Best quality (Not speed) Converter for miniDV to Mpeg2

[AussieHusky]

Hi, its been a few years since I last converted video to Mpeg2, Im wondering what the best quality converter is? It used to be CCE. I am capturing video from my MiniDV camera via Firewire and I am wondering what program to use to convert it to something I can use in a DVD authoring program.

[guns1inger]

It depends what sort of image you want.

CCE and HCEnc are similar in finished quality. They both have a tendency towards sharpness, with CCE prone to a noisier image. CCE is still the reigning speed king.

ProCoder (now up to version 3) is softer in it's finish.

Mainconcept is somewhere in between the two, but it does depend on the implementation. The Mainconcept encoder is used in many applications, and the way it is setup in each application can affect the results. For the most part, the implementations in Vegas and Premiere seem to produce better results out of the box than the standalone version.

Tmpgenc is probably the middle ground, although it is still frightening slow.

Everybody has a different view on what constitutes quality. Some people see a sharper, noisier image and perceive this as having greater detail and therefore higher quality.

Some find the softer appearance of some encoders to be more film-like and less soap-opera video.

In short, it is really down to you, and what you want from your encoder.

[AussieHusky]

Its for DV recordings of pottery demonstraitions, so Sharper would be better, So you recomend CCE and HCEnc? Im not fussed on speed as I just leave it to run overnight.

[freebird73717]

If your not worried about speed you might try hc using the best profile and 2 pass vbr encode since it is free and see if the results satisfy you. If not satisfied you can try cce. I'm a strong supporter of hc.

[guns1inger]

You might try using FAVC as a front-end, and doing a Predictive Encode. HCEnc cannot run two processes for normal 2-pass VBR, but it can for PQ. I have recently upgraded to a C2Q running at 2.4 gHz (from a P4 3 gHz with HT), and a PQ encode that used to take around 6 hours completed in under 30 minutes. A C2D won't get the same improvements, but it is still pretty damn good for a freebie.

[halsboss]

HCenc gets comparison raves over at Doom9.org ...