What the best MPEG-2 Software Encoder?

Gabrielgoc · 28th August 2002, 02:24

What the best MPEG-2 Software Encoder
a) What is the best quality MPEG-2 software encoder?

1) Ligos
2) CCE
3) Canopus ProCoder
4) TMPGEnc Plus
5) bbMPEG
6) Honestech
7) MainConcept
8) DVMPEG
9) Nanocosmos
10) Other

b) What is the fastest, good quality MPEG-2 software encoder?

(Same list as above)

c) What is the fastest, good quality MPEG-2 Adobe Premiere Plugin?

(Same list if applicable)

THX

vortexer · 28th August 2002, 10:17

I think it's always b)CinemaCraft encoder!
you can find some tests on www.chip.de

paulusz · 28th August 2002, 10:32

1. CCE SP
2. ProCoder
3. TMPGE
4. Ligos
Forget the rest...

auenf · 28th August 2002, 11:29

http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

which says tmpg then CCE, with test files available to download too.

Enf...

Arky · 30th August 2002, 02:33

YUV (for example miniDV Firewire captures)

RGB (for example MPEG2 DVD VOB rips)

These are two different video standards, and I always find it incredible that people seem to gloss over the fact that it MATTERS that an encoder creates a different output, depending on its INPUT. Any discussion of the *absolute* merits of various encoders, without reference to what source type is being encoded, is surely virtually redundant.

A quote from another forum, recently:

**********************************************************************
"...discussion (of which encoder is 'best') is ABSURD without acknowledgment that different MPEG encoders perform **DIFFERENTLY** depending on whether they are fed with YUV, or with RGB source footage. CCE has an excellent reputation, and indeed it IS excellent, but it does *NOT* encode to as high-a-quality as TMPGEnc Plus where YUV footage is used as the source. The reason everyone in the amateur scene raves som much about CCE is that it is fast, it allows good multipass VBR manipulation, and that the VAST MAJORITY of amateurs use it only to re-encode RIPs of material which they did not generate themselves (MPEG2 RIPs from Hollywood DVDs, which are, by definition, RGB colourspace). For amateurs who actually take the time and trouble to generate their own material on DVcam (which is YUV colourspace), TMPGEnc does a better job than CCE, albeit at an encoding- time-penalty. CCE is not as well-optimised for YUV colourspace source files as TMPGEnc is.

In short, there is no such thing as the "perfect" encoder - it all comes down to educating oneself about which encoder it is best to use DEPENDING on the specific circumstances, and the characteristics of the source footage. In the same way that there is no single type of source footage, so there is no single 'best' encoder which will do the best job on every single type of source footage. "Horses For Courses"

CDrZeus.

**********************************************************************
I think that just about sums up my views on the topic.

I will just say that I consider there to be only three encoders in the running for top honours, each being appropriate in different situations - these are CCE, TMPGEnc, and Procoder.

Arky ;o)

Gabrielgoc · 30th August 2002, 16:41

Dear Arky,

I agree with you in the sense that INPUT matters in the quality and the selection of an MPEG-2 encoder.

The info from the "another forum" is incorrect:

Profesional media for SDTV (Interlaced) and their Digital formats are YUV, not RGB. This include DVD MPEG-2 format, and DV format. When an amateur converts (rip) a DVD, he´s (she´s) making it RGB using conversion programs like DVD2AVI or FlasK. This make easy to encode MPEG-4 (DivX, XviD, wmv, etc) for computer monitor watching. But MPEG-2 is YUV intrinsic.

I´m using profesional media, obtained capturing from a TV camera to MJPEG (interlaced PAL SDTV, YUV of course) or miniDV or other DV flavor. Later I´m editing the assets to make a TV program (Adobe Premiere). Finaly, my intention is to make a DVD, so, I need convert an AVI (MJPEG or DV) file to a MPEG-2 DVD compliant file.

We are producing material every day for broadcast through a Cable TV System. So we need high quality and very high conversion speed, without the costs of a hardware encoder for little offices (in our main office we have a hardware Vela Research, ARGUS Real time encoder).

In that context what is your answer?

Very truly yours, regards,

Gabriel

unplugged · 30th August 2002, 16:45

Some very nice Playstation 2 videos are performed with TMPGEnc

(like Gran Turismo 3...), they looks excellent.
Just to inform about this...

Bigbucks1959 · 1st September 2002, 10:43

Uhhhhhh
CCE and tmpg both got 9 score.

But CCE was like done in 1/3 the time...
Sorry I will stick with speed and same quality..

Thx,

Phil K.

Quote:

Originally posted by auenf
http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

which says tmpg then CCE, with test files available to download too.

Enf...

auenf · 2nd September 2002, 11:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Bigbucks1959
Uhhhhhh
CCE and tmpg both got 9 score.

But CCE was like done in 1/3 the time...
Sorry I will stick with speed and same quality..

Thx,

Phil K.

have a look at the test files as well, and keep in mind that it was DV source, some other sources may favour different encoders. (as arky mentioned)

Enf...

DrOutro · 3rd September 2002, 20:56

So, this all will end like saying... What encoder I should use?

When I'm encoding some (PAL) DVD's so that they will be put onto DVD-R what encoder is the best for this? (best image quality, I have millions of time so time isn't the essence. Picture-quality is.)

Gabrielgoc · 3rd September 2002, 21:10

I have NO "millions of time", so picture-quality is the essence, but as soon as possible. I´m using DVD as an asset transport media, and each day we produce a TV program, editing it and finally converting it to a DVD. Then we send the DVD to different location for air playing.

So, I´m asking: what is the best MPEG-2 encoder, DVD compliant, that offer very good picture-quality ASAP?

The video input is DV-PAL or MJPEG.

DrOutro · 3rd September 2002, 21:28

Ok ok

You got a good reason to encode it fast. So could we get 2 different (maybe?) answers, one for my usage and one for Mr. Gabrielgoc here...

auenf · 4th September 2002, 12:27

if you have millions of time, there is a demo of each of them, try them out with a DVD-RW and see which you like.

Enf...

auenf · 4th September 2002, 12:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Gabrielgoc
I have NO "millions of time", so picture-quality is the essence, but as soon as possible. I´m using DVD as an asset transport media, and each day we produce a TV program, editing it and finally converting it to a DVD. Then we send the DVD to different location for air playing.

So, I´m asking: what is the best MPEG-2 encoder, DVD compliant, that offer very good picture-quality ASAP?

The video input is DV-PAL or MJPEG.

of the three (tmpeg, CCE SP and ProCoder) CCE SP is by far the fastest, but you may even want to look at a hardware encoder in your situation.

Enf...

DrOutro · 4th September 2002, 13:42

Ok ok, I liked CCE SP the most, can it do more than 3 pass and will it make the quality better? I've read somewhere that there could be a 5-pass that you could make or something :P

auenf · 5th September 2002, 13:53

CCE SP can do up to 9 passes, but whether over 4 is productive remains to be seen.

Enf...

ErMaC · 8th September 2002, 12:13

I don't understand how you can argue about TMPGEnc deling with YUV colorspace better since it converts all input to RGB anyways.

This should have been obvious from the DirectX 8.1 YUV fiasco a while back.

Basically, DirectX 8.1 installed a faulty version of msyuv.dll which converted to 8-bit RGB instead of 24-bit RGB when converting YUV colordata. This meant that opening an AVISynth script that was outputting YUV in TMPGEnc gave you a horrible picture.

TMPGEnc always requests RGB colordata. VFAPI plugins themselves can ONLY output RGB colordata. That's why MPEG2DEC was created - it can give YUV colorspace data to an AVIsynth script which can be fed to another encoder as YUV data.

So to say TMPGEnc handles YUV data better is silly - it converts it to RGB and then handles that. And the silliest thing about TMPGEnc dealing with stuff in RGB colorspace is that MPEG2 is YU12 anyways! MPEG2 stores 4:2:0 colorspace (which is a different 4:2:0 colorspace than what PAL DV uses, just to confuse you!) and as such when it's converted to YUV in AVISynth it goes through a slight upconversion (from YU12 to YUY2) but it's far less damaging then the RGB conversion. So TMPGEnc is taking the source and forcing it thru a YU12->RGB->YU12 colorspace conversion, which is just dumb if you ask me.

CCE can take native YUY2 colordata, although sadly this becomes difficult with v2.62 since it doesn't accept AVS files correctly. Thus feeding CCE 2.5 an AVS script for feeding v2.62 a HuffYUV transcode of your AVS file will put you through fewer color conversions and less data loss overall.

And as should have been obvious from my mention of DVD-MPEG2 above, Hollywood stuff is NOT RGB. ANYTHING on a legal DVD that's been encoded at Main Profile @ Main Level is in 4:2:0 YU12 colorspace (MP@High Level is for HDTV and can do 4:2:2 colorspace i.e. full YUY2).

And for your generating your own content bit with DVCam, you're generating 4:1:1 colorspace anyways (in NTSC, in PAL you're generating co-sited 4:2:0, whereas in the standard US MPEG2 implementation they're interleaved vertically with luma) and therefore you're in YUV land, not RGB land. You would be better off sending your data to CCE in upscaled YUY2 colorspace than RGB, and thus CCE will accept an input closer to your source.
This goes out the window when you start using DVCPro50 or Digital-S, but if you're using that kind of equipment you're not going ot be using CCE or TMPGEnc, that's for sure.

In short - colorspace does not matter to TMPGEnc so arguing which one is better based upon colorspace is silly because CCE always wins since it can accept either. Any quality improvements you see in TMPGEnc have nothing to do with colorspace and instead have to do with the encoder's algorithm itself.

DVDGuy99 · 8th September 2002, 13:02

Over this weekend I did a comparison of CCE 2.64.01.10, TMPGenc 2.58 and Procoder 1.01.35.0 using an 11 minute mini-DV PAL AVI as the source, with a number of different scenes.

My encoding to DVD-R/-RW is always done with mini-DV as the source. I don't do rips, analog captures, conversions, etc, so my experience is just mini-DV source material, edited in Premiere 6/6.5.

Personally, I find mini-DV source material itself to be somewhat "grainy" or tending to have "mosquito noise" especially in poor lighting conditions. This is all hand held vacation movies, so the camera work is definitely amateur. The time taken to encode is secondary, quality is primary.

I always encode at 8mbs, 10bits DCT, GOP = 12. I use mb1's "Interlaced DV" matrix in CCE and TMPG. Highest quality in both TMPG and Procoder. I had to run "changer.exe" on the CCE output to fix the TFF flag. No other filters where used on any of the encoders.

The result viewed on TV is truly subjective. I sat quite close to the TV and watched each of the three results several times.

I found the quality of Procoder to be slightly better. I call it "smoother" - less grainy, less mosquito noise. I mainly rated the quality on these factors, as I find this to be most visually annoying, especially compared to Hollywood DVD's which are usually silky smooth. But, I did find TMPG to be a bit darker too.

Second in quality ... TMPGenc. Last, but not by much CCE. Sitting back on the couch at normal viewing distance all the outputs were very, very similar.

I didn't accurately note the encode times, but roughly on 1ghz PIII they were 18 min CCE, 1.5 hrs Procoder and 3.25 hrs TMPG.

CCE sure is fast ... but for me, I think I'm going to be using Procoder for my mini-DV to DVD-R encodes.

ErMaC · 8th September 2002, 13:06

You might want to consider upping CCE's noise-reduction filters which are located in it's advanced dialog boxes (I forget where). These can help eliminate the kind of noise you describe.

Also important is what DV codec you are using. If it's the standard Microsoft DV codec, I believe it only reports back RGB (which is dumb) and therefore you'd get better quality by obtaining one of the commercial DV codecs which can deal with YUV colordata and then feed that to CCE.

Also note that Premiere works in RGB colorspace, so if you use any transitions or anything that requires processing in Premiere, those scenes get converted to RGB, processed, and then recompressed to DV (which is YUV at co-sited 4:2:0, since you're in PAL land). I believe if you use Premiere 6's DV Playback editing option, it is smart enough to simply splice together the original frames without recompression when you are just doing cutting and splicing, but I can't be sure as I don't use Premiere 6 (I use 5.1 with my DV500).

auenf · 9th September 2002, 11:40

intersting comparison Doom9, altho i don't agree that the smoother picture should be the best quality, 'as close to the original as possible' should be the better encoder, noise or not.

altho its handy for procoder to remove a bit of noise on encode, if you use a 'clean' source (ie render), will it make the output a little blurry than it should?

Enf...

28th August 2002, 02:24	#1 \| Link
Gabrielgoc Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Buenos Aires - Argentina Posts: 43	What the best MPEG-2 Software Encoder? What the best MPEG-2 Software Encoder a) What is the best quality MPEG-2 software encoder? 1) Ligos 2) CCE 3) Canopus ProCoder 4) TMPGEnc Plus 5) bbMPEG 6) Honestech 7) MainConcept 8) DVMPEG 9) Nanocosmos 10) Other b) What is the fastest, good quality MPEG-2 software encoder? (Same list as above) c) What is the fastest, good quality MPEG-2 Adobe Premiere Plugin? (Same list if applicable) THX

30th August 2002, 02:33	#5 \| Link
Arky Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: UK Posts: 1,479	YUV (for example miniDV Firewire captures) RGB (for example MPEG2 DVD VOB rips) These are two different video standards, and I always find it incredible that people seem to gloss over the fact that it MATTERS that an encoder creates a different output, depending on its INPUT. Any discussion of the absolute merits of various encoders, without reference to what source type is being encoded, is surely virtually redundant. A quote from another forum, recently: ******************************************************************** "...discussion (of which encoder is 'best') is ABSURD without acknowledgment that different MPEG encoders perform DIFFERENTLY** depending on whether they are fed with YUV, or with RGB source footage. CCE has an excellent reputation, and indeed it IS excellent, but it does NOT encode to as high-a-quality as TMPGEnc Plus where YUV footage is used as the source. The reason everyone in the amateur scene raves som much about CCE is that it is fast, it allows good multipass VBR manipulation, and that the VAST MAJORITY of amateurs use it only to re-encode RIPs of material which they did not generate themselves (MPEG2 RIPs from Hollywood DVDs, which are, by definition, RGB colourspace). For amateurs who actually take the time and trouble to generate their own material on DVcam (which is YUV colourspace), TMPGEnc does a better job than CCE, albeit at an encoding- time-penalty. CCE is not as well-optimised for YUV colourspace source files as TMPGEnc is. In short, there is no such thing as the "perfect" encoder - it all comes down to educating oneself about which encoder it is best to use DEPENDING on the specific circumstances, and the characteristics of the source footage. In the same way that there is no single type of source footage, so there is no single 'best' encoder which will do the best job on every single type of source footage. "Horses For Courses" CDrZeus. ********************************************************************** I think that just about sums up my views on the topic. I will just say that I consider there to be only three encoders in the running for top honours, each being appropriate in different situations - these are CCE, TMPGEnc, and Procoder. Arky ;o) __________________ "Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly" - Robert F. Kennedy "The significant problems we have created... cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them" - Albert Einstein "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." - Ancient Chinese Proverb www.DVDAfterEdit.com - Edit DVDs post-mux with perfect Spec'-compliance

3rd September 2002, 20:56	#10 \| Link
DrOutro Registered User Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 6	So, this all will end like saying... What encoder I should use? When I'm encoding some (PAL) DVD's so that they will be put onto DVD-R what encoder is the best for this? (best image quality, I have millions of time so time isn't the essence. Picture-quality is.) __________________ The Mob has spoken.

3rd September 2002, 21:28	#12 \| Link
DrOutro Registered User Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 6	Ok ok You got a good reason to encode it fast. So could we get 2 different (maybe?) answers, one for my usage and one for Mr. Gabrielgoc here... __________________ The Mob has spoken.

4th September 2002, 13:42	#15 \| Link
DrOutro Registered User Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 6	Ok ok, I liked CCE SP the most, can it do more than 3 pass and will it make the quality better? I've read somewhere that there could be a 5-pass that you could make or something :P __________________ The Mob has spoken.

28th August 2002, 10:17	#2 \| Link
vortexer Registered User Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 32	I think it's always b)CinemaCraft encoder! you can find some tests on www.chip.de

28th August 2002, 10:32	#3 \| Link
paulusz Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 14	1. CCE SP 2. ProCoder 3. TMPGE 4. Ligos Forget the rest...

28th August 2002, 11:29	#4 \| Link
auenf avatar doesn't support IE Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: The Great Southland Posts: 2,238	http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm which says tmpg then CCE, with test files available to download too. Enf...

30th August 2002, 16:41	#6 \| Link
Gabrielgoc Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Buenos Aires - Argentina Posts: 43	Dear Arky, I agree with you in the sense that INPUT matters in the quality and the selection of an MPEG-2 encoder. The info from the "another forum" is incorrect: Profesional media for SDTV (Interlaced) and their Digital formats are YUV, not RGB. This include DVD MPEG-2 format, and DV format. When an amateur converts (rip) a DVD, he´s (she´s) making it RGB using conversion programs like DVD2AVI or FlasK. This make easy to encode MPEG-4 (DivX, XviD, wmv, etc) for computer monitor watching. But MPEG-2 is YUV intrinsic. I´m using profesional media, obtained capturing from a TV camera to MJPEG (interlaced PAL SDTV, YUV of course) or miniDV or other DV flavor. Later I´m editing the assets to make a TV program (Adobe Premiere). Finaly, my intention is to make a DVD, so, I need convert an AVI (MJPEG or DV) file to a MPEG-2 DVD compliant file. We are producing material every day for broadcast through a Cable TV System. So we need high quality and very high conversion speed, without the costs of a hardware encoder for little offices (in our main office we have a hardware Vela Research, ARGUS Real time encoder). In that context what is your answer? Very truly yours, regards, Gabriel

30th August 2002, 16:45	#7 \| Link
unplugged Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Italia Posts: 412	Some very nice Playstation 2 videos are performed with TMPGEnc (like Gran Turismo 3...), they looks excellent. Just to inform about this...

3rd September 2002, 21:10	#11 \| Link
Gabrielgoc Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Buenos Aires - Argentina Posts: 43	I have NO "millions of time", so picture-quality is the essence, but as soon as possible. I´m using DVD as an asset transport media, and each day we produce a TV program, editing it and finally converting it to a DVD. Then we send the DVD to different location for air playing. So, I´m asking: what is the best MPEG-2 encoder, DVD compliant, that offer very good picture-quality ASAP? The video input is DV-PAL or MJPEG.

4th September 2002, 12:27	#13 \| Link
auenf avatar doesn't support IE Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: The Great Southland Posts: 2,238	if you have millions of time, there is a demo of each of them, try them out with a DVD-RW and see which you like. Enf...

5th September 2002, 13:53	#16 \| Link
auenf avatar doesn't support IE Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: The Great Southland Posts: 2,238	CCE SP can do up to 9 passes, but whether over 4 is productive remains to be seen. Enf...

8th September 2002, 12:13	#17 \| Link
ErMaC Lurker in Training Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars Posts: 160	I don't understand how you can argue about TMPGEnc deling with YUV colorspace better since it converts all input to RGB anyways. This should have been obvious from the DirectX 8.1 YUV fiasco a while back. Basically, DirectX 8.1 installed a faulty version of msyuv.dll which converted to 8-bit RGB instead of 24-bit RGB when converting YUV colordata. This meant that opening an AVISynth script that was outputting YUV in TMPGEnc gave you a horrible picture. TMPGEnc always requests RGB colordata. VFAPI plugins themselves can ONLY output RGB colordata. That's why MPEG2DEC was created - it can give YUV colorspace data to an AVIsynth script which can be fed to another encoder as YUV data. So to say TMPGEnc handles YUV data better is silly - it converts it to RGB and then handles that. And the silliest thing about TMPGEnc dealing with stuff in RGB colorspace is that MPEG2 is YU12 anyways! MPEG2 stores 4:2:0 colorspace (which is a different 4:2:0 colorspace than what PAL DV uses, just to confuse you!) and as such when it's converted to YUV in AVISynth it goes through a slight upconversion (from YU12 to YUY2) but it's far less damaging then the RGB conversion. So TMPGEnc is taking the source and forcing it thru a YU12->RGB->YU12 colorspace conversion, which is just dumb if you ask me. CCE can take native YUY2 colordata, although sadly this becomes difficult with v2.62 since it doesn't accept AVS files correctly. Thus feeding CCE 2.5 an AVS script for feeding v2.62 a HuffYUV transcode of your AVS file will put you through fewer color conversions and less data loss overall. And as should have been obvious from my mention of DVD-MPEG2 above, Hollywood stuff is NOT RGB. ANYTHING on a legal DVD that's been encoded at Main Profile @ Main Level is in 4:2:0 YU12 colorspace (MP@High Level is for HDTV and can do 4:2:2 colorspace i.e. full YUY2). And for your generating your own content bit with DVCam, you're generating 4:1:1 colorspace anyways (in NTSC, in PAL you're generating co-sited 4:2:0, whereas in the standard US MPEG2 implementation they're interleaved vertically with luma) and therefore you're in YUV land, not RGB land. You would be better off sending your data to CCE in upscaled YUY2 colorspace than RGB, and thus CCE will accept an input closer to your source. This goes out the window when you start using DVCPro50 or Digital-S, but if you're using that kind of equipment you're not going ot be using CCE or TMPGEnc, that's for sure. In short - colorspace does not matter to TMPGEnc so arguing which one is better based upon colorspace is silly because CCE always wins since it can accept either. Any quality improvements you see in TMPGEnc have nothing to do with colorspace and instead have to do with the encoder's algorithm itself. Last edited by ErMaC; 8th September 2002 at 12:17.

8th September 2002, 13:02	#18 \| Link
DVDGuy99 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 6	For me, Procoder is seems slightly better Over this weekend I did a comparison of CCE 2.64.01.10, TMPGenc 2.58 and Procoder 1.01.35.0 using an 11 minute mini-DV PAL AVI as the source, with a number of different scenes. My encoding to DVD-R/-RW is always done with mini-DV as the source. I don't do rips, analog captures, conversions, etc, so my experience is just mini-DV source material, edited in Premiere 6/6.5. Personally, I find mini-DV source material itself to be somewhat "grainy" or tending to have "mosquito noise" especially in poor lighting conditions. This is all hand held vacation movies, so the camera work is definitely amateur. The time taken to encode is secondary, quality is primary. I always encode at 8mbs, 10bits DCT, GOP = 12. I use mb1's "Interlaced DV" matrix in CCE and TMPG. Highest quality in both TMPG and Procoder. I had to run "changer.exe" on the CCE output to fix the TFF flag. No other filters where used on any of the encoders. The result viewed on TV is truly subjective. I sat quite close to the TV and watched each of the three results several times. I found the quality of Procoder to be slightly better. I call it "smoother" - less grainy, less mosquito noise. I mainly rated the quality on these factors, as I find this to be most visually annoying, especially compared to Hollywood DVD's which are usually silky smooth. But, I did find TMPG to be a bit darker too. Second in quality ... TMPGenc. Last, but not by much CCE. Sitting back on the couch at normal viewing distance all the outputs were very, very similar. I didn't accurately note the encode times, but roughly on 1ghz PIII they were 18 min CCE, 1.5 hrs Procoder and 3.25 hrs TMPG. CCE sure is fast ... but for me, I think I'm going to be using Procoder for my mini-DV to DVD-R encodes.

8th September 2002, 13:06	#19 \| Link
ErMaC Lurker in Training Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars Posts: 160	You might want to consider upping CCE's noise-reduction filters which are located in it's advanced dialog boxes (I forget where). These can help eliminate the kind of noise you describe. Also important is what DV codec you are using. If it's the standard Microsoft DV codec, I believe it only reports back RGB (which is dumb) and therefore you'd get better quality by obtaining one of the commercial DV codecs which can deal with YUV colordata and then feed that to CCE. Also note that Premiere works in RGB colorspace, so if you use any transitions or anything that requires processing in Premiere, those scenes get converted to RGB, processed, and then recompressed to DV (which is YUV at co-sited 4:2:0, since you're in PAL land). I believe if you use Premiere 6's DV Playback editing option, it is smart enough to simply splice together the original frames without recompression when you are just doing cutting and splicing, but I can't be sure as I don't use Premiere 6 (I use 5.1 with my DV500). Last edited by ErMaC; 8th September 2002 at 13:09.

9th September 2002, 11:40	#20 \| Link
auenf avatar doesn't support IE Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: The Great Southland Posts: 2,238	intersting comparison Doom9, altho i don't agree that the smoother picture should be the best quality, 'as close to the original as possible' should be the better encoder, noise or not. altho its handy for procoder to remove a bit of noise on encode, if you use a 'clean' source (ie render), will it make the output a little blurry than it should? Enf...