what's the best (&/or fastest) avi to mpeg2 encoder?

Hello their Xsilver..I like VSO DivxToDVD too..But for me it does'nt make the 4 extra files that your DVD player needs to reconize THAT THIS IS A full Video & plays from beginning to end all the VOB files...VIDEO_TS.BUP or VTS_01_0.BUP..I've done about 20 conversions & I've had to use IfoEdit to make these files..on every video I make regardless of how many VOB's u have..I've always needed these 4 little files..without them Nero won't reconize it as DVD compliant Video..how u gettin them in there?

 

An AMD at the same speed as an Intel, will encode video about 1/3 faster.
Video card has NOTHING to do with video encoding.

Frameserving is the process of editing (cropping, resizing, filtering) a video in one application, then sending it directly to an encoder, without saving the edited avi.
It allows much more flexibility and speed.

A bitrate calculator is used to find the maximum bitrate for audio and video that one can use, in order to get the best quality, and still fit the given video onto one disk, while using the maximum amount of space on the disk. No wasted space, no wasted bitrate.

In order to tell what's "best", you use YOUR eyes. Nobody here (or anywhere else really) can tell what looks best to you.
Tmpgenc CAN produce some extremely good video, with the right settings, and between 12 and 40 hours to do it. Do not expect tmpgenc to do audio.
A mainconcept single pass VBR encode, is approximately the same "quality" as a 2 pass VBR tmpgenc encode, using Motion Search Precision High Quality (slow). But...mainconcept will take about 45 minutes per hour of video, and tmpgenc will take about 10 hours.
Do not expect mainconcept to do audio, although it's slightly better than tmpgenc in some cases.
A Canopus Procoder 2 pass VBR encode will take about 2 hours, per 1 hour of video. It's quality is superb. It will also do audio. It will also do PAL<->NTSC conversions better than anything else I have ever found.
Caveat: I do NOT know if the "Express" version is as good, although it should be.

VSO DivX to DVD is a very fast encoder. Not much to choose for options though. Great on DV-AVI stuff.
Reauthor EVERYTHING it outputs in DVDLab Pro, and you won't have any problems burning.
If that's too complicated, then demux the .vob's to mpg in Rejig, then reauthor in Rejig. Makes a great autoplay DVD (no menus).

 

rebootjim,

Thanks a lot. Your experience and insights are very helpful.

 

i was able to try canopus and i compared the output to two other programs...

i used around 23 seconds of video (xvid) and converted it to mpeg1 (5000 kb/s; constant bit rate; 720 x 480)

Canopus: it took 5 mins. 9 secs.
NVE 3: 45 secs.
TMPGenc: 2 mins. 36 secs.

Then, i checked the output. The canopus output was kind of pixelated. Am i using an outdated version? i used canopus procoder 2.0.

as for mainconcept, does anyone know how i can get a "letterbox" output? because it keeps on stretching my 16:9 videos and the characters appear really thin and skewed. I tried the crop option, but it really doesn't do anything, because the output is still stretched.

Also, what's the best program to use in encoding audio? (if tmpgenc does a horrible job of it as rebootjim says...)

 

You must have set Canopus for 2pass Mastering quality.
If it's a hacked version, you'll get nothing but crap. You have to buy it.
NVE will not keep anything in sync, I don't care how fast it is.

To letterbox in Mainconcept, it's best to frameserve.
You CAN, manually set the letterbox by using the resize, not crop.

 

Procoder2 is very expensive. To just convert .avi files from a camcorder, with Procoder Express do?

Does everyone generally share the view that Procoder 2 is the best, but the reason why there are so few threads on it is that due to the cost not many people have it? It seems all the discussion is about TMPGEnc or CCE SP.

 

Procoder Express uses the same engine as Procoder 2. It just doesn't have all the advanced features.

Those that own Procoder 2 won't use anything else usually. The quality is superb. It's designed for a professional audience, not the home hobbyist, thus the lack of threads.

 

I dont know what you guys are talking about, but I have tried dozens of mpeg and dvd encoders, and nothing touches nero vision express 3 or nero digital. I can convert a full 2 hour dvd movie right from the CD in 20mins with nero encode from nero vision express 3. A 1-2 hour divx movie can be converted into regular mpeg or dvd or nero digital in less than 20 mins. Usually the time is 15 mins. If i were to use TMPGenc, 1-5 hours, or 8 hours to convert a dvd movie to whatever format I'd like. I dont know about you, but the technology in the newest nero is amazing. I can't believe the speed. Im using a P4 3.2GHz with HT. I'd have to say with one of the fastest cpu's out there a movie shouldn't take hours to convert, thats rediculous. Nero uses your cpu to its potential. In the 10 mins it took for me to create this account and write this, i just converted a 1 hour and 22 min divx movie into mpeg. Thats less than 10 mins. It goes even faster if I were to convert it into nero digital (mp4).

 

Thankyou for the Nero advertisment
Obviously you've never encountered any audio sync issues, but when you do...so much for Nero.
Nobody ever said tmpgenc was fast. By far, it's one of the slowest encoders around, although it's quality is usually fairly good (with the correct settings).

 

I haven't encountered any audio sync problems. I have re encoded full dvd movies to mpeg, dvd, or mp4 without any audio sync problems. As for divx, just using the avi format can cause any video to have sync problems despite the codec, avi is just a junk format. I have downloaded many divx movies with huge audio sync problems. Nero will encode videos and audio as they are. I just tried to re encode the movie mission to mars onthe fly from the cd with tmpgenc, flaskmpeg, 3 1/2 - 4 hours. Nero, approxiamtely 38 mins. It does this at 70fps. While any other encoder that exists will do it at less than realtime. And this is with HE Audio encoding which takes more cpu power and time to encode. Now that is amazing. It was only a few days ago I tried nero for the first time, and I am extremely impressed.

 

Agreed. But even an avi with perfect sync, can go totally sideways in Nero.
thanks, but no thanks.
Even the free VSO is better (and fast).

 

Your wrong there. None of my videos that have been converted with nero have any issues whatsoever. I just tried the free VSO. It is not better or faster. It encoded my video at 60fps 1 hours required to convert vs nero at 30mins. I get 100fps encoding speed with nero which equals to less than 30mins to encode a full movie. I dont know about you, but i dont want to wait hours or more to convert a video when it can be done easily with nero in any format you want, and the quality is the same or exceeds vs other programs that require huge amounts of time.

 

Rebootjim,

In an earlier reply as to one possible reason why a Procoder encoding gave poor results you said, " You must have set Canopus for 2pass Mastering quality. "

Seemingly for any encoder that offers two passes rather than just one, two passes would be better than one. Are you saying that one CBR encoding is better than two VBR encodings?

 

Exactly, none of YOUR videos...

Great! If the quality is acceptable to you, that's all that matters.
I do this professionally, and Nero is NOT a high quality encoder.
We wish you the best of luck.

@TANSTAF1, I was referring to the length of time it took, not the quality. There are NO hacked versions of Canopus that work properly. Either they are extremely slow, or extremely low quality, or both.
Buy it, or forget it.