Anybody actively use HC Encoder and like it?

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Would any of you be willing to point me out to a manual or a web resource that would explain in detail step by step the whole process and workflow involved from the very beginning which is taking a .avi file and opening it up through successfully encoding it with HC Encoder?

I ask because I know nothing about scripts, programming, command lines, Avisynth or .dv files.

Am certainly willing to try though if I can get jumpstarted.

What is you personal opinion and experience with the quality of the encoding? What settings did/do you use?

Thanks all,

BP

[guns1inger]

Depends on what your target is. If it is DVD, I like AVStoDVD. One of the tricks AVStoDVD has is to allow you to output elementary streams, ready to author in any authoring program you like. It uses HCEnc or Qenc (I use HCEnc) and gives you enough control to get good encodes without getting overwhelmed by avisynth and all the little settings. A good place for beginners to start.

As for the quality . . . . HCEnc is a very capable encoder. Not as noisy as CCE, not as soft as ProCoder. It is pretty fast, and is multi-core aware in recent versions. It does very well at lower bitrates where others start to falter. For the price it is very difficult to fault. The fact that it doesn't accept AVI files directly is offset by the fact that there are several good 3rd party front ends to it now.

[manono]

If you had looked in the Guides section of this site you might have come across this:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic334173.html#1734488

and this:

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/avi_to_dvd_avi2dvd.cfm

[jagabo]

I use HcGui for encoding. You can use FitCD to generate an AviSynth script for it.

[ron spencer]

It is all I use...avisynth is not that difficult

[jman98]

It's all I use now too. I used to use CCE for non-HD encoding, but now I just use HCEnc + AviSynth for my MPEG-2 encodes. I'm fussy and I found that HCEnc was doing as well as CCE, so I just dropped using CCE.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Gotta love this forum!

The keys to solving this puzzle was FIT Cd (did know know of its existence) which creates aviscripts and for suggesting that I use a multi-function app which utilize HCEnc and other tools in order to process video instead of a dedicated standalone encoder.

Your replies indeed were very educational, appreciated and definitely pointed me in the right direction.

I was not realy aware of the afterdawn site because this is my go to site for video processing.

The guides also appear to be straight forward and will lead me along with you responses down the path to a sucessfull result.

Thanks so much gents.

Bruce

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

If I may ask everyone:

Because any information is crucial and valuable at this stage.

What specific settings within HC Encoder do you use to get optimum results with an 29.97 fps/NTSC avi. file which is going to dvd?

AVS to DVD looked to be particularly attractive for its range of flexibility.

What confused me is the settings which indicate ranges and bit rate averages for the VBR 2 pass option. The lower bitrate for some reason is greyed out and "stuck" at 4500. What does that mean....it's ignored when processing? I don't want to unintentionally encode at a low bitrate. Is this program not capable of allowing the user to create custom "video profiles" and specify an exact burn rate not a range?

Also, what the heck does OPV stand for? Which of the 3 standard default profiles is the best?

Maybe I'm missing something here ! Please bare with me as I grapple with the options.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge and thanks for your patience.

[_MrC_]

What confused me is the settings which indicate ranges and bit rate averages for the VBR 2 pass option. The lower bitrate for some reason is greyed out and "stuck" at 4500. What does that mean....it's ignored when processing? I don't want to unintentionally encode at a low bitrate. Is this program not capable of allowing the user to create custom "video profiles" and specify an exact burn rate not a range?

Also, what the heck does OPV stand for? Which of the 3 standard default profiles is the best?

Maybe I'm missing something here ! Please bare with me as I grapple with the options.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge and thanks for your patience.

Hi Canon GL-2 Guy,

please, take a look at the help section (just press F1 on the window you are struggling): it often contains the answers to your questions. Then, if you still have any, I am here.



Bye

[manono]

I was not realy aware of the afterdawn site because this is my go to site for video processing.

And this site is where I found that link to the guide at Afterdawn, while searching on HCEnc guides. That first guide to which I linked is the important one, though, if you want to do an entirely manual conversion (which is what's implied in your first post), because it walks you through the entire process, including getting the AviSynth script from FitCD. It also has suggestions for settings to use in FitCD.

Any all-in-one programs using HCEnc, including AVI2DVD and Avs2DVD, automate the process, with authoring and menu creation thrown in.