What is the best AVI-MPEG quality tool

[GABarber]

I have been using several products to create DVD's from my Digital Video AVI's - but it seems even at the best quality - the result is certainly inferior to what is avaialble from the DV tape.

What are the best products available for producing DVD's from DV - encoding and authoring.

I have used TMPGen to encode and Dazzle to write the DVD.

Any other suggestions that are not way too expensive for home use?

[SoftDeko]

Ulead, Adobe and Sonic Foundry all now use the MainConcept Mpeg encoder.

Ulead have put the encoder into 3 of its software units - Video Studio 6, Media studio Pro 6.5 and DVD Movie factory.

MainConcept have launched a basic editing suite called EVE (Easy Video editing) this includes Mpeg render capability.

MainConcept also have launched a standalone encoder.

Another comapany PureMotion also does an editing suite with a purchasable Mpeg plug-in.

Tmpeg has been the top software encoder - on a par with CCE - for quite a while but is very slow in encoding.

MC offers a good choice to try out and assess.

Dafydd @SoftDeko

http://www.softdeko.8m.com/latestupdates.htm

[GABarber]

I am not that particularly concerned about the time to encode. I have been using TMPGen and wonder if this is the best I can get in MPEG quality?

[SoftDeko]

The best...

That's a tough one nowadays.

The Cinema craft encoder (CCE) which cost 1000's of dollars was thought to be the best around (software encoding) for a long while.

Tmpeg always came a close second to it.

I haven't seen any comparitive tests on the latest encoders.

Tmpeg Plus can do a dual pass (or more) whereas MainConcept's Mpeg encoder reads in advance of encoding (uses a different approach) and is faster at encoding.

I suggest you try out the Convertible MainConcept demo - full function to see how it compares.

Dafydd
@SoftDeko

http://www.softdeko.8m.com/pocomail.htm

[GABarber]

OK - Ill give that a look.

DO you know what the studio's use to create the MPEG's for commercial DVD's?

[Smahatma]

No doubt that CCE is THE best mpeg1/2 encoding tool. It's the professionals choice. 2 pass in CCE is much faster than 2 pass in tmpgenc, and 4 through 9 pass in CCE looks noticeably better than 2 pass tmpgenc. If you have access to this, definately use it. Note for DV video: CCE has a flaw, it cant encode bottom first field order, but I just found out theres an easy workaround using pulldown. If you need more info on the workaround, theres a thread in this forum by me.

[Pjanak]

Canopus ProCoder

[russgm]

i am in the same exact position you are in, i was wondweering if in the past 2 months you have made any progress, i have a friend and he and i have been scratching our heads to figure out how to do this and make it worth watching, sop foar so bad, any advice you have would be aprreciated.
russgm@hotmail.com

[namechamps]

You would like higher quality but there are a couple variables.

First of all a good encoder like CCE (cinemacraft) will help. 2 pass encoding with CCE is about equal to 2 pass encoding with TMPEG. However CCE is very fast so for the same amount of time you could do 3 or even 4 passes. Each pass will improve the quality but after 3 or 4 the gain becomes less per pass.

Secondly what bit-rate are you encoding at. You should always maximize the bitrate. If you plan to put a video file on a CD you have 600+ mb to work with. Using a low bit rate and only using 80mb would be a waste. However bitrates past 10mbit is unlikely to improve quality.

I would recommend you try using a small piece of footage 1min-2min with lots of action and transistions, and try encoding it at different quality levels, # of passes, bit-rates. options, etc...
That way you find out what works for that piece of film. Then use those settings to encode the whole media.

Hope this helps.