CCE-Basic encoded file won't play in WMP or Zoom Player

[johnboy00]

I couldn't find any documentation on CCE-Basic (latest trial version), so I apologize if this problem is discussed in the manual...

I downloaded CCE-Basic trial version yesterday. I used it to encode an AVI to MPEG-2, leaving all default settings alone. I was blown away by the speed compared to other encoders I've tried, and I know the encoding quality is supposed to be outstanding, so I'd like to buy it. There's only one problem: The encoded video won't play in any of my players. WMP9 reports an unknown error. Zoom Player 3.0 reports that it couldn't load a required filter (or something like that). I encoded the same AVI with avi2mpg2, and it plays fine, but the encode took for-freaking-ever (12 mins versus 2.5 mins for CCE), so I'd really like to use CCE. What am I doing wrong?

FWIW, the AVI was captured using WMM 2.0 from my web cam's video capture port (better hardware is on the way :) ).

Update: I found the user manual for CCE-Basic, and I noticed that it said WMP could play MPEG-1 video without additional DLLs. I'm assuming that means MPEG-2 does require additional DLLs. Why then does an MPEG-2 video encoded by avi2mpg2 play just fine while an MPEG-2 video encoded by CCE won't play at all?

[johnboy00]

Well, I finally got CCE-Basic to encode a file that Zoom Player (but not WMP) would play, but it cuts the movie short by some 15%. I can't believe anyone would pay $58 for this thing, much less $1650 for CCE-SP. I'll stick with avi2mpg2 (bbMPG). At least the shit works.

[RB]

It sounds like a playback problem. In which state was the video when you played it? Muxed with audio, on a DVD-R/SVCD or just the .MPV? Try renaming the CCE generated .MPV to .MPG and play that in a good software player like WinDVD.

[johnboy00]

I encoded to a "system stream," to an mpg with audio and video muxed together. I'd really like to have mpg's that'll play with "regular" players like WMP or ZoomPlayer, so that if/when I send small clips to people they don't have to have any particular software to view them. With no special tweaking, both bbMPG and TMPGEnc produce output that plays on all my players. I Wish I could get CCE-Basic to do the same.

Why do you suppose that CCE would quit encoding about 1500 frames from the end of a 6600-frame AVI? There's no error message, and it doesn't crash. It just acts like it's done. Both bbMPG and TMPGEnc encode the whole movie, albeit a lot more slowly.

[RB]

CCE is know to not be the best program to produce system streams. Use CCE to just encode the video and then use another program like bbMPEG to mux the audio.