Powerdirector better than Vegas rendering H264 AVC

[zizouillette]

According to my tests Powerdirector produces better video quality in H264 AVC than Vegas with Mainconcept AVC in two passes !!!
Powerdirector only encodes in one pass
how is this possible?

[johnmeyer]

Which version of Vegas are you using?

I've used every version from 4 through 13 and have logged thousands of hours on Vegas over the past twenty years. I have not, however, upgraded since Magix bought it.

First of all, I hope you do understand that Vegas provides TWO different h.264 encoders: MainConcept and also the Sony/Magix encoder. The Sony/Magix encoder is only single pass, but for HD and high bitrates, it provides much better results than the MainConcept. The MC encoder was really only meant for 640x480 low bitrate encodes (which is why it included a two-pass option).

All that said, I too have never been that impressed with the Vegas h.264 encoder. Given the price of Vegas Pro, I expected better. When I want the best quality, I frame serve from Vegas into MeGUI.

[jagabo]

From what I've read the MC h.264 encoder included in Vegas is intentionally crippled so as not to compete with MC's higher end encoder.

[johnmeyer]

From what I've read the MC h.264 encoder included in Vegas is intentionally crippled so as not to compete with MC's higher end encoder.

Could be. The key thing is to NEVER use it. Use the Sony/Magix one instead.

[zizouillette]

Which version of Vegas are you using?

Im using Vegas 16 and Powerdirector 16

Sony AVC encoder included in Vegas produces much better video quality than MC
If I edit with Vegas and want to export to mpeg4 AVC I also frameserve but I encode with Avidemux

[zizouillette]

From what I've read the MC h.264 encoder included in Vegas is intentionally crippled so as not to compete with MC's higher end encoder.

I am going to frameserve on Mainconcept version 2.01.00.00 H264 encoder to see if there is any quality difference

Edit: good news, the quality has nothing to do with the MC encoder included in Vegas

[johnmeyer]

[QUOTE=zizouillette;2599876]

Edit: good news, the quality has nothing to do with the MC encoder included in Vegas

What does that mean ??? Are you saying you have a quality problem that has nothing to do with the encoding/rendering and which codec you choose?

[zizouillette]

I'm just saying Jagabo is right
When I render the video in H264 AVC with Main concept included in Vegas the result is much lower in quality than if I render the video with Mainconcept encoder version 2.01.00.00 through frameserver

[Cornucopia]

With very few exceptions, my workflow is to only render master quality formats out of an editor, and then use a dedicated encoder to perform the encodes. Takes a bit longer, but then the editor has less to deal with with its final render, and the encoder ONLY has to worry about encoding (and is better optimized to do so).
This makes the above comparison more of a moot point, because the quality is almost always much better.

Scott

[aedipuss]

With very few exceptions, my workflow is to only render master quality formats out of an editor, and then use a dedicated encoder to perform the encodes. Takes a bit longer, but then the editor has less to deal with with its final render, and the encoder ONLY has to worry about encoding (and is better optimized to do so).
This makes the above comparison more of a moot point, because the quality is almost always much better.

Scott

what do you consider "master quality"? i render out of vegas in lossless avi.

[Cornucopia]

Depending on the workflow, it could be lossless (of many flavors - lags, huff, ut, magic, etc) or virtually lossless/slightly lossy (prores, cineform, dnxhd, hqx, etc), or some other specialty one (uncompressed, alphachannel-capable, hdr-capable, picture sequence, etc).
Even smart-rendered sequences could still fall under this (dv, mpeg2, h264) if the timeline effected minimal changes to the clips so that it could render w/o re-encoding. I would still call this "master" quality, as that is still the best that could be expected under the circumstances.


Scott