Newer version of MainConcept encoder

dgill wrote on 2/19/2003, 7:52 PM

Hi,

Just wondering if we will see a newer version of the mainconcept mpeg encoder? They released an update for their Adobe Premiere plugin which is multithreaded and blazingly fast. Quality seems better too.

Lately I have been rendering in Vegas uncompressed AVI, then going into Premiere just so I can use the new encoder. Great results, but not terrific workflow.

Comments

zstevek wrote on 2/19/2003, 8:10 PM

If it is as good as you say it is I really hope we get the new version!

zstevek wrote on 2/19/2003, 8:23 PM

I just found this on an improved version of Main Concepts encoder:

Knowledge base article

zstevek wrote on 2/19/2003, 8:25 PM

Never mind!

It is an old article but if they included an improvement in the past I hope they do in the future.

dgill wrote on 2/19/2003, 8:34 PM

I think that article is from when they changed from the Ligos to the MainConcept one.

By the way, no guarantees that you will see the speed improvement I do - I have dual-Xeon processors, so the new encoder makes better use of them than the current (single-threaded) one. May not make a huge difference if you have a single processor (I have no way to test that).

As far as quality - I really noticed the difference on scenes with a lot of contrasting colors and fast movement in them simultaneously. With the current one, even with quality cranked to the max, I was still getting compression artifacts. With the new one, they didn't seem so obvious. (You always lose something when you compress - its just a matter of degree...)

BedingB wrote on 2/19/2003, 9:18 PM

I use a dual AMD 2000. When I render to AVI, the task manager performance tab clearly shows one processor doing the vast majority of the processing yielding so-so render times. However, when I render to MPEG-2, both processors churn around 75% to 80% each and the render is really fast. I may be wrong, but from what I see the MPEG-2 rendering must be multi-threaded -- at least I think so.

Bob B.

seeker wrote on 2/20/2003, 3:30 AM

Bob,

The following is excerpted from a recent Sonic Foundry email:

Hyper-Threading from Intel®

Do more in less time! Boost the responsiveness and performance of ACID

http://www.intel.com/home/desktop/pentium4/hyperthreading.htm

-- Seeker --

pcfreakx wrote on 2/20/2003, 1:59 PM

Mainconcept is like up to v1.3 but VV4 only has 1.0. I installed the newer one but it doesn't update the "mcplug.dll" at all.

DataMeister wrote on 2/20/2003, 2:45 PM

And, here's Main Concepts latest press release for version 1.3.1.

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

JBJones

aussiemick wrote on 2/20/2003, 4:10 PM

I have the standalone MainConcept encoder and there has been some problems with some of the updates in regard to importing formats, particularly avi files, and I would say that until this is fully resolved Vegas will not have its version fully updated. But it is worth waiting for, the MC encoder is superb even in the 1.3.1 version. The 1.4 version is a real wait.

dgill wrote on 2/20/2003, 8:22 PM

So the press release says that it is up to the licensees (presumably SF, in this case) to use the new MC SDK to update their releases.

I'm willing to wait, but boy - if you have dual-processors and hyperthreading, it is certainly worth it. Until then - Create in Vegas, encode in Premiere. (*sigh*)