Is fastest rendering software AVS Video Editor?

[johnharlin]

I have been told that AVS Video Editor under certain settings, I think it was

h-64 AVC
frame rate:30fps
4500 kbps
mp3 audio: 192k
file format mp4:
Resolution: 1280 by 720

is 10 times faster than Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and any other video editing software under the same render settings. Is this possible?

[Baldrick]

Everything is possible....but how is the QUALITY?

[XenonS]

Everything is possible....but how is the QUALITY?

Yeah, good question.
I'm running a trial of AVS Converter & Editor and I notice that:
The output quality of MP4 is not good. Actually there is another *free* software called VSDC Free Video Editor with almost the same functionality as AVS, altough the interface is looking different. Both suffer from what I consider sub-par quality when compared to the MP4 output of Any Video Converter Ultimate.
I notice this by converting and opening the outputs in Windows Media Player. The ones from AVS and VSDC show unpleasant pixel effects in bright color backgrounds, how should I call these, wave effects? These are almost not visible in Any Video Converter outputs.
In the AVS forums, they suggest to keep all parameters of the original to not worsen quality, but that's not a remedy, just common sense.
I cannot explain these differences in quality, but if I play the outputs on TV (for what MP4 is best I think), I don't see any quality differences, I only see them on PC with media players.

Apart from all that, I'm highly enjoying the vast amount of codecs in AVS, especially lossless ones and ability to encode uncompressed AVI files.

XenonS

[johnharlin]

Thank you for your test, however, you didn't say whether the speed was faster for rendering in AVS Video Editor which was the main question.
I also like the Gamma function in AVS under color editing. I find this works much better then increasing brightness. I had a video which I shot of some people from the shade and into the sun under some trees about an hour before sunset. It was a bad mistake to shoot at that angle because if I increased brightness too much then the Sun part of the video would come out distorted. But using the Gamma worked much better than brightness so I was able to save the video from being a total loss.
I don't know if other video editors have some kind of good correction for this.

I have noticed that both in photography and video, there is a problem in doing shots that have parts in both sunlight and shade. You can use levels in Photoshop to lighten the whole photo but it still seems a little unbalanced. I don't know what the solution is for that in video. I suppose in Photoshop you can light or darken just one area of the photo but that still would cause problems in getting the border just right. I don't know what you'd do about that in video.

[XenonS]

Speed:
I cannot say if AVS is faster than concurrent programs. I can give you some numbers from my trials howerver:
The fastest conversion for good all-purpose is opening a MP4 in VirtualDub, and save as AVI using the Lagarith Lossless codec. Converting a 'Good' 10 minute 480p video takes less than 3 minutes for an output size of about 3 GB. I use this after every edits in VD and use AVS or Any Video Converter to convert in other formats.
Converting the same MP4 to AVI after edition in AVS using the LAGS (Lagarith) codec takes 5:30 minutes for an ouput of 5.6 GB.
Converting the MP4 after Brghtness & Contrast edition in AVS keeping the same settings but slightly increasing bitrate (in my case to 700) takes about 6 minutes.
I'm not an expert, but I think conversion speed highly depends on what format and settings you convert: if the formats are the same and the video just needs downsampling then I guess the conversion will be much faster.

Also, conversion speed is the LAST thing I care about, I'm interested in output quality at a specific bitrate when comparing tools.

XenonS

[jagabo]

The difference in encoding speed between different encoders often comes down to the differences in settings used. For example, there is a 100 fold difference in encoding speed between x264's ultrafast and placebo presets. The GPU based encoders can be a little faster than x264 but they deliver lower quality (when the bitrate is the same). For example, Intel Quick Sync is about twice as fast as x264's veryfast preset on my i5 2500K. But Quick Sync's quality is noticeably worse.

Just to put some rough numbers on it, re-encoding a random 1280x720 24 fps video using x264 cli and Handbrake for QS:

encoder/preset  fps
-------------------
x264 ultrafast  330
x264 veryfast   140
x264 slow        35
x264 placebo      3
quick sync bal  220

[XenonS]

I just realize that the LAGS codec is broken in AVS. It will output a distorted video, unaware if you chose "Prevent upsampling when decoding" in the codec options.
In VSDC Free Video Editor (which shows a very similar functionality than AVS) it works: it ouputs a 2.13 GB file in about 3 minutes.

XenonS

[SameSelf]

The other thing that affects encoding speed is the bit rate.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/374225-Encode-Speed-vs-Bit-Rate?p=2411143&viewfull=1#post2411143

[thuribles]

Everything is possible....but how is the QUALITY?

Yeah, good question.
I'm running a trial of AVS Converter & Editor and I notice that:
The output quality of MP4 is not good. Actually there is another *free* software called VSDC Free Video Editor with almost the same functionality as AVS, altough the interface is looking different. Both suffer from what I consider sub-par quality when compared to the MP4 output of Any Video Converter Ultimate.
I notice this by converting and opening the outputs in Windows Media Player. The ones from AVS and VSDC show unpleasant pixel effects in bright color backgrounds, how should I call these, wave effects? These are almost not visible in Any Video Converter outputs.
In the AVS forums, they suggest to keep all parameters of the original to not worsen quality, but that's not a remedy, just common sense.
I cannot explain these differences in quality, but if I play the outputs on TV (for what MP4 is best I think), I don't see any quality differences, I only see them on PC with media players.

Apart from all that, I'm highly enjoying the vast amount of codecs in AVS, especially lossless ones and ability to encode uncompressed AVI files.

XenonS

To preserve original quality, save it as MP4 4k UHD file, then load it into Windows Movie Maker and save it in HD to bring it back down to 1080p - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaDdqRCwDqY