then.

- A limit is set automatically at 7800 kbit/s with a PCM audio stream at 1536 kbit/s ... but i'm still far from the total of 9800 kbit/s theoric limit. I know that some cheap standalone players don't handle very high bitrate very well but more than 9336 should be fine. What do you think about it ? Is it possible to override this limit ? Or should it stay at 7800 kbit/s ?

- I notice that only one pass is possible for CBR (it's not the case in CCE SP). Why ?

- What is CQ settting ? Can it make better results than CBR for highest bitrate ?

- I let the advanced settings to default except Intra DV precision that i put to 10. What do you recommand about these settings ?

If you have any othe proposition to optimize the settings, let me know.

Thank you

[dipstick]

If you want a higher bitrate limit, then encode to Elemental Streams, or use Mpeg Audio.

CCE is the only Mpeg Encoder I know that allows more that 2-pass encodes.

Procoder never really impressed me, so I can't comment on settings. Just keep experimenting until you find something you like. Use a small file a few min in length to test different settings.

[ronnylov]

Do not forget the maximum total bitrate of a DVD which is 10080 kbit/s. With uncompressed audio which has a bitrate of 1536 kbit/s you only have 8544 kbit/s for everything else including video and muxing overhead. Even when encoding CBR you can have some bitrate peaks above the set bitrate. My practical limit seems to be 8000 kbit/s CBR video bitrate when using uncompressed audio. To be able to use 9800 kbit/s maximum video bitrate you need to limit the audio bitrate with audio compression to allow a total bitrate of less than 10080 kbit/s.

See: https://www.videohelp.com/dvd#tech

Try settings for PAL DV is 8000 kbit/s video and uncompressed audio. I leave the DC precision at 9 and encode as 25 fps interlaced with bottom field first. You can try interlaced field mode encoding instead of interlaced frame encoding to get a little bit better quality but worse compability with stand alone DVD players. Mastering quality setting makes good results.

At this high bitrate I get similar results using Mainconcept encoder. CCE and TMPGEnc is a little bit worse quality but not any big differencies.

[guns1inger]

FWIW, in my experience with PAL DV encoding, Mastering Quality has consistently produced much lower quality output than Highest Quality, at substantially longer encoding times. I have ceased using this setting altogether. Otherwise I think it is superior to CCE for DV encoding, although this is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

The main concept standalone encoder produces much softer output than either CCE or ProCoder, although the version shipping inside Vegas is closer in quality, although slower.