Hardware vs Software MPEG2 Encoding

[wwaag]

I am considering purchase of the Matrox RTX-100 video capture/editing card. One of the purported advantages of this card is real-time MPEG2 export from Adobe Premiere using onboard hardware. (It also supports real-time capture to MPEG2 which isn't too important to me since I primarily do DV editing). However, with fast CPUs, it is possible to achieve (even surpass) real-time rendering through software encoding. Which is preferable and why? Any inputs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[BJ_M]

i can get better results ussually with a software encoder ... and i have a very high end hardware encoder --- the advantage of the hardware encoder for long shows is that someone can send me a tape on d-beta and i can encode right from it .. and dont have to capture it .. but a hardware encoder is not as flexable as to settings.

i can get near real time encoding or even if its slower - thats ok ..


there are advantages to both really ...