easy2Bcheesy
25th September 2005, 11:59
Following on from my recent experiments in capturing 720p pretty much uncompressed, now I'm actually encoding my edits into their final forms.
Thus far I've been using HD-WMV files encoded via Canopus Procoder 2. The reason I've chosen this codec is that it seems to offer much better picture quality at lower filesizes compared to MPEG2 TS streams, and there's the added bonus that the files will run straight off the bat on any modern PC running XP. HD-WMV also seems to cater for a wide range of frame rates, which TS does not.
However, my Dell laptop with a 2.0GHz Pentium M CPU drops a lot of frames on my 60fps encoded material, whereas my 3.0GHz desktop PCs run the files with no problems. However, decimate the edit down to 30fps and re-encode and everything seems fine. It even runs smoothly on a P4 2.4GHz with 16mb ATI Rage card!
Another issue I have with Procoder is that you cannot put a top-limit on bitrate used on the Q-based HD-WMV encodes - so this causes stuttering playback even on my 3.4GHz P4 - thus it is useless.
Is Procoder 2 the only WMV encoder worth its salt? Are there any other 60fps-capable codecs or encoders worth looking at? Is there a solution to the Q-based problem I've seen with Procoder 2?
Thus far I've been using HD-WMV files encoded via Canopus Procoder 2. The reason I've chosen this codec is that it seems to offer much better picture quality at lower filesizes compared to MPEG2 TS streams, and there's the added bonus that the files will run straight off the bat on any modern PC running XP. HD-WMV also seems to cater for a wide range of frame rates, which TS does not.
However, my Dell laptop with a 2.0GHz Pentium M CPU drops a lot of frames on my 60fps encoded material, whereas my 3.0GHz desktop PCs run the files with no problems. However, decimate the edit down to 30fps and re-encode and everything seems fine. It even runs smoothly on a P4 2.4GHz with 16mb ATI Rage card!
Another issue I have with Procoder is that you cannot put a top-limit on bitrate used on the Q-based HD-WMV encodes - so this causes stuttering playback even on my 3.4GHz P4 - thus it is useless.
Is Procoder 2 the only WMV encoder worth its salt? Are there any other 60fps-capable codecs or encoders worth looking at? Is there a solution to the Q-based problem I've seen with Procoder 2?