is the panasonic mpeg1 encoder v2.5 any good?

[reddragon72]

I have a friend who has it and he says it works fine. I have been using mpegenc for all my encoding, but I'm looking for a faster encoder. Antone got hands on with this one. Is it any good?

[aldus4]

The Panasonic MPEG Encoder seems to produce a smoother picture than TMPGEnc which many people like. TMPGEnc is meant to be slightly faster however.

[richy]

I would agree with aldus4. In my opinion the Panasonic encoder is the best for producing standard MPEG-1 video for VCDs. Its picture quality is a lot better when you get blocky scenes etc. However, TMPGEnc is slightly faster so if it's speed you're after then stick to that.

[Braindrain]

Panasonic is good. Personally, if you're working with good source material, I like TMPG since it produces a sharper picture. If your source isn't the greatest, Panasonic may be a better choice.

[lemmy999]

Can you frameserve from Vdub directly to the panasonic encoder (I have version 2.3)?

[Stinky]

I use Panasonic a lot - and TMPGEnc a lot

Panasonic is a bit slower but it's the only choice for hard to convert DivX movies - also it's standard VCD compliant output is a bit higher quality than TMPGEnc

TMPGEnc is the choice for xVCD's and xSVCD's ... plus it doesn't handle hard to convert DivX's ... it errors out

[TPW]

true mine has tons of erros with divx (tmpgenc) but they tend to give the error at the end, and the actual file is good to burn, make sure to separate the audio from the video when encoding it does help

[reddragon72]

thanks for the input. I got my friends copy and tried it out. I could see a little improvment on the panasonic encoder but it did take longer. I's going to go with the pan encoder because I'm archiving film I've taken of my daughter growing up and want to keep it in top shape for later in life viewing.

[vitualis]

I agree with most of the sentiments on this thread. I personally like the output of Panasonic over TMPGEnc for standard VCD bitrates.

As a note though, since nobody has mentioned it, the Panasonic MPEG Encoder DOESN'T (let me emphasise again, DOESN'T) correctly mux the video and audio streams to create a compliant MPEG stream for VCDs. This leads to an A/V sync problem on some hardware players -- primarily standalone VCD players.

The way to fix this is to remux a Panasonic made MPEG-1 with TMPGEnc or bbMPEG.

Regards.

[GUTB]

Basically, TMPGEnc is king of the roost right now. There really is no compelling reason to go with anything else right now. If you want to hide artifacts at low bitrates, TMPGEnc also supports image smoothing at various levels, but you have to turn it on.

If you want to retain as much quality as possible, TMPGEnc is the only game in town as it allows tweaking of almost every stream variable imaginable. It supports every encoding method you can think of. It's very fast. So, no, you aren't really missing anything by not using the Panasonic encoder.

[bobotns]

I also use Panasonic 2.51.
It's not fast but you get an excellent image.
It's much easier to configure as TMPG (TMPG is for professionals that know what they do!)
I havn't any problems with the vcd-streams of Panasonic, they work just fine!

[vitualis]

GUTB, as many people have stated, the Panasonic MPEG Encoder delivers better video quality (to some eyes) than TMPGEnc at VCD bitrates.

TMPGEnc is inherently a sharper, but blockier MPEG-1 encoder. This may look better to some, but not to others. Image smoothing is a non-satisfactory solution if you start with a perfect digital source (e.g., DVD rip) as it also smears out detail.

Regards.

[GUTB]

But you DO realize that the Panasonic encoder makes output that looks that way BECAUSE of smoothing - right?

Panasonic is for the informed newbie/casual encoder. TMPGEnc is for everyone else

[vitualis]

Panasonic default VCD output (which is smoother than TMPGEnc) looks better in my eyes than TMPGEnc default output or TMPGEnc with any sort of smoothing.

TMPGEnc is good, but IMHO, not as good as Panasonic when using VCD bitrates.

Furthermore, there are several advantages that Panasonic has over TMPGEnc -- namely its greatly superior audio encoding and that fact that it comes in the form of an Adobe Premiere plug-in.

Yes I know that you can use toolame and frameserve However, toolame doesn't work properly when frameserving from FlaskMPEG (well, it didn't for me and I gave up) and though frameserving is quite an elegant solution, it should be avoided if possible.

TMPGenc is for everyone, undoubtedly. But for simple, and IMHO, BEST quality MPEG-1 at VCD bitrates, nothing beats Panasonic 2.51, especially when using FlaskMPEG or Premiere.

Regards.

[nazimm]

just had to add my comments:
I got the Panasonic and I tried encoding a DiVX into VCD and it was estimated taking something like 15 hours (Athlon PC..). Tried it with TMPGEnc and took 3 hours or so. The nice thing about TMPGEnc is it is nice and easy. Select the template and hit the start button and done deal. To be honest I did not try too hard with Panasonic, then again I am not a patient man!
I think quality is subjective. With TMPGEnc, using the Standard VCD Pal and Sefy's stuff (great for smaller size) the image is the absolute best, no blocks etc.. The best and only way to judge quality is to watch VCD from a DVD player to a TV. On the PC, you see all the imperfections. Also, lots of poeple expect some improved quality when converting to VCD!!! They think, source of video is OK, so after conversion it will better than OK... nooooooo I only convert very good quality DiVX movies and the resulting VCD is hardly any different in quality....
Go with TMPGEnc.....

That was long he!!
Nazim

[vitualis]

As others have mentioned, the Panasonic MPEG Encoder is able to encode some problem DivX files that TMPGEnc can't handle.

Also, there are reports further up saying that in some circumstances, Panasonic MPEG Encoder is faster than TMPGEnc. I personally believe that in general, TMPGEnc is faster, but not by that much.

Quality is subjective and I've stated to that effect before. However, TMPGEnc definitely produces blocks at VCD bitrates and so does Panasonic. Anybody who has used both will tell you that Panasonic produces less blocks than TMPGEnc but at the expense of softer video. Which looks better is up to your eyes.

In terms of simple functionality such as loading a template and hitting start, Panasonic wins here (though it's a meaningless victory for anybody who bothers to work out how any program works). You never have anybody posting problems on loading the wrong template (or not loading one) with Panasonic. This problem seems common for newbies with TMPGEnc.

Regards.

[GUTB]

TMPGEnc is much faster in it's default template configurations because it doesn't process a bunch of filters like Panasonic does. You can configure any aspect, size, bitrate and filter option imaginable with TMPGEnc, including custom image smoothingm noise filtering, feild orders, etc, etc, etc.

All Panasonic does is run a set of filters with the encode which were made to produce a pleasing result. TMPGEnc does not do this, and goes for pureness by default, and leaves it up to you to configure the filters the way you want it. That's how expert/hobbiest encoders like it. For every stream that I encode, I tweak the encode job to maintain as much of the original purity as possible, and sometimes apply image smoothing to fix horribly low-quality streams. Blurriness does not help an image, it simply trades one defect for another, more serious defect.

If you are a just a newbie/casual encoder of the odd VHS tape or music video, by all means use Panasonic and get a gaurenteed good result.

If you are an expert/serious encoder who tweaks for maximum image purity of high-quality sources, TMPGEnc is the only game in town.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GUTB on 2001-07-30 06:09:51 ]</font>

[disturbed1]

To add to what vitualis said,
Panasonic has many features which may not seem obvious to the newbie. It has almost every advanced feature that TMPG has. Including noise reduction, custom GOPs, color correction etc. The only options not available are IVTC, and exporting as wav/avi.

If you don't like the smoothing effect you can switch half pell to full pell. This will result in a blockier image like TMPG, but it will be sharper.

PWI as a better batch control, and it allows you to combine the batch into a single avi.

[disturbed1]

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On 2001-07-30 06:05:46, GUTB wrote:
TMPGEnc is much faster in it's default template configurations because it doesn't process a bunch of filters like Panasonic does. You can configure any aspect, size, bitrate and filter option imaginable with TMPGEnc, including custom image smoothingm noise filtering, feild orders, etc, etc, etc.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I have to disagree there. On my setup, PWI is faster than TMPG. TMPG opperates (motion search HQ, not highest) at 3x. PWI converts at 2.5x.

Of course I'm comparing encoding times, not audio and resize.