Which encoder do you like to use?

You've got it pretty much covered on the Mac - I use both BitVice and MegaPEG.X according to needs.

If you venture into PC encoders, check out Canopus Procoder (my current fave) and Cinemacraft.

I also have a wired inc hardware card, but you don't want to go that far... however it is within reasonable cost if you are going to make use of it regularly.

In short, I use Procoder mostly, followed by BitVice and MegaPEG depending on what material I have and just what I want to do with it - BitVice does the general work and IMO makes an excellent job of it. MegaPEG gives me more tools to fine tune things and analyse what is going on within the MPEG, so I tend to use that on things that give me problems.

I have used Compressor 2, but not on anything critical.

If I am based at the office at the time of encoding, or if I am just in a darned hurry, or if I want the kind of output it gives, I'll use the hardware encoder.

Having more than one encoder gives you options, and allows you to approach tasks with flexibility. It's well worth investigating encoders to see which suit you best.

Hal:

I've heard the ProCoder is especially efficient with DV based footage. Your understanding?

Do any of the current PC offerings downsample HDV better than Compressor, in your view?

Also, what are you seeing for encode times with ProCoder and with what hardware?

Thanks

I find Procoder very efficient, and it produces a clean, crisp output which I find visually superior to other encoders (using the default settings, no filters, etc - just throw it in and go). I know Gen from Digigami had a good look at it a while back and found there was some jiggery pokery going on with Procoder which explained the marked differences in what you see. I'll try and find the comments from that thread, if I still have them.

I've not done a lot of work with HDV and I tend to keep clear of Compressor, so I don't think I'm in a good position to comment other than anecdotally... but I've yet to see an equivalent encoder (all things considered) on a Mac - megaPEG comes closest in terms of speed and quality probably, with Bitvice behind on speed, but getting a super quality all the same.

As for encode times, I am still using an old Athlon 1.8GHz single processor with 512Mb RAM and it seems to crunch through tough encodes most of the time. I've run speed comparisons by starting BitVice off on a 1.25DP G4 and Procoder at the same time, on the same material, with default settings and Procoder on the PC gets to the end first, every time. In fact it takes a G5 to get close to what I am able to get from Procoder, but there are various factors which do impact on the speed possible.

You know the script... adding filters, effects, standards conversions, etc, or picking up the file over a standard ethernet connection with my Mac and putting it back onto the mac - these all impact on the speed of the encode. However, as long as the encode is chugging along at the right kind of speed on the PC, and I am able to continue authoring the DVD on the mac, then I'm pretty happy.

I tend to do a really rough encode these days for the authoring - just get an MPEG into the timeline so that it roughly resembles the footage. I then set procoder off to do the mastering quality encode with all the tweaks and filters I set it up to do. I then replace the files in the DVDSP timeline when Procoder has done it's thing. I've found this gives me the fastest overall workflow for the best quality, plus I can preview in DVDSP using the rough encodes to see any effects, etc I am setting up.

There have been times when Procoder has let me down - odd things that seem to affect PCs such as incompatible file types, etc, give me headaches. Procoder boasts an 'anything in/anything out' performance, but when it doesn't have a file extension in a batch of files it stumbles. You have to manually add the .dv or .whatever to the file you send from the Mac.

On a couple of rare occasions, the output from Procoder has been difficult to get right, but BitVice and MegaPEG simply do what I need right away - I've never gotten to the bottom of it, but you get to know what kind of footage will need a more personal touch. Using Mpressionist really helps analyse those files for all kinds of things, but to be honest I'm not really any the wiser! Similarly, using the Wired card is excellent - when I have the right footage and am working in a way that makes sense to use it. Like anything, these tools take time to learn and a fantastic tool used badly will give you a worse result than a less sophisticated tool used really well, IMO.

Thanks.

I'd be interested to see what BitVice Pro will bring to the table . . . when it gets released.

yes, me too. I am looking forward to finding out, that's for sure.

Hal -

I'm considering getting MPressionist so I can offer analysis services to people with playback problems (my stuff always works 🙂. Does it really help for that? How does it help, and what do you do when it does help? Do you just recompress with different settings? Does the documentation cover these questions, or does it assume you're an expert compressionista? Do those "Compression For Dummies" books help? I see lots of books at Amazon - any recommendations? Already have DVD Demystified.

On MegaPEG.X: Saw your comments. I don't infer much reason to use it over Compressor, plus it doesn't have network rendering. Is it better or just different? I have one associate with problems with transitions from a busy scene to one with a lot of sky - lots of banding and blockiness. They got Bitvice and it solved the problem. Might MegaPEG.X also help with tough problem areas like that?

Mystified in Dallas,

Russ

Hi Russ - Mpressionist gives you a whole raft of analysis tools such as average bit rate graphs, quantization scales, motion vectors - you can see these all on the MPEG you feed it as well as find info about the MPEG sequence header, extension, the GOP structures... it just goes on and on! You can even demux with it.

These tools are excellent and give you a pretty scientific approach to your analysis, BUT you do need to understand exactly what they are and what they mean. It's fair to say that I still don't fully understand all of the information available to me but I do feel a lot more informed about the encoding I do and can see things such as bit rate spikes very easily (you can overlay the graph on top of the footage). When you use this in conjunction with MegaPEG you can see the effect your changes to the encode settings is having.

I would say the documentation for MegaPEG and Mpressionist is pretty thin! On the other hand, you do have superb email based support and no question seems to be too trivial.

As you may know, Gen comes onto this forum from time to time and is only too happy to answer questions for folks. I get the feeling there is a constant drive to improve the encoder so as to make it more competitive against things like Procoder. I wonder about how useful Network Rendering actually is - I've not used it at all since the encoding speeds I'm getting are satisfactory - but I really ought to try it to see the difference (if any) I guess. I can only do this from 'the office' as I have but two macs and a PC at home (I work from home most days).

In my use of it, MegaPEG has always handled the more tricky encoding problems with relative ease. BitVice is also very capable over Compressor. The things that set these two encoders apart will probably vary from person to person, but for me I love the simplicity of the BitVice interface and the quality you get from the output, and with MegaPEG the interface is harder to understand, although you have far, far more tools to play with (and not just filters). They are both better than Compressor1 by a long way, but Compressor2 gives them more of a run for your money. If you are doing any serious encoding you really ought to have the tools to look at the work you are doing, and this is what Mpressionist gives you. MegaPEG also has a 'lite' version of it built in - why not get a copy of that and see what you can do with bit?

People often say (myself included) that compression is both an art and a science. MegaPEG and Mpressionist fulfil the scientific side very well indeed. BitVice (for me) fills the artistic side - not a lot of setting up, very easy to use, but good results.

That said, I did a CBR encode with BitVice just last week and was getting bitrate too high errors. I ran the file through Mpressionist to see why and I found a 9.4 MBPS spike in there. I would never have known without Mpressionist, and would have struggled to get the disc done, even with AC3 audio!

Those 'Dummies' books are pretty good, but I find any literature is either far too low level or far too high. I guess that's the nature of the beast, and is why tools like Compressor fill a niche pretty well - there is nothing middle of the road to go and read, I don't think. I have found that talking to people like Gen and Roger Anderson a massive learning experience in its own right - I'd urge you (and anyone with a deeper interest in encoding) to introduce yourself to them online and start that kind of dialogue too.

Just my opinion, of course, and sorry for the rambling!

I am curious. I am new to Final Cut Studio (1 month and 2 fairly complex videos - 11 Chapters and 97 minutes) with DVD authored in DVD Pro 4. What is it that you are looking for that Compressor does not do? What features and capabilities do these other programs offer that compressor does not? I was pretty happy with Compressor in that I could make a 97 minute video with quite a few chapters compress pretty well into a 4.7gb type 5 DVD. Again, just curious. Thanks!

Hi Phillip - don't get me wrong, Compressor is just fine for a lot of encoding work, but when I go back to thinking about v1 it just wasn't reliable for encoding going to replication - there were far too many glitches and anomalies in the data it produced, notably fairly large bitrate spikes which caused the playback to falter. When you are needing to encode reliably and get things out of the door fast, this kind of issue is way too serious...

On top of that the standard output of compressor was milky - fairly washed out look which needed you to tweak the gamma setting. Whilst easy enough to do, it was another set of mouse clicks.

Finally, Compressor was not very good at CBR encoding - it varied too much from the bitrate for my liking.

Some of these issues can be seen in BitVice - I occasionally do still get spikes in the encode, but it is very rare. The output from the default settings is very good, and with the digital noise reduction tool I can get a super smooth looking encode from most material. The reliability of this makes BitVice a very good option.

Procoder is PC based, which introduces a new dimension. In most tests, the CPU on my PC will crunch numbers happily all day, and fast. The Mac is far better at a lot of things, but in raw grunt my PC is quicker (I need a new Mac, obviously!) This means I can use FCP to be creative, and pass the footage to the PC for encoding, leaving the Mac free to continue what I was doing. Procoder is also an excellent encoder and the output from it is rock steady and reliable, time after time. I happen to like the look of the finished MPEG, too - very clear and crisp and very seldom any glitches. If I set it to CBR encode, that's what I get. It seldom varies from the min and max I give it for VBR too, and there are plenty of post production filters to iron out glitches I miss at editing. It also does a pretty good standards conversion when I need it, certainly far superior to QT based tools I have thus far used (not including the Nattress filters). In short, it knocks spots off Compressor for the way I work.

So, speed, convenience, reliability and quality of output - each of these are important and relying on Compressor only doesn't give me the options I like to have. Compressor 2 is a good enough encoder, but have a look on the compressor forum to see what the issues are! Then head over to Innobits.com and check out the BitVice forums... I have to say that Compressor 2 is a very different beast to v1, and much, much better than it's predecessor, IMO (although not without it's problems).

The thing is, if you are happy with what you are seeing from your encoder and like the way it works then there's no need to change. If you want to have alternative options, or your work flow is a bit different, then perhaps Compressor alone isn't enough.

Quite apart from the technical differences I did create a disc with encodes from different softwares and play it to some colleagues who don't do video work. I asked them to compare the image with the original footage and say which is closest, then to say which image was 'better' to look at. Every time Procoder came top, BitVice second and Compressor last. I guess I ought to repeat this very unscientific and largely unreliable method ⚠ and include MegaPEG.X in it now, too. I was only hoping for a bit of a straw poll on what an 'average' consumer might think was a good picture, I wasn't looking at in-depth comparisons. It was, however, good to get a range of opinions from a pretty unbiased group and confirmed my own thoughts about the output from the encoders.

If you really want to know about the nuts and bolts of video compression, i'd highly recommend "Video Compression Demystified" -- it's a little on the technical side, but you can safely skip over the heavy math an still get a very good sense of what's happening when video is compressed and decompressed. It's a general overview of quite a few different compression schemes, so it gives you a good sense of how programmers approach this, which in turn lets you make educated guesses about what's going on under the hood in your encoder.

-perry

Hal,

I am looking to invest in a 3rd party encoder for creating .m2v files for use in DVDSP4. I am just getting too many artifacts, and glitches (presuming the problem to be errors in the bit rate handling of Compressor 2) and need something that will work.

At this point I can't really afford more than one encoder... and I would like to keep things on the Mac. Would you recommend MegaPeg or BitVice in this situation? I like the idea of getting MPressionist with MegaPeg for analyzing the mpeg files. Apart from MegaPeg being more complicated and faster than BitVice... is output near equivalent?

Thanks,
Matt