The New "Best Mpeg2 Encoder" thread

[glenpinn]

Following on from this thread from 2011 that i just found after another member resurrected the other day, and jman98 kindly suggested to that poster that because it was an old thread he should have left it alone.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/339795-The-best-MPEG-2-encoding-software

I noticed some posters in that thread mention some pretty useless software that in my opinion deserves its place on the scrap heap, however i am still curious to know which Mpeg2 encoding tools are still considered to be the best of the best amongst members in this forum.

Personally i do very very little dvd conversions these days because of the implementation of Bluray and HD videocams to film with, but back in my DVD days i always used TMPGEnc Xpress 3 & 4 and later it became Video Mastering Works 5.0, and i liked it because it had a basic editing tools, had a pile of filters and a cropping tool, all of which i found very useful, and i was always very happy with its Mpeg2 quality, even tho at that time there were others such as CCE, Procoder & Mainconcept that were said to be better.

I also used the Pegasys DVD Authoring Works & Mpeg Editor as well under my bundled license, which i still have, along with updated versions of all 3 programs just in case i ever need them.

[jman98]

You're my hero for starting a new thread!

The problem I found with TMPGenc is that at scene transitions, it tended to go crazy with macroblocks, even at high bit rates.

CCE still has respect, but given the price and limitations to it (the last version I ever tried couldn't encode to HD resolutions at all), many of us that used to use it now use HCenc. For a free encoder it's really good. In my opinion it matches CCE in terms of quality and it can produce HD output, which is why I started using it. I never used Procoder or Mainconcept, but I have a vague recollection that the comments we've had here about them both from our experienced members have not been complimentary. I remember some years ago a guy on another forum used to use Procoder to convert between PAL and NTSC to produce DVDs for his relatives, but I thought he was crazy as if he just bought them a converting DVD player he could stop that conversion nonsense. He claimed at the time that Procoder did the best job of converting between PAL and NTSC (I don't remember which direction he did the work in) and his time meant nothing to him, so he was OK with spending hours a week doing this kind of thing for his relatives. You need to use AviSynth if you're going to use HCenc, but if that's OK for you I suggest you try it and see what you think. Do note that if you have 64 bit Win 7 that you need to use the latest beta release or you will have major problems.

[sanlyn]

I didn't care for TMPGenc Express versions in any way. For SD-DVD I stuck with TMPGenc Plus 2.5 (still popular and still sold) and HCenc. I'm still deciding about encoders for HD-only. TMPGenc's Express line superceded Plus 2.5; they changed encoder and filter engines, and screwed themselves royally in the encoder business..

[glenpinn]

hi guys, thx for the input, i know TMPGEnc xpress got bagged a lot back in the days when i was using it to convert my home videos from Dv-AVI to dvd compliant Mpeg2 format (video from my NV-GS70 & GS400 DV cams) but i still maintained it was better than Mainconcept, and Procoder for me was a POS to use, and CCE was just too expensive.

these days i dont bother with dvd format, havent used it for 2 years or more now that i have been shooting with my panasonic HDC-SDT750 1080/50p cam and outputting the AVCHD files to MP4 and using Avidemux to edit the finished footage.

with the advent of HD TV with built in media players, and hard drive media players that support most formats, things have really changed a lot these days.

[WAC_SmArTrIpPeR]

TMPGEnc dident like TMPGEnc xpress things have really changed a lot these days. yes and dont you think its down to sites like this and others the amiture video chaps that hang out here and other forums that are the driveing force I rember spending hours doing one film to record with my plextor cdr berore dvdr came along amiture enthuseastes have allways been the driveing force in my honest opinion and what the web was realy about shareing ideas info.

[paulw]

I have always used Procoder and still do for the small amount of Mpeg2 encoding that I do these days