How is MPEG2 encoding in Vegas 4 +DVDA vs Canopus Procoder?

Elizabeth Lowrey wrote on 3/6/2003, 5:13 PM
Though I am relatively satisfied using my Premiere/DVStorm combination for editing, I am not satisfied with the SoftEncoder MPEG2 encoding option with that system for DVD production, particularly for long form work where lower average bitrates are needed. I also don't have a decent authoring program nor any method of encoding audio to AC-3, as is utterly necessary for release-quality DVDs that run in excess of about 80 minutes.

So even though I wasn't really looking for another NLE, the glowing reviews for Vegas 3 and the already stupendous early reviews for Vegas 4, combined with the fact that there is an attractive introductory price through 3/15 for the "Vegas 4 +DVD Architect" package that will give me the all important AC-3 encoding, MPEG2 encoding, and DVD authoring all in one bundle, makes it hard to look past.

Before Vegas 4, however, I had set my sights on Canopus Procoder for MPEG2 encoding since in trials I conducted last summer between a demo version of it, TMPEG, and SoftEncoder, I found it WAY ahead of the other two in video quality for hard-to-encode passages. But it's a $700 piece of software and STILL doesn't offer AC-3. And of course it's not an authoring program so I'd sill need that elsewhere.

Other than Vegas, to get authoring with AC-3 means either $1000 on ReelDVD or $600 on DVDitPE, the latter of which seems especially overpriced as my understanding is it's just the dinky DVDit program with AC encoding tacked on. So I'd be looking at between $1,300 and $1,700 for either of the Procoder/Sonic authoring combos versus Vegas 4 +DVDA at $600 retail through March 15. For less than half of the cheapest alternative combo, I get not just STEREO AC-3, but 5.1 Dolby, true 5.1 mixing in an NLE, ASIO driver support so I can use my high-end Delta 1010 card and converters for video editing as well as for Cubase VST 32 audio recording, decent DVD authoring, AND MPEG2 encoding, all on top of one of the most touted NLEs available on any platform.

Seems like a no brainer. The only thing holding me up is I'm wondering how the MPEG2 encoding with Vegas 4 compares to the stellar encoding of Procoder? Has anyone done side-by-side comparisons? Or can anyone offer any comparison of the two under the hood that would help me decide whether there will/should be a substantial difference in quality achievable at the same data rates? Does the MPEG2 encoding under Vegas even allow, for example, 2-pass encoding and variable bit rates?

Thanks in advance for any input.

Comments

watson wrote on 3/6/2003, 6:37 PM
Procoder is fast. The price is lower than 700.00 US and dropping fast.
http://www.sybercom.com/cgi-bin/sybercom/10086-100.html?id=8V8IAKpW&mv_pc=6217?mv_pc=PriceWatch

Hard to compare. Procoder does more than MPEG. Much faster and more fine tune capable.
john-beale wrote on 3/6/2003, 7:05 PM
You might also consider Cinemacraft Basic, it is supposed to be released for sale tomorrow (March 7th 2003). Cinemacraft or CCE has a reputation as a good quality encoder. Their full version is still ridiculously expensive but the "basic" version gives you what you need, which is 2-pass VBR for a reasonable price (under $100). It doesn't do AC3 but you can always generate AC3 separately with Vegas, and then multiplex in the new audio with the CCE MPEG2 with TMPGEnc "MPEG Tools". That's my own plan for a 2-hour DVD-R I need to release next month.

You can download a free trial version of CCE Basic here:
http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/home.html

I am not affiliated with any of these companies by the way. I D/L'd CCE Basic yesterday and gave it a try using 2-pass VBR at 5200 kbps, which is what I have to use to fit 2 hours on a single DVD-R. The video quality is not perfect but very decent. I must say both TMPGEnc and CCE (both in 2-pass VBR) are vastly superior to the Vegas+DVD MPEG2 encoder at this bitrate. When I compared SoFo DVD-A encoding at 5200 kbps it gave me nasty artifacts around the edges of any fast motion, it was like the MainConcept encoder didn't even know about interlacing and was trying to encode frames rather than fields.
jaegersing wrote on 3/7/2003, 4:27 AM
There is an AC3 encoder called besweet available at

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/ac3machine.htm

Procoder is very good but if you only need MPEG encoding it's quite expensive. The new Cinemacraft Basic looks very interesting....

Richard Hunter
seeker wrote on 3/7/2003, 8:45 AM
EClaire,

"Does the MPEG2 encoding under Vegas even allow, for example, 2-pass encoding and variable bit rates?"

Vegas uses the Main Concept MPEG encoder, although not necessarily the latest version. Main Concept just recently released a new version 1.3.1 with several enhancements. However, despite all of Main Concept's claims, I haven't seen anything to indicate variable bit rates, and I think 2-pass encoding is planned for a future version. My guess would be that the Main Concept MPEG encoder does not presently support either 2-pass encoding or variable bit rates and I personally don't expect either feature in the near future. You can see more information by clicking this link:

http://www.mainconcept.com/mpeg_encoder.shtml

You can download a demo of the standalone encoder and evaluate it yourself. It is fully functional except it "watermarks" your encoded MPEG.

http://www.mainconcept.com/downloads.shtml

-- Seeker --
RBartlett wrote on 3/7/2003, 9:40 AM
Main Concept and MPEG-2 from Vegas/DVDA do support VBR, but not 2-pass yet.
Minimum, average and maximum options are somewhat trivialised by not having 2-pass.
Yet I don't know the exact algorithm to comment - I'm happy subjectively and if I need to worry about space or be king at quality - I'd employ TMPGEnc in the first instance.

SoFo would have been slaughtered if they hadn't supplied an MPEG-2 encoder.
However I'd have liked more intuitive promotion of users who wish to encode themselves elswehere (including wrapping the project.veg as an AVI to frameserve from with necessary reader codec installed).
vonhosen wrote on 3/7/2003, 9:58 AM
I've used Main Concept in Vegas , and as I also have TMPGEnc & Procoder , I've used both of these on Vegas .avi's.

Procoder is the only one that get's used since I bought that. It is far more than just an MPEG encoder & in my view it's quality (& speed) is better than MainConcept & TMPGEnc by some margin. It is of course far more expensive so it should be better.

I would say TMPGEnc quality is a fraction better than MainConcept but against that you would have to argue that it is minimal enough that the advantage of time gain rendering from the timeline in Vegas probably outweighs it.

TMPGEnc will give you 2 pass VBR , MainConcept plug-in only single pass VBR
Elizabeth Lowrey wrote on 3/7/2003, 11:12 PM
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