tmpgenc vs what? and their support

[djnibler]

Anyone had any positive experience with tmpgenc's support? I have sent them 2 e-mails within the past 3 and a half weeks regarding a problem I'm trying to fix, and they have not responded to a single one. I need an SVCD mpeg2 encoder, and am willing to buy the full version of tmpgenc, but not unless I can get it to work correctly. How can they just not answer support requests? Lousy business.

So, next to tmpgenc, what would you all say the next best mpeg2 for svcd encoder is? CCE? Any others? I have the encoder for Nero, but it's pretty lousy. I read the reviews to the left on encoders, and CCE does sound like the next best thing to tmpgenc, but I was just wanting to get opinions from folks in here. Thanks in advance!

Jeff

[vitualis]

The freely available version of TMPGEnc at the moment IS the full version.

Not surprisingly, they don't really provide "support" at present for the general public. This is one of the reasons bulletin boards such as VCDHelp exist. Perhaps you should post your question/problem here...

CCE is a good encoder but costs thousands of dollars.

Regards.

[djnibler]

Thanks for the reply. To the best of my knowlege, tmpgenc is the full version, but will not allow you to encode SVCDs (mpeg2). You have to buy the full "plus" version to do that.... and that functionality is what I was asking the company about (on their special website for it), and never received a reply on. If they are charging $50, they should at the very least, answer simple e-mail support questions.

The reason I resorted to asking them directly, is that I've posted my problem here three to four times and have never had a response that fixed my issue. I THOUGHT I had it licked at one point (and even posted here as to what I thought I did to make it work), but then it reared its ugly head again. The issue is that: for the same avi file, when I encode to VCD, it ALWAYS looks ok, but about 50% of the time, when I encode to SVCD, it looks good until there is any motion.... then the motion areas are very jittery... but JUST the motion areas. For example, a person standing still, against a still background, waving their hand.... their hand would be very jittery, VERY jittery as they waved... but everything else that wasn't moving would look crystal clear. It's the worst when the camera pans etc.. then the whole thing is jittery. I have tried re-encoding the same avi file over and over again, but it's the same issue. If I try a DIFFERENT avi file, it may work, it may not. The funny thing is that I'm capturing each avi the exact same way... and have no dropped frames.

Anyway, I still need to find a good SVCD encoder since tmpgenc won't support their "plus" version.

Jeff

[vitualis]

The issue is that: for the same avi file, when I encode to VCD, it ALWAYS looks ok, but about 50% of the time, when I encode to SVCD, it looks good until there is any motion.... then the motion areas are very jittery... but JUST the motion areas. For example, a person standing still, against a still background, waving their hand.... their hand would be very jittery, VERY jittery as they waved... but everything else that wasn't moving would look crystal clear. It's the worst when the camera pans etc.. then the whole thing is jittery.

Actually, this specific problem has been described and posted on many many times on this forum.

It has nothing to do with MPEG-2 encoding. You have a problem with your field order. MPEG-2 supports interlaced pictures and if your field order is wrong, you will get the exact "jittering" picture you described on motion.

This doesn't occur when you encode to VCD because MPEG-1 firstly doesn't support interlaced pictures and secondly because you have to downsize the vertical resolution to 240/288.

If you search the forum (or read some of the guides on doom9), you'll find out how to fix it.

Regards.

[djnibler]

Thank you very much for your reply. I have seen the same post on this forum a decent number of times, but from all the ones I looked at, they didn't apply to me.... they all said things from "select a slower burning speed in Nero" to "you are dropping frames." Dropping frames isn't my issue, and the burning speed is irrelevant. At any rate, I just gave up searching and asking since I couldn't find an answer.

I did a search for "field order" since your reply was the first I'd heard of that and found a couple good posts. I tried swapping the field order, and presto, no more jitters! What boggles my mind is how the field order on the avi can change.... when I am doing everything the same on the capture end? Well, it works so yipee... and thank you very much for your advice. My evaluation version of tmpgenc plus is about up, so I will need to purchase it... I'm hoping that if I do purchase it, that they have some sort of automated serial number activation or something since there doesn't seem to be anyone behind the wheel.

Thanks again!

Jeff