recommend an mpeg converter

[cL0N31]

to convert to dvd and svcd compliant mpeg files, long time ago i used tmpgenc... i bet as of now much better and freely available alternatives exist... can some1 recommend a good mpeg converter?

i've stumbled upon an old comparison thread and they were saying hcenc was pretty good... so what's good nowadays?

[Kerry56]

HCenc is probably the best free choice. The program I prefer that can utilize HC is called AVStoDVD. You can output as complete dvd video or as mpeg files or even demuxed audio and video streams.

You can also use AviSynth scripts or files created by DGIndex to use as input for HCgui. This will give you the most detailed control, but HCenc only works with video, not audio, so you'll have to demux and work with the audio separately.

Don't know about svcd though. Not a format I use, so someone else will have to discuss that.

[jman98]

HCenc is certainly capable of producing SVCD compliant video, but you will have to learn AviSynth scripting so you can write your own scripts for it. Note that it will complain that you are not producing DVD compliant video if you produce SVCD, but you can ignore the warning.

I haven't used this in many years but DVD2SVCD used to be the best program when it came to producing SVCD from various input files.

[sanlyn]

to convert to dvd and svcd compliant mpeg files, long time ago i used tmpgenc... i bet as of now much better and freely available alternatives exist... can some1 recommend a good mpeg converter?

i've stumbled upon an old comparison thread and they were saying hcenc was pretty good... so what's good nowadays?

Nothing wrong with TMPGenc Plus 2.5, it's still going strong. This doesn't mean it's perfect (you'll have to spend into 4 figures to get anything near perfect). Later versions from 4.0 on up have lower quality. TMPGenc tried to discontinue the product a while back, but sales were too good so the encoder is still sold online. 2.5's audio encoder leaves something to be desired, but I work with uncompressed PCM until later steps anyway. I've used others, including HCenc, but I won't give up TMPGenc's advanced image controls.

[Hoser Rob]

If you just want to convert to dvd/svcd compliant I've found avidemux is excellent. It's worked with every file (with whatever wacky codec) I've tossed at it that wasn't broken. Just use the mpg ps stream preset.

It's not the most friendly program for newbies ... which I don't think you are ... but it's a lot easier than learning avisynth scripting language.

[sanlyn]

TMPGenc doesn't require an Avisynth script.