Mpeg encoding quality (TMPGenc, CCE, Ulead, Intervideo, etc)

[Thorn]

There are so many editing/authoring/encoding programs out there, but I haven't found a coherent comparison of encoding quality (just snippets here and there in these forums). Can anyone shed some light on this?

I've gotten several encoding/capture programs with my capture cards and whatnot, but since the encoding doesn't seem to be a priority for all programs it's hard to tell without hours of testing to see what works best. Yes, I know this could be personal choice, but there are always some programs that are clearly sub-par. By the way I currently produce a lot of VCD mpegs but I may start authoring DVD compliant MPEG-2 streams from my DV footage (if I decide to go for a DVD burner). So here are some candidates (note that some are more on the authoring side :

-Intervideo's WinCoder/WinProducer (old versions came bundled with my- card, probably not worth the time)
-Ulead's MediaStudio and DVD Movie Factory (and DVD Workshop... how many products do they make with overlaping features?)
-TMPGenc (Love it for VCDs, but I'll need to get the pro for Mpeg2)
-CCE (heard it's better than TMPGenc for Mpeg2, but you have to tweak it for optimal results)
-Videopack (v4 had an amazing flowchart menu creation system for VCDs(and doesn't work with newer burners). Since adaptec swallowed it it seems to have created a crappy v5 that competes with ulead's dvd stuff but gave up abilities to make it easier to use. I wrote off adaptec stuff years ago as toxic for your PC because EZ hard-drive eraser prefered to crash your computer over burning CDs)
-Nero (love burn with it, don't know if the encoding feature is worthwhile or not since it seems like a convenience feature more than anything - and those aren't always quality oriented).

Anyway, this looks like a bunch of forum questions in one, maybe someone could write an article for VCDHelp? Or would I be better off making this topic a Poll question?
Short answers are good, I do NOT need any explanation of how to do any of this just an objective comparison.

Thanks for any information guys!

[adam]

For mpeg1 encoding TMPGenc is very good. At lower bitrates, basically for compliant VCDS, you may look into Panasonic mpeg1 encoder. I don't think you should bother with any other encoders because these two pretty much excel at this.

For authoring VCDS you simply will not find any program more powerful than Videopack 4 or maybe the later versions of WinOnCD. I know its a pain about lack of burner support but if you have both vid pack 4 and winoncd then you can actually convert the disk image to bin and cue and burn in any program you like. (make disk image in vid pack, load it in winoncd, save it as new disk image, convert with CDMage, burn. You might be able to directly convert Vid pack 4's disk images now I'm not sure how much further CDMage has been developed in this area.)

For encoding DVD's I honestly think that CCE blows away all other competition, but TMPGenc is still very good and a hell of a lot cheaper. CCE's new version is coming out this year and it is supposed to have major quality improvements so if you can afford it then get that, you won't be sorry.

For authoring DVDS, sorry I don't have any suggestions. I know Scenarist is the most advanced software available and is, in fact, what most professional dvds are authored with but its pricey and difficult to master and probably not the most practical program for home users.

As far as clearly sub par software, I think Nero should be totally avoided for anything having to do with authoring or encoding dvd's. As a straight burner its the best though.

[BJ_M]

I do DVD's and HD professionally and for dvd authoring I prefer Spruce Maestro for ease of use over Scenarist - Scenarist is very very good though.. our main authoring workstations all run Maestro but we use Scenarist foir some really elaborate menu creation.
my 2nd choice for quicknes but still high quality (not as fancy though) is impression.

CCE is awesome quality -- problem is that it is really hard to frame serve film scans to it -- scans are 3k or 4k from Kodak Cineon scanner passed through Rayz (or Fusion also) for proccessing. if anyone can tell me how to frame serve tga or sgi or tif files to CCE - i would be happy.

Color work is done on daVinci.

We encode with hardware or i prefer software encoding accually - as i hand do sections seperatly as I do the colour and pixel touch up work.
therefore -- I use TMPGec a LOT .. since I can frame serve tga files to it and the quality is very very good -- even better than some of our 20-50k hardware systems .

i agree about nero -- awesome burner but dont let it dare try to encode anything ..

GoLigos software/technology is built into a lot of software/apps for encoding -- only so so quality .. and i see its being replaced by other technology from Main Concept very often ..

[Thorn]

Thanks for the info. If TMPGenc is good enough for professional work I'll probably stick with it unless I feel like going for CCE. I just wanted to know if any other encoders were worth testing and it sounds like they aren't.

On the topic of Ligos, I forgot that Ulead and othe entry level programs like them for mpeg encoding; I don't