MainConcept upgrade in MS4?

briggins wrote on 12/23/2004, 9:50 AM

I'm using MS4.0a.

Sony still offers a $99 upgrade to the MainConcept Pro encoder. If I buy this will 'Custom' settings box become available? Or does MS4 even support the use of the 'Pro' version of the encoder?

I've been using TMPGEnc Plus but every time I do I have to cross my fingers and hope it finishes, and produces usable files, without crashing or quitting or causing my machine to lock up.

Comments

IanG wrote on 12/23/2004, 3:48 PM

Could you post a link, please? I didn't realise that option was still available.

Ian G.

briggins wrote on 12/23/2004, 6:55 PM

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=614

Added to Sony's website on Dec. 19, 2004.

I'm also trying to confirm this with Sony by phone. Will let you know what I find out.

IanG wrote on 12/24/2004, 1:25 AM

Thank you! I'll be interested to hear Sony's answer.

Cheers

Ian G.

ADinelt wrote on 12/24/2004, 9:17 AM

I would be interested to know if it will work with MS3 as well as MS4. I tried to download the white paper, but the page could not be found.

Also, would the upgrade price of $70 be applicable to MS3 users?

Thanks...
Al

StevB wrote on 12/26/2004, 11:38 AM

ADinelt, you can get the white paper by linking to the ftp server:
http://download.sonypictures.com/whitepapers/

Now some other questions for help:
Is the Standard MC Mpeg plug-in built into the DVDA Studio? How much of a difference in DVD quality would the Pro MC upgrade give us newbies doing videos? Is the Pro MC version essentially a competitor to the TPMG product?

Thanks for any help on these qusetions in advance.

StevB

IanG wrote on 12/26/2004, 3:09 PM

I don't know if anything's changed, but last time there was the option of pro v standard the difference was in the interface, not the encoder itself. The pro version gave you the ability to define the values for the MPEG-2 parameters yourself - with the standard version you had to use the defaults. The defaults were chosen to give a good overall quality and most people didn't see any advantage by changing them.

Ian G.

briggins wrote on 12/26/2004, 4:20 PM

The biggest benefit to me would be in the ability to change the encoded bit rate in order to have more control over how much I could put on a single DVD. Sony should be open tomorrow so I'll give them a call and post what they tell me.

briggins wrote on 12/27/2004, 1:44 PM

OK, I spoke to Sony's pre-order customer service line. According to the woman I spoke with, MS4 will not recognize that a more full-featured version of the MainConcept encoder even exists. So it sounds like that option is no longer available. Sorry to disappoint those of you who had your fingers crossed.

This sucks. If I want any control whatsoever over the encoder, I've got to render to AVI and use an external encoder. I wish Sony had a more palatable path to get from MS to Vegas instead of just a $400 smack in the head.

ADinelt wrote on 12/30/2004, 4:24 PM

I asked Sony about the upgrade and it looks like registered users of MS can get the upgrade for $70.00. As to MS recognizing the pro version, here is what Mike S. had to say...

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Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Customer Service Response (Mike S.) - 12/29/2004 05:05 PM
Hello Al,

Thank you for your reply. If you purchase the MainConcept MPEG 1 & 2 Professional 1.0 plug-in, Movie Studio should recognize it and allow you to customize the settings.

I will be out of the office until January 3rd, but will respond to any updates when I return. I hope this information is helpful. If you have follow up questions or need further assistance with this issue, please update this incident.

Sincerely,
Mike
Customer Service Assistant
Sony Media Software

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Not sure if this clears things up or not...
Al

ronatsony wrote on 12/30/2004, 4:37 PM

an extremely important word Mike put in there---"SHOULD"!!! This implies Sony does not know. do you suppose they are wating for one of us to try it???

just thinking with the keyboard...

ron

briggins wrote on 12/30/2004, 7:35 PM

Before I shell out $70, I'd like a little more conviction than 'should'. I don't like the word 'should' when used in reference to software or construction. ronatsony, I vote that you try it and let the rest of us know if it worked :-)

Seriously, I will also try to contact Sony again. Maybe as a group we can get to the bottom of this.

The next question is, what version of the MC encoder is this equivalent to? MC is at 1.4.2 for the standalone version.

Thanks...

SonyBP wrote on 1/3/2005, 2:48 PM

To clarify this issue...

The Pro version of the MainConcept plug-in is not available for use in our Studio programs such as Movie Studio. There is no way to get to the Custom options in Movie Studio - you would have to upgrade to the pro version of Vegas. Everyone in the CS department has been reminded of this, sorry for the mixup via that email reply.

For those looking for bitrate control, DVD Architect Studio does offer it. Render out of Movie Studio as DV AVI and then use the Optimize DVD window in DVDA Studio to control the bitrate. Not as full-featured as the pro MPEG plug-in that comes with Vegas, but it does offer some control without having to buy some other encoder.

Brian P
Customer Service Lead

briggins wrote on 1/4/2005, 10:24 AM

Thanks Brian.

I think this is a pretty definitive answer and should finalize this thread.

Thanks to everyone for helping nail down this issue.

Bruce