"Best" MPEG2 software Encoder?

[Joe DeFuria]

I've been away from the mpeg encoding scene for a while (and when I was in it, I was mostly doing MPEG-1), and was curious if anyone has the "short list" of Mpeg2 (DVD Compliant) software encoders that I should consider. Source material will be mostly DV (interlaced) frames.

 

[Fruitfrenzy]

I have tried a few and I always go back to TMPGEnc Plus which can be got from here http://www.pegasys-inc.com/.

It isn't a direct show filter type setup so you have to use their app but it works very well (once you get used to it).

The only complaint I have is that it occasionally crashes when I try to specify a range of video to encode (as opposed to encoding the whole thing) with PAL DV files. I haven't seen it do that with any other source format and when it does happen reloading and trying again almost always works.

You can download a trial version for free that lasts for 14 days I think. There is a free version but it only encodes MPEG1.

 

[DemoCoder]

You'll find the most variety and most tune-able codecs on linux, but it ain't user friendly. If you're into collecting statistics and hand tuning dozens of codec parameters, I think you can achieve the best result there.

MEncoder that comes with MPlayer provides lots of options, including my favorite, which is to stream video from a Tivo and compress it.

 

[epicstruggle]

including my favorite, which is to stream video from a Tivo and compress it.

anychance you can give us some screen shots of what the compression looks like. And some numbers would be nice.
thanks
epic

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Sorry...no linux here.

Wow...TMPGEnc still "it", huh? I was using that for mpeg-1 before it went commercial. I also remember the "panasonic encoder..."

 

[Boke]

I like MainConcept's encoder, its expensive, but its fast and has worked well for me. It also does a nice job with video capture. http://www.mainconcept.com/mpeg_encoder.shtml

 

[pcchen]

Cinema Craft's MPEG-2 encoder is the fastest software MPEG-2 encoder I've seen, it also produces very high quality, comparable or better than TMPEGEnc. Unfortunately, it is not very user friendly.

The SP version is very expensive (US$1,950). However, the Basic version is much less expensive (US$58 ). The major differences between SP version and Basic version are multi-pass VBR (Basic version only supports two-pass VBR) and the ability to hand-tune the bitrates.

 

[Fruitfrenzy]

I has to be said that TMPEG is definitely not fast. Encoding an hour or so of DV video to DVD still requires the PC being left overnight even with 3GHz Pentium 4.

I haven't tried the Cinema Craft encoder but I will download the trial and give it a go.

One feature of TMPEG which I don't see listed in the Cinema Craft specs (but may well be supported) is the ability to tweak just about everything. In particular my DV camcorder can record interlaced or progressive video and TMPEG is the only encoder I have found that you force into progressive mode with DV source. There doesn't appear to be any way to signal progressive in the DV stream.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

I has to be said that TMPEG is definitely not fast. Encoding an hour or so of DV video to DVD still requires the PC being left overnight even with 3GHz Pentium 4.

I did find that out...as my 80 minute video has in fact been encoding all night, with my 3.2 GHz P4. I do like the tweakability and filters of TMPGEnc, though I've had it crash on me several times already. (Not during encodes, but when applying a filter...sometimes the app just quits).

I haven't tried the Cinema Craft encoder but I will download the trial and give it a go.

I'll try that as well.

As for MainConcept...I didn't know they now do MPEG encoding. Back in the Win98 days, I used their DV codec instead of the standard MS Codec when doing editing. I'll give them a shot as well.

 

[pcchen]

CinemaCraft Encoder is not as tweakable as TMPGEnc. However, it still provides some basic tweaks, such as GOP sequence, progressive/interlace order, DC precision, aspect ratio, etc. SP version provides more tweaking options, such as custom quantization matrices.

Personally I use CCE Basic for most encoding. My sister likes the project wizard in TMPGEnc, so she uses TMPGEnc for encoding. I tried to teach her to use CCE Basic, but she just thinks it's too complex. She is considering buying TMPEG's DVD Authoring tool, too.