CINEMA CRAFT Encoder SP3

[Fishman0919]

For anyone interested...

CINEMA CRAFT ® Encoder SP3 (CCE-SP3) is a MPEG2 software encoder that enables you to create the ultimate level of picture quality at high speed. There is a growing need for much higher picture quality in DVD production industry. In addition to CCE-SP2, CCE-SP3 includes "CINEMA CRAFT ® Xtream" (CCX) encode engine that is highly rated by many compressionists around the world and has been utilised to create a considerable number of DVD titles.

LINK for Specs (http://www.cinemacraft.com/en/ccesp3_spec.html)

[MatLz]

anyone interested...not me....I have not 1000$ to spend for that when free softwares can do the job...

[Lyris]

I'm curious to see if the free encoders can match the quality (of SP2). I haven't done a proper comparison, but the ones I tried a few years ago were more at the level of quality of TMPGenc (very good, but not insane like CCE).

I just hope there is an upgrade path for users going from SP2 to SP3, otherwise I probably won't bother considering the results SP2 can produce.

[Ghitulescu]

2 GB of RAM needed?

[ron spencer]

2 GB of RAM needed?


Probably because of the updated copy protection driver crapola....needs USB key, so 2 GB needed so your machine does not slow to an absolute crawl....gag me.

[jethro]

I'm curious to see if the free encoders can match the quality (of SP2). I haven't done a proper comparison, but the ones I tried a few years ago were more at the level of quality of TMPGenc (very good, but not insane like CCE).

HCenc, and especially the latest beta(s), has very good quality.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1374792#post1374792

For low bitrate (where you see compression artifact clearly) I liked high AQ (3 or 4), Manono3 matrix, dc 8bit.

[Lyris]

I just tried HCenc out, and I agree that the quality is very good. However, CCE SP2 is still slightly better from the test I did. The fact that HCenc is free is very nice, though :) Does it pass verification for replication?

Here are some sharpened views of some quick test encodes I just did. I only sharpened the view to make differences more obvious, NOT the input to the encoder. Edit: these are all at about 8mbps average, 8.5mbps max.

Source (PAL Digital Betacam captured via SDI, scaled to 720x480):
http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/source.png

HCEnc "Manono3" matrix:
http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/hcenc_manono.png

HCEnc default matrix:
http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/hcenc_default.png

Cinema Craft SP2:
http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/sp2.png

HCenc is not bad, but the way it coarsely quantizes some blocks reminds me of TMPGenc (that's a compliment) :) CCE SP2 retains the grain to a better extent and the fact that it looks so close to the master makes the $2K I paid for it feel like a bargain, frankly. If SP3 can do this or better for half the price...

[hank315]

IMHO it's not the right way to judge quality by showing just one frame.
It may be clear that I can produce some pics which show the opposite.

[Lyris]

One thing is for sure - both encoders are much, much better than what a lot of DVD production facilities seem to be using.

[Lyris]

It's SD only. A few encoders can produce HD MPEG-2, Sonic Cinevision, Sony's hardware encoder, etc. There are probably various other hardware encoders being used to encode MPEG2 trailers, bonus features, etc.

Out of curiosity, what makes you say that CCE-HD looks like a repackaged, generic AVC encoder?

[lithoc]

CCE-SP3 is not even HD compaitible and restricted up to 720x576 @ 15mbps which I think is not a smart move for a payware when you can get HD for free with HC-ENC

[Lyris]

I've always wondered, but how do hardware encoders, standards converters, and other devices work? Are they like expansion cards that are attached to a PC, perhaps at the PCI bus? Are they embedded systems or black boxes that you would put on a rack and access over network protocols? Would you daisy chain these to create a complete encoding workflow?

A lot of them are black boxes with SDI inputs and outputs. Some of them can be controlled by a computer, some have controls on the front of the device, and I imagine many of them can work both ways.

[Biggiesized]

CCE SP3 is limited to the specs of MPEG-2 MP/ML. Why is this so strange to some of you? It's a standard definition encoder.

[Lyris]

I'm more surprised that anyone is even interested in using MPEG2 for HD anymore... although I certainly wouldn't complain if CCE SP3 was capable of it.

[gizzin]

HC has a problem with dark flat scenes. At lower bitrates HC is way better quality than cce. HC is Better at interlaced material. At higher bitrates they look very similar (3500+). One is free other costs alot of money. I think we know who the clear winner is.

[Biggiesized]

HC has a problem with dark flat scenes. At lower bitrates HC is way better quality than cce. HC is Better at interlaced material. At higher bitrates they look very similar (3500+). One is free other costs alot of money. I think we know who the clear winner is.
Would you like to run some tests to confirm this?

CCE has adjustable quantization matrices for very low and ultra low bit rates.

[Lyris]

I respectfully disagree that CCE is beaten at low bit rates. For example, I just encoded this same scene at ~3.5mbps, max 4mbps with both encoders:

Sharpened views as usual: source frame (http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/source2.png), HCEnc (http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/low_hcenc.png), CCE SP2 (http://landofwhimsy.com/upload/low_cce.png).
These results seem to be fairly consistent... but maybe we should have an MPEG2 encoder shootout thread :)

(This was using the default QM for each encoder, BTW). I'm on the verge of purchasing SP3 and if/when I do, I'll add some shots here to show how it compares.

[thewebchat]

x264 beats all of them! :devil:

[gizzin]

low bitrates is 2000 or less. do some tests for yourself u'll see what im saying.

[Lyris]

Ah - I've never had to resort to a bit rate that low! Well, now they both look like soup without pre-processing :) It's the same story though - with this particular source at least, CCE produces even degradation whereas HCEnc has blocks which still stand out. Furthermore, it (CCE) has the benefit of the lowpass filter which you could use in extreme cases such as this.

Keep in mind also that encoding master quality video to DVD is very different to re-encoding an already compressed DVD source, which I imagine will have been subjected to lowpassing and temporal smoothing anyway.

Anyway - if anyone else picks up SP3 before I do, please share your impressions :)

x264 beats all of them! No debate! :o

[kolak]

Anyway - if anyone else picks up SP3 before I do, please share your impressions :)



There is delay in shipping, but I should have it s soon as it's available, so I will let you know.

[Lyris]

Kolak, any update yet? Which distributor are you using, is it ROM Data UK?

[Emulgator]

I got such a nice SP3 offer for around 3xx euros +tax, even an order confirmation,
but it was withdrawn after 2 days by the german distributor.
I started to develop some hope...

[kolak]

Kolak, any update yet? Which distributor are you using, is it ROM Data UK?

No- German one.
I'm waiting for confirmation about shipping date.

[*.mp4 guy]

CCE is clearly using more aggressive psy optimizations then HC.

Also I almost never feed unprocessed video into an encoder, you have to do prep work to get the most out of any encoder, X264, HC, Xvid, Tmpeg, if you are dealing with a limited bitrate, you need to make sure your source is compression friendly.

[Lyris]

What sort of video are you talking about (recompressing compressed video or studio stuff?) and what sort of prep work? My goal is always reproduce the source (although that source may have had cleanup work done...)

[Lyris]

Sorry to be impatient - any impressions yet?

[kolak]

Sorry to be impatient - any impressions yet?

Next week :)

[*.mp4 guy]

What sort of video are you talking about (recompressing compressed video or studio stuff?) and what sort of prep work? My goal is always reproduce the source (although that source may have had cleanup work done...)

I've never worked with really high quality stuff (film transfers). Panasonic AG-DVX100B's are the best I've worked on for any length of time.

Yeah, ok, the panasonics could sometimes give more or less perfect video, but that is by no means something that can be relied on, especially when you have to hit really low bit rates (web video, bitrate spike creating shots). Also, I refuse to use lowpass filters, good denoising is imo far better visually.

[Lyris]

Ah, that makes sense. I agree, not *once* have I found a use for the Lowpass filter. I suppose it made sense in theory when capturing from analogue sources that only had gunk the high frequencies, but not any more - I've never seen it make compression artefacts more pleasant.

[mp3dom]

Lowpass is used to limit compression artefacts, in particular the mosquito noise often visible in animation footage. In animation you have both low (color pattern) and high frequencies (the edges) together. If the edges are very sharp, the mosquito noise will be noticeable (especially in CCE which suffer a lot from mosquito noise). Lowpass is useful to cut the high frequencies so the sharp edge will became more soften. The CCE defaults apply this filter too strong, IMHO, since it's quite visible the loss of sharpening on big screen. Sometimes the lowpass needs to be used, since the mosquito noise (or similar artefacts) are more disturbing than the lowpass filter itself (you can anyway denoise the source as mp4guy said, but it could not be enough if your animation, for example, doesn't have any noise).

[Lyris]

Yeah, I understand the rationale behind essentially blurring the image - but I've yet to see a case where it makes a definite visible improvement myself.

[kolak]

Next week :)

Did some quick test with SP3 against CCE-SP (on film source) and as predicted- much better quality. The biggest impact is due to Adaptive GOP feature- it does simulate thousands of possible structures during each pass- works very well.
Motion estimation is better, also better fades, cross fades and pans. It also preserves grain better (even better than SP) and has 3 new powerful parameters to adjust encoding settings depending on source type. Speed is not as fast as predicted (about 6x faster than RT), but it's due to virtual passes and all adaptive features (GOP and matrixes). 50-70% usage of 8 cores- quite good.
Nice product- new GUI, but still not very good (prefer old one) :)
Another important test will be with interlaced sources.

[Lyris]

Excellent :)

and has 3 new powerful parameters to adjust encoding settings depending on source type.
What are these parameters?

[kolak]

Excellent :)


What are these parameters?

Activity, Luma, Residue :)

[Lyris]

Just read the manual on the CCE web site (it's up now). Look forward to using it!

[kolak]

Just read the manual on the CCE web site (it's up now). Look forward to using it!

Yes- they have just posted update. Manual comes with installer- this one is updated.
There is lots to improve in therms of GUI and usability, but engine is solid and very good:)

[Biggiesized]

kolak, did you compare with SP or SP2?

[Lyris]

Were there any actual engine changes from SP to SP2 or was it just GUI updates and accepting higher-than-SD input?
My SP3 is on its way :)

[kolak]

kolak, did you compare with SP or SP2?

SP, but SP and SP2 are preaty the same in terms of quality.

[Emulgator]

SP and SP2 are preaty the same in terms of quality.
I thought so too...

[Fishman0919]

SP and SP2 were the same. Same engine and same quality.

SP2 GUI was updated and small minor bug fixes were added after SP was discontinued.

[Biggiesized]

What amazes me, after reading the release notes, is that SP3 had major bugs at release like this one:

[Fix] In the previous version, encoding failed when chapter was set. This problem has been fixed

You're telling me they didn't even have chapter insertion figured out?! LOL

This fix from the first update is even better:

[Fix] Quit menu was not functioned. It has been fixed.

Hahaha

[mp3dom]

The SP3 core is based on CTC-Xtream which is a top rank online encoder. It's a total different product.

[kolak]

The SP3 core is based on CTC-Xtream which is a top rank online encoder. It's a total different product.

To be more precise, it has both engines, but I'm not sure how do they work (switch).

[Lyris]

Just got my SP3 this morning. Right now my reception to it is somewhat lukewarm. The GUI really needs work; there seems to be a bug where setting an Output file path will not display the new location/filename in the GUI. I'm sure these will be addressed in time and I'll find suitable workarounds.

Can't say I've seen any quality increase so far, but then again I am encoding at ~8mbps and filling the entire DVD9. I'll do some tests later with lower bit rates (~6mbps average) which I'll need to use for an upcoming 3-hour feature film project. Still need to read the manual (PDF, no printed version this time, which is fine by me) and figure out Segment Re-encode, which was the main reason for me buying.

[kolak]

Just got my SP3 this morning. Right now my reception to it is somewhat lukewarm. The GUI really needs work; there seems to be a bug where setting an Output file path will not display the new location/filename in the GUI. I'm sure these will be addressed in time and I'll find suitable workarounds.

Can't say I've seen any quality increase so far, but then again I am encoding at ~8mbps and filling the entire DVD9. I'll do some tests later with lower bit rates (~6mbps average) which I'll need to use for an upcoming 3-hour feature film project. Still need to read the manual (PDF, no printed version this time, which is fine by me) and figure out Segment Re-encode, which was the main reason for me buying.

It is better than SP/SP2, but only for film sources.
Interlaced is still bad :(

[Lyris]

Fortunately, film sources are my main focus. It's a pity there's no improvement for interlaced content though. Kolak, do you have a preferred DVD-compliant encoder for interlaced material?

Edit: hmm, why has "Shut down when finished encoding" disappeared?

[Lyris]

My luke-warmness has gone, just having a look at the results on a calibrated TV now.
Except on very complex shots, this film material at 8-8.5mbps is basically indistinguishable from the Digital Betacam source. Mostly happy customer :)

[kolak]

Fortunately, film sources are my main focus. It's a pity there's no improvement for interlaced content though. Kolak, do you have a preferred DVD-compliant encoder for interlaced material?

Edit: hmm, why has "Shut down when finished encoding" disappeared?

Feel free to report any issues/wishes to CTC- they do listen and respect customers. The more complains/wishes the better- faster reaction.

ProCoder/Carbon Coder are good for interlaced- bit soft, but no macroblocking.

[Lyris]

Good grief, this needs work.

I'm encoding a movie right now which is about 3 hours long and has to fit on one DVD9. So I'm spending a lot of time on getting the best settings for the problematic parts. Has anyone else had these issues?

1. Black screen in source window. I don't know what causes it, but it happens sometimes. I have to use VirtualDub to find the in/out frames and refer to the frame number.

2. This is the worst one: sometimes the encoder DOESN'T APPLY the settings you specify. I made a bunch of different outputs of one scene using differnet Residual/Luma settings, making sure to change the "Picture" type in the list, then encoding the file. Ran them through SSIM comparison, and it's encoded the EXACT SAME THING on all files, ignoring my "Picture" setting. FACEPALM.

Edit: I've found out that this happens when you "trim" the source video, that is, when encoding does not start from frame 0 of the source. Using AviSynth to trim right now as a workaround. Will report to CTC when I get a spare second.

3. With 23.976fps source, "Bit Allocation" window doesn't show the correct part of the video at the correct time. Again I have to use VirtualDub to find the right point.

[Lyris]

4. Sometimes in the Bit Allocation window, the slider can't be moved past the first "screen", meaning that unless you want to change settings at the very start of the video, you need to close and try again. Typing the timecode into the "Move to" box does not fix it, the position stays stuck.

5. Sometimes when you reload a project file which is NTSC 23.976fps, the UI resets the frame rate to 29.97. This doesn't seem to have much practical limitation if the VAF file has already been created though.

Just keeping a log before I send a report!

[Lyris]

6. Segment re-encode sometimes seems to insert a strangely interlaced version of the scene. I've not verified the result on a television, but the entire movie is 23.976fps with pulldown flags.

7. It's just this minute crashed when clicking the viewer window (film strip icon).

8. It refuses to import this AVISynth script (which loads fine in VirtualDub, etc):
part1=avisource("june_part1.avi")
part2=avisource("june_part2_no-jaundice.avi")
part3=avisource("june_part3.avi").trim(0,72536)
part4=avisource("snowscene_insert.avi")
part5=avisource("june_part3.avi").trim(72790,163826)
part6=avisource("june_part4_CREDITS.avi").trim(0,2218)
return part1+part2+part3+part4+part5+part6


It works fine with other AVISynth scripts with TRIM functions though? :confused:

I really hope they fix this GUI. I'm not getting any of the increased productivity they promised.

[Lyris]

Major new release posted on CTC's web site for those who missed it.

#3 appears to have been fixed and "Shutdown when finished" added. Looks like they are paying attention.

Thanks CTC!

[kolak]

Major new release posted on CTC's web site for those who missed it.

#3 appears to have been fixed and "Shutdown when finished" added. Looks like they are paying attention.

Thanks CTC!

More to come :)
The only one encoder, which has not being tested against SP3 is Toshiba- none of others, industry standard encoders can hold on with SP3 for film sources.

[nimrodim]

I am utterly frustrated with this.
There seems to be memory issues with this version.
I am using windows 7 (64 bit) with 4 gigs and a q6600 at 3.6 Ghz.
I have encountered numerous problems:
1. Works fine on small AVI and Avisynth frame served stuff. - but when I try to stream any large videos the program crashes at the end of the pass complaining about "not enough storage is available to process this command".
2. Tried to split the process with larger files into 2: creation of a vaf file and then another pass. - But the vaf files comes out incomplete...and video encoding on the second pass stops at random points.
3. This version really hogs a lot of memory and drives CPU usage on all cores much higher compared to sp2. (30-50% compared to 60-90%)
4. Program crashes if you try to enlarge the progress window during encoding.
5. Tried the 1 Pass VBR encoding on Avisynth frame served video - again process stops randomly at different points in the video.

Not happy with this....
:(:(:(

[kolak]

I am utterly frustrated with this.
There seems to be memory issues with this version.
I am using windows 7 (64 bit) with 4 gigs and a q6600 at 3.6 Ghz.
I have encountered numerous problems:
1. Works fine on small AVI and Avisynth frame served stuff. - but when I try to stream any large videos the program crashes at the end of the pass complaining about "not enough storage is available to process this command".
2. Tried to split the process with larger files into 2: creation of a vaf file and then another pass. - But the vaf files comes out incomplete...and video encoding on the second pass stops at random points.
3. This version really hogs a lot of memory and drives CPU usage on all cores much higher compared to sp2. (30-50% compared to 60-90%)
4. Program crashes if you try to enlarge the progress window during encoding.
5. Tried the 1 Pass VBR encoding on Avisynth frame served video - again process stops randomly at different points in the video.

Not happy with this....
:(:(:(

For the beginning stop using Avisynth- render your script to YUY2 and feed CC-SP3 with AVI.
If you have problems report to CTC- they will fix it.


Andrew

[nimrodim]

Just wanted to add that here is no option for setting a drop frame flag - as in the previous version of cinemacraft.

[Koutsoubos]

For the beginning stop using Avisynth- render your script to YUY2 and feed CC-SP3 with AVI.
If you have problems report to CTC- they will fix it.
,


I almost shelled out money on impulse for this beta release program. Luckily I was playing around with it on an associate's computer. Now I won't even consider it until they get all bugs sorted out.

Do NOT feed your CCE-SP3 with YUY2 AVI files unless the levels have already been corrected to 16-235. If the levels are 0-255, the program does not correct this (since it only does so on the internal RGB-->YUY2 conversion)

Really, I have not seen anything quite this broken in a while.

[kolak]

,


I almost shelled out money on impulse for this beta release program. Luckily I was playing around with it on an associate's computer. Now I won't even consider it until they get all bugs sorted out.

Do NOT feed your CCE-SP3 with YUY2 AVI files unless the levels have already been corrected to 16-235. If the levels are 0-255, the program does not correct this (since it only does so on the internal RGB-->YUY2 conversion)

Really, I have not seen anything quite this broken in a while.

Who feeds YUY2 with RGB levels?- bit against whole logic of formats.
Also did you change setting to 0-255 when you done it?
YUY2 is the best format to feed SP encoders.
SP3 has unmatched quality for film sources, after you pass few GUI bugs.


Andrew

[Koutsoubos]

Who feeds YUY2 with RGB levels?- bit against whole logic of formats.


This happens if all one does is to do a straight RGB-->YUY2 conversion without squashing the luma, assuming (wrongly) that CCE would take care of it. CCE won't do that (wasn't designed to) and there will be considerable problems down the line.

The bugs are quite substantial. While I have no doubt that the encoding will be good when it works (with chapter customizations and frameserving and all that), right now I have to agree with Lyris' current assessment that there is no "increased productivity" to be gained.

[kolak]

This happens if all one does is to do a straight RGB-->YUY2 conversion without squashing the luma, assuming (wrongly) that CCE would take care of it. CCE won't do that (wasn't designed to) and there will be considerable problems down the line.

The bugs are quite substantial. While I have no doubt that the encoding will be good when it works (with chapter customizations and frameserving and all that), right now I have to agree with Lyris' current assessment that there is no "increased productivity" to be gained.

SP3 has much betetr quality than SP/SP2 for film sources and if you don't do 10 encodes a day bugs are not that problematic. GUI is not the best, I also prefer old one, but quality is unmatched.

Andrew

[kolak]

This happens if all one does is to do a straight RGB-->YUY2 conversion without squashing the luma, assuming (wrongly) that CCE would take care of it. CCE won't do that (wasn't designed to) and there will be considerable problems down the line.

The bugs are quite substantial. While I have no doubt that the encoding will be good when it works (with chapter customizations and frameserving and all that), right now I have to agree with Lyris' current assessment that there is no "increased productivity" to be gained.

This is more user problem/error than CCE issue.

[Lyris]

The new version is a huge step forward, that's for sure. I'm much happier now.

[mp3dom]

How can I set a progressive encoding? Even if I set Picture Type = Progressive (In Window->Picture...) the resulting encoding flag is always "Interlaced".

[bigotti5]

Create a preset with progressive setting in Window->Picture and save it.
Double click in main window - marker window appears - mark Picture - select your preset (as shown in my picture)
encode

http://members.aon.at/video.digital/sp3.png

[mp3dom]

Thank you very much! So all settings available in the Window menu (Segment/Picture/Effect) are mainly saved presets that need to be set in the segment window right? Thanks again!

Edit: Tried your suggestion but doesn't work as expected! Seems that Frame 0 is always ignored because it keeps flagged as interlaced! You can see this with ReStream. Could you confirm that?
A workaround could be to set frame 1 as progressive so from frame 1 to the end it would stay correctly flagged as progressive.

[hank315]

Edit: Tried your suggestion but doesn't work as expected! Seems that Frame 0 is always ignored because it keeps flagged as interlaced! You can see this with ReStream. Could you confirm that?
A workaround could be to set frame 1 as progressive so from frame 1 to the end it would stay correctly flagged as progressive.
This seems to be an old trick just to fool a (HW) decoder. A lot of PAL DVD's have the first frame or first GOP encoded as interlaced, the rest is encoded as progressive.

I'm running tests with SP3 but for now it's impossible to change intra/inter matrices, I've read the manual, tried a lot of settings but it refuses to use the matrices as set in the Window/Segment settings.

[mp3dom]

I haven't tried it, but I think that the encoder change your preferred matrix every GOP if necessary. For example I started with standard MPEG matrix but the resulting file had a FOX-similar matrix at the end. Have you tried to set the matrix as 'fixed' and 'use the same matrix on the entire stream'? (maybe it's a bug related to frame 0 being ignored by the settings, you could try to change matrix from frame 1 :))

[hank315]

Yep, I set it to "fixed" and use "throughout the entire stream".
I had natural 2 matrix set but what ever I try it always uses the natural 1 matrix (the standard CCE matrix).

[mp3dom]

Weird, but the GUI seems a bit bugged at the moment.

[kolak]

Yep, I set it to "fixed" and use "throughout the entire stream".
I had natural 2 matrix set but what ever I try it always uses the natural 1 matrix (the standard CCE matrix).

Have you set it in main window/ segment window as bigotti5 showes?

You have to create in Segment Settings custom presset: choose your matrix and in Quant Matrixes options choose Fixed. Save with some name.

In the main window apply this presset for entire source.
I've tried and does work fine- it keeps matrix which I have chosen for whole file.

Andrew

[mp3dom]

Kolak, can you confirm my 'problem' regarding progressive encoding? Maybe I'm doing something wrong...

[kolak]

Kolak, can you confirm my 'problem' regarding progressive encoding? Maybe I'm doing something wrong...

What is your problem?
Progressive sequence is not set to 1?
Looks like CTC encoders don't do it and I never had problems with it.
Frame Structure= Frame, Frame Type= Progressive- should be enough. Many DVD players ignore flags anyway and do its own picture analyse and make decision based on this- not flags.

Andrew

[mp3dom]

No, it doesn't flag 'Frametype progressive' so the stream appears always 'Interlaced' even if I force progressive encoding. At this point I don't know if internally SP3 is calculating motion vectors as interlaced or progressive.
The only way is to set a new segment from frame 1 and apply the progressive preset. At that point starting from frame 1, the progressive frame is set (DGIndex and other tools detect the stream as progressive).
If I set the progressive preset from frame 0 (without others segments) the stream will be detected as interlaced on the whole stream (you can see it clearly with DGIndex and other tools that will show always interlaced TFF).
So it seems that preset at frame 0 is ignored (at least regarding progressive/interlaced encoding)

[kolak]

No, it doesn't flag 'Frametype progressive' so the stream appears always 'Interlaced' even if I force progressive encoding. At this point I don't know if internally SP3 is calculating motion vectors as interlaced or progressive.
The only way is to set a new segment from frame 1 and apply the progressive preset. At that point starting from frame 1, the progressive frame is set (DGIndex and other tools detect the stream as progressive).
If I set the progressive preset from frame 0 (without others segments) the stream will be detected as interlaced on the whole stream (you can see it clearly with DGIndex and other tools that will show always interlaced TFF).
So it seems that preset at frame 0 is ignored (at least regarding progressive/interlaced encoding)

Hmm- I've just done test. I have only one segment- whole movie (so 2 markers: 0 and end of the movie). It does work fine in this case. I also set it for the last one- probably not needed. I remember also doing some encode, where I had many chapters and it was also fine. Make sure you set Progressive not Auto detect (of course if your source is 100% progressive).

What is your stream timecode set to? 00:00:00:00 or other?
Do you have latest version ?

Andrew

[mp3dom]

Yes, same scenario here, with Progressive set (not Autodetect) but shows this strange behaviour (at least with latest version, TC set to 00:00:00:00 on both source/mpeg settings)

[kolak]

Yes, same scenario here, with Progressive set (not Autodetect) but shows this strange behaviour (at least with latest version)

No way- I've just tried few times- all fine :)
Send me your project file.
Works fine all the time for me. Do you use AVI or avisynth as a source?

Andrew

[Lyris]

Question - has anyone ever had a huge amount of success in improving difficult scenes by changing Quantize Matrix parameters? Every time I've done comparative tests, the default settings have proven to be the best.

[kolak]

Question - has anyone ever had a huge amount of success in improving difficult scenes by changing Quantize Matrix parameters? Every time I've done comparative tests, the default settings have proven to be the best.

SP/SP2/SP3 will find the best matrix for you.


Andrew

[kolak]

It looks like Progressive sequence=1, should not be set. I've checked stream from Harry Poter, which was done with Toshiba reference encoder and it has the same flagging as CTC encoders.


Andrew

[Lyris]

Glad it's not just me then :)

[hank315]

Choosing another matrix seems impossible, if someone has figured that out, please tell.
A lot of GUI settings are ignored, also random "out of memory" errors (8GB installed using WIN7-64bit).
For those who actually use this for creating DVD content, better check the generated stream to see if your settings really have been applied.

IMO CCE-SP3 isn't ready for release, too many bugs.

[kolak]

Choosing another matrix seems impossible, if someone has figured that out, please tell.
A lot of GUI settings are ignored, also random "out of memory" errors (8GB installed using WIN7-64bit).
For those who actually use this for creating DVD content, better check the generated stream to see if your settings really have been applied.

IMO CCE-SP3 isn't ready for release, too many bugs.

Yep, I set it to "fixed" and use "throughout the entire stream".
I had natural 2 matrix set but what ever I try it always uses the natural 1 matrix (the standard CCE matrix).

Have you set it in main window/ segment window as bigotti5 showes?

You have to create in Segment Settings custom presset: choose your matrix and in Quant Matrixes options choose Fixed. Save with some name.

In the main window apply this presset for entire source.
I've tried and does work fine- it keeps matrix which I have chosen for whole file.



Have you seen my response?
All works fine. What version do you have? Do you have all required 3rd party software?
There are some GUI bugs, but never had any errors during encode- also Win 7 64bit with 8GB of RAM.

IF you have problem contact CTC. IF you're using cracked version- don't complain :)

Andrew

[mp3dom]

What settings are ignored? Just to know and check. I've never had any out of memory error, but I'm working on episodes so no more than 30min of continuous video.
Besides my problem of 'progressive flag' being ignored (seems that I've found a fix for that), other settings seems fine. Only a doubt about the change from Normal to Active in complex areas... both seems to produce almost the same quality but I cannot check for sure (the final output is visually the same as Xtream)

[kolak]

What settings are ignored? Just to know and check. I've never had any out of memory error, but I'm working on episodes so no more than 30min of continuous video.
Besides my problem of 'progressive flag' being ignored (seems that I've found a fix for that), other settings seems fine. Only a doubt about the change from Normal to Active in complex areas... both seems to produce almost the same quality but I cannot check for sure.

If something is ignored report to CTC and try to use AVI, not Avisynth. Avisynth support seams to be most affected.

I have not found any setting, which is ignored, but I use AVI as a source.

Andrew

[mp3dom]

Yes, using Canopus CLLC seems fine.

[kolak]

Yes, using Canopus CLLC seems fine.

It should, because Canopus Lossless decoder outputs YUY2 (and it's very fast), which is the best input format for SP3.

Again- please report any bugs, requests to CTC. They will fix it or add new features if they get official report/complain.


Andrew

[hank315]

Functions like "Close all GOPs" and "fix GOP structure" don't seem to work if you do multipass without deleting the existing vaf file, previous versions could do this automatically...
Progressive/interlaced settings work OK here.
I also found the solution for the matrix settings, there's a difference between
"use the same ones throughout the entire stream" and
"use the same ones throughout the same segment".
The first one doesn't work if you have only one segment, it will always choose natural 1 matrix, "use the same ones throughout the same segment" works OK when choosing a custom preset.

For most setting changes you have to delete the vaf file.
About input, I always use Avisynth scripts, according to the manual frameserving (Avisynth, Virtualdub) is supported so there should be no need for direct AVI input.

IF you have problem contact CTC. IF you're using cracked version- don't complain :)
LOL, I've been asked by a small video company to check their encodes because they experience inconsistent results using this new SP3 release so for me it's just testing, they can do the complaining :). Their version is 1.0.3.1.

First impression is that CCE-SP3 has a lot of nice features but apart from the GUI bugs some weak points are still not solved, still too noisy and the motion estimation needs some work.

[kolak]

Functions like "Close all GOPs" and "fix GOP structure" don't seem to work if you do multipass without deleting the existing vaf file, previous versions could do this automatically...

These are quite big changes and I think SP3 behaves properly in this case, but worth to note.
Closed and Fixed GOPs should be used only for multiangle encoding or when there is specific need. Adaptive and open GOP help a lot for quality.


Progressive/interlaced settings work OK here.
I also found the solution for the matrix settings, there's a difference between
"use the same ones throughout the entire stream" and
"use the same ones throughout the same segment".
The first one doesn't work if you have only one segment, it will always choose natural 1 matrix, "use the same ones throughout the same segment" works OK when choosing a custom preset.

I will pass it to CTC.

I use 3rd option as there were no reported playback problems and it does improve quality.


For most setting changes you have to delete the vaf file.

This is correct behaviour. Manual should be updated to describe, when you don't and when do need to re-create vaf file (as with SP version)


About input, I always use Avisynth scripts, according to the manual frameserving (Avisynth, Virtualdub) is supported so there should be no need for direct AVI input.

Yes- but I'm not sure if CTC is aware how complicated avisynth scripts can be and this can cause stability problems.
Does it have problems with simple scripts also?


LOL, I've been asked by a small video company to check their encodes because they experience inconsistent results using this new SP3 release so for me it's just testing, they can do the complaining :). Their version is 1.0.3.1.

Please tell them to report all findings- CTC does listen.


First impression is that CCE-SP3 has a lot of nice features but apart from the GUI bugs some weak points are still not solved, still too noisy and the motion estimation needs some work.

Engine is brilliant for films sources, but not for interlaced. It looks like motion estimation algorithm could be improved. I dont have real problem with noise, but I don't use default settings. Some settings are very sensitive and you have to find correct for specific source. Once you do it quality is amazing. It's not ProCoder- just press encode. SP3 is not for everyone- you need some knowledge and experience to use it. You would (or not) be surprised how many companies do encoding :)

There is need for big GUI fixes and I hope it will come soon.

Andrew

[mp3dom]

I dont have real problem with noise, but I don't use default settings.

For example? What settings are you using or, in general, are you fine-tunings? Thanks.

[kolak]

For example? What settings are you using or, in general, are you fine-tunings? Thanks.

Depends on the source. For typical film source I have very good quality even at 4Mbit average. Never seen any sharper encoder or better preserving grain. It does need tweaking for each source.

I have my procedure to find good settings, but confidential :) All based on CTC manual and observing encoded files.


Andrew

[Lyris]

I always make sure to turn the Lowpass Filter (on by default) OFF. Hate, hate, hate lowpass filtered video. Then again, I usually have a full DVD9 to play with.

CCE SP3 is such good quality that the LPF is not needed at a high bit rate - never in my experience anyway.

Also, the presets are set up for Interlaced, so I have to change that for Film material.

[mp3dom]

LPF settings on SP3 are weaker than SP/SP2 standard (40 vs. 32). It becomes visible only when you're watching your video at a higher resolution (SD material on HD monitor or similar). At plain SD is quite invisible. Anyway it helps to keep mosquito quet especially on noisy animation when noise is already visible near sharpen edges. At high bitrates and really complex material SP3 produce visible artefacts like all other MPEG2 encoders but I'm speaking of complex CG/animation, not film with actors where surely the motion is more predictive.
Regarding preset setup for interlaced, do you mean resize filters and so on? Or even the quantizer matrix/LPF are setup for interlaced? In that case setting up the "Picture..." tab to progressive resolve the problem?

[Biggiesized]

Question - has anyone ever had a huge amount of success in improving difficult scenes by changing Quantize Matrix parameters? Every time I've done comparative tests, the default settings have proven to be the best.

I thought SP3 and SP2 share the same quantization matrices. I've opened them both up side by side and it appears true.

[name123]

i really like the new sp3, quality is outstanding, it is perfect the way it is, the only problem is that they do not support avs directly with video sources being over 2 gbs, it would cause CCE to freeze on 1st pass or show not enough storage, but there is a work around it (feed your avs to virtual dub then frameserve it) the Virtual multipass is one of the most superb update, after the intial pass, the following pass becomes faster and consumes less time.

[mp3dom]

Some day ago I've used an AVS file that point to a 10GB AVI without any problem.
Anyway, regarding my "issue" of Progressive flag being ignored, I've found the method to replicate (at least on my system).
If you use the progressive preset at the beginning (starting from frame 0) without using any other preset in the middle then all is ok (progressive flag is set). But if you set also other points where you change something, then the first progressive preset is ignored (thus not enabling the progressive flag).
For example made 2 preset: Progressive Default and Progressive Active (the same as default but with Active Motion Estimation). Then assign at frame 0 the Progressive Default and at frame X the Progressive Active. You'll see that prior of the 'Progressive Active' preset, the frames will be flagged/encoded as interlaced, and will switch to progressive just at the beginning of Progressive Active.

[kolak]

Some day ago I've used an AVS file that point to a 10GB AVI without any problem.
Anyway, regarding my "issue" of Progressive flag being ignored, I've found the method to replicate (at least on my system).
If you use the progressive preset at the beginning (starting from frame 0) without using any other preset in the middle then all is ok (progressive flag is set). But if you set also other points where you change something, then the first progressive preset is ignored (thus not enabling the progressive flag).
For example made 2 preset: Progressive Default and Progressive Active (the same as default but with Active Motion Estimation). Then assign at frame 0 the Progressive Default and at frame X the Progressive Active. You'll see that prior of the 'Progressive Active' preset, the frames will be flagged/encoded as interlaced, and will switch to progressive just at the beginning of Progressive Active.

Is this from avisynth script a sa source? Try with AVI.
It looks like ti's only issue with avisynth as a source.

[Video Dude]

CINEMA CRAFT Encoder SP3 1.0.4.1

[Fix] Sometimes two-pass inverse 3:2 pulldown failed because i32 file could not be opened. This problem has been fixed.
[Fix] In some QuickTime files, frame number was counted one frame longer. This problem has been fixed.
[Fix] Fixed other minor problems.
[Change] When both resizing and deinterlacing are specified, deinterlacing will be performed first from this version.

[kolak]

CINEMA CRAFT Encoder SP3 1.0.4.1

Problem with "use the same ones throughout the entire stream" has been also fixed.


Andrew

[marcio]

Can someone help me?

I am feeding CCE SP3 with an avisynth script with 350.000 frames of footage.
I am trying to do a multi-pass VBR (5 passes) but it ALWAYS complete the first pass and display the error "can't find the video information file" and crash.

When I trim the footage to, lets say, 10.000 frames with "trim(0,9999), everything works fine.

Looks like CCE SP3 can't handle long footages? Anyone know a solution?

[Fishman0919]

Can someone help me?

I am feeding CCE SP3 with an avisynth script with 350.000 frames of footage.
I am trying to do a multi-pass VBR (5 passes) but it ALWAYS complete the first pass and display the error "can't find the video information file" and crash.

When I trim the footage to, lets say, 10.000 frames with "trim(0,9999), everything works fine.

Looks like CCE SP3 can't handle long footages? Anyone know a solution?

Cinema Crafts solution for now is more memory with v1.0.3.1. SP3 1.0.3.1 does have a big memory leak. I haven't downloaded the new v1.0.4.1 released on 8/25/2010
There is also an issue with SP3 running avisynth with some scripts.

I've done several DVD to DVD movie only encodings with SP3 and they encoded fine... I do have many issues with multi pass encodings converting BluRay 1080p movies only to DVD 480p with SP3 but CCE Basic will encode the same script fine.
DirectShowSource("C:\Temp\RipBot264temp\job1\video.mkv", fps=23.976, audio=false, convertfps=true)
Spline64Resize(720,480).Sharpen(0.21)
ConvertToYUY2()

Not to big of a script but SP3 seems to false 90% of the time... CCE Basic works 100% of the time.

CCE SP3 doesn't need 5 passes for anything, it does 2-8 passes internally in memory on each pass.

From SP3 Guide...
Cinema Craft Encoder SP3 performs multiple on memory passes
(between 2 and 8) during each physical encoding pass to ensure
precise correlation between distortion level and available bitrate
before actual output. This enables Cinema Craft Encoder SP3 to
achieve the highest picture stability and the highest picture quality
without unexpected fluctuation in both bitrate and distortion.

So a 2 pass encoding with SP3 is at less an old 4 pass.

[marcio]

Fishman0919,

This is the error I get.
See, I am trying to encode "gone with the wind", and it is a long movie.
335.524 frames. Looks like CCE SP3 can't handle such long footage, because when I try to encode shorter footage like 200.000 frames, it works.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8614/cced.jpg

My version is 1.0.3.1 and YES, the source is HD.
This is the avisynth:

LoadPlugin("C:\Arquivos de programas\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\DGAVCDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Arquivos de programas\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ColorMatrix.dll")
AVCSource("C:\a\a.dga")
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601")
Crop(16,0,-16,0)
Spline64Resize(720,480)
ConvertToYUY2()

So sad... How can they realease such a buggy program?

[kolak]

Fishman0919,

This is the error I get.
See, I am trying to encode "gone with the wind", and it is a long movie.
335.524 frames. Looks like CCE SP3 can't handle such long footage, because when I try to encode shorter footage like 200.000 frames, it works.

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8614/cced.jpg

My version is 1.0.3.1 and YES, the source is HD.
This is the avisynth:

LoadPlugin("C:\Arquivos de programas\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\DGAVCDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Arquivos de programas\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ColorMatrix.dll")
AVCSource("C:\a\a.dga")
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601")
Crop(16,0,-16,0)
Spline64Resize(720,480)
ConvertToYUY2()

So sad... How can they realease such a buggy program?


Report it to them- and they will fix it.


Andrew

[Lyris]

Seconded - they've been pretty attentive so far (and in fact released a minor bug fix in the last few days).

[Fishman0919]

CCE SP3 v1.0.4.1 seems to have fix most the issue... still not working all the time on multi-pass... works about 8/10 time on BluRay HD.

I was able to convert Gone with the Wind 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition BluRay and Avatar BluRay without issue.

[Lyris]

A new error for me (this time using the latest version):
After the first pass of one particular source, I get a CCX Error about there not being enough storage space left (Windows error code 0x8 8).

Reported to CTC. All I can say is thank hell the deadline on this DVD isn't tight.

What I wouldn't give for CCE SP2's interface back, only with the CCX engine underneath :(

[Lyris]

New bugs this time, this time encoding crashes after the first pass with:

"Out of memory" (despite having about 5 out of 8gb of RAM free!)
and then
"Could not close the file (path to MPEG2 file). The handle is invalid. Windows error code 0x6 6".

[hank315]

"Out of memory" (despite having about 5 out of 8gb of RAM free!)
I also had this one several times with the previous version, 1.0.3.1.
Always after the first pass.
I'm using Win 7-64 bit with 8 Gb installed.

[Lyris]

I am also using Win 7 64-bit with 8gb installed. Hmmm.

[name123]

for those that have "not enough memory", try ticking the creation of intermediate file and feed the avs to virtualdub and frameserve it that way

[kolak]

for those that have "not enough memory", try ticking the creation of intermediate file and feed the avs to virtualdub and frameserve it that way

For those, who use heavy scripts intermediate file is very good solution and should be used, because it will speed up everything a lot. Script will be run only once. It just may need 100GB free space, but disks are big and cheap these days.

Andrew

[Lyris]

I tried the intermediate file (my script is very basic though), but it still stops after the first pass:

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i258/lyris-lite/cce.jpg

The disk has 225gb free.

[lalati]

Hi,

Please help me.
Earlier I used SP2, but I read good thing about SP3 and I would like to try. I fed SP2 with avs script (with trim line) to trim the orginal 20 GB DV avi automatically. How can I do this with SP3? As I saw, I couldn't feed the SP3 with AVS script directly. Please step by step instruction if possible..

Thank you!!

[marcio]

Have you guys tried to load the avisynth script into virtualdub and frameserve it from there to CCE SP3?
I've only tested it a couple of times and it worked. I am not getting the 1st pass error anymore.

I have only tried this a few times so I am not sure if this is a full fix.

Try it and let us know.

[kolak]

I tried the intermediate file (my script is very basic though), but it still stops after the first pass:

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i258/lyris-lite/cce.jpg

The disk has 225gb free.


It says it can't find vaf file. Is it there- check if it's created during first pass. Try to do analyze pass only. If it does than change settings to VBR and use existing vaf file.

26fps?

What is your PC spec- looks very slow.


Andrew

[lalati]

Have you guys tried to load the avisynth script into virtualdub and frameserve it from there to CCE SP3?
I've only tested it a couple of times and it worked. I am not getting the 1st pass error anymore.

I have only tried this a few times so I am not sure if this is a full fix.

Try it and let us know.

Plaase can you help, what I need to do?

[bigotti5]

How can I do this with SP3? As I saw, I couldn't feed the SP3 with AVS script directly. Please step by step instruction if possible..

For SP3 I use AVFS - Avisynth Virtual File System (http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/)...works like a charme
See this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1081800#post1081800)

[lalati]

For SP3 I use AVFS - Avisynth Virtual File System (http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/)...works like a charme
See this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1081800#post1081800)

Thanks! looking good.. i try it..:thanks:

[Lyris]

It says it can't find vaf file. Is it there- check if it's created during first pass. Try to do analyze pass only. If it does than change settings to VBR and use existing vaf file.

26fps?

What is your PC spec- looks very slow.


Andrew

Yes, the VAF file is there and I also tried doing the Analysis Pass only.

The spec is:

Intel Q6600 (2.4ghz Quad Core)
8gb RAM
Win 7 x64

The film is very grainy from start to finish, I imagine that will affect the speed a lot. The first pass has always been quite slow.

[kolak]

Yes, the VAF file is there and I also tried doing the Analysis Pass only.

The spec is:

Intel Q6600 (2.4ghz Quad Core)
8gb RAM
Win 7 x64

The film is very grainy from start to finish, I imagine that will affect the speed a lot. The first pass has always been quite slow.

Hmmm- my PC is 8 core machine, but I have 120-150fps.


Andrew

[nimrodim]

For those, who use heavy scripts intermediate file is very good solution and should be used, because it will speed up everything a lot. Script will be run only once. It just may need 100GB free space, but disks are big and cheap these days.

Andrew

This is totally unacceptable to me. :(


For SP3 I use AVFS - Avisynth Virtual File System (http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/)...works like a charme
See this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1081800#post1081800)

Finally a solution that work for Avisynth scripts, thank you so much for this, I have tried it several times and havn't had a crash yet.
:thanks::thanks::thanks:

[Fishman0919]

A trick I used to get a 2 pass encode to work with v1.0.3.1 was do a VBR Analysis Pass with the setting you like... close SP3 and save settings... restart your PC... after the reboot, start SP3 and open your saved project... change VBR Analysis Pass to Multipass VBR and the click on the "Bit allocation..." button... may take a few sec... once the allocation screen loads click on the "Encode" button... may take a few sec for the encoding to start.

Really no need for this with 1.0.4.1 but worked pretty well on most encodings with 1.0.3.1

[subair37]

A trick I used to get a 2 pass encode to work with v1.0.3.1 was do a VBR Analysis Pass with the setting you like... close SP3 and save settings... restart your PC... after the reboot, start SP3 and open your saved project... change VBR Analysis Pass to Multipass VBR and the click on the "Bit allocation..." button... may take a few sec... once the allocation screen loads click on the "Encode" button... may take a few sec for the encoding to start.

Really no need for this with 1.0.4.1 but worked pretty well on most encodings with 1.0.3.1

Hi Thanks

Can you please advice me step by step how to load avs script on to sp3 and what settings i have to do on sp3 b4 encode , also i do 1+4 pass on my sp2 how many passess i have to do on sp3, what i do is Mpeg2 encoding DVD9 to DVD5.
Can you please tell me what is the advantage of using sp3 over sp2.

My Laptop is Pentium Dual core 4 G RAM

Please advice.

I have just downloaded CCE SP3 from the custom Technology website 1.0.4.2 Is this a full version or just a trial version .Please advice .I am waiting for a reply

[mp3dom]

Can you please tell me what is the advantage of using sp3 over sp2.

Have you bought SP3 without knowing the difference between SP2 and SP3?!


I have just downloaded CCE SP3 from the custom Technology website 1.0.4.2 Is this a full version or just a trial version .Please advice .I am waiting for a reply
As clearly stated on CTC website, it's the update.

[Lyris]

Can you please advice me step by step how to load avs script on to sp3 and what settings i have to do on sp3 b4 encode , also i do 1+4 pass on my sp2 how many passess i have to do on sp3, what i do is Mpeg2 encoding DVD9 to DVD5.
The manual explains the settings and the nature of the encoding engine, it's worth a read.

[Lyris]

Just had another crash...

And for some reason it keeps resetting minimum bit rate to 500. Anyone else had that glorious bug?

[Lyris]

Same issue, and no response from CTC. "Not enough storage" error when trying to access the VAF file. I'll try using VirtualDub to make a temporary AVI intermediate but I'm not hopeful, given that the error is regarding VAF, nor am I happy about it.

I didn't have this error before...

[Lyris]

Here's one... now I'm trying to swap the AVS file with the new AVI intermediate I made.

I saved the list of filters (which apply different settings to different parts of the film) and re-loaded it.

When you reload the list, it only contains the first word of each description, forgets all of the forced I frames, and forgets all of the different "Picture" settings.

Did they test this at all?... I know I should really be emailing CTC, but this forum is a quicker way to keep track before I do so.

[mp3dom]

If you save the chapters as XML file, you save also the list of I frames and the Effects/Picture 'name'. The true 'parameters' of Effects/Picture needs to be saved in a separated file.

[Lyris]

Brilliant, thanks! Interesting hidden feature.

On a side note, my anger with the bugs always seems to melt away once the encoding is done and I see the picture quality :o

[niel69]

People, i`m encoding an avi captured with virtualdub(analog tv card - SD material) in NTSC(720x480 29.97fps) to obtain a m2v file. All the settings in CCESP3 are default(all the same as the input file) except the bit rate that i am using VBR 8000kbps. The audio is extracted form VD and is in the wav format. Now i want to author these 2 files in DVD Architect 5 and the resulting dvd seen in my TV set(analog), is not good. The image quality is ok but the motion is bad, everything go slow. Can someone help?
Regards!!

[kolak]

Brilliant, thanks! Interesting hidden feature.

On a side note, my anger with the bugs always seems to melt away once the encoding is done and I see the picture quality :o

There is new version on CTC site.

[Lyris]

Thanks for the update Kolak - cool, DPX support!

[Lyris]

Kolak, do you know what right-clicking in the "Chapters" area and selecting "Add EOF" does? The manual doesn't mention anything about "EOF".

[mp3dom]

EOF stands for End Of File. It simply adds a mark to the latest frame of the video.

[yup]

Hi all!
I mainly encoding VHS capture source and use lossless codec (Ut for example). When I use HCEnc 025 I feel like rider 100-125 fps, when I use CCCE SP3 only 20 to 35 fps. May be I need transcoding to other lossless codec?
Please advice.

With kind regards yup.

[TheSkiller]

What is the color space of your lossless file? If it's not YUY2 then CCE will have to convert to YUY2 first because that's CCE's native color space.
Anyway, I also noticed that CCE SP3 is slower than HCEnc, but the difference is not constant, somehow. :rolleyes:

[kolak]

SP3 is slow when your input is RGB. Use avisynth and convert to YUY2.

I have 120-150 fps on my 8 core machine. It does lots of work in memory- many internal passes and finding optimal GOP pattern and quantization matrixes. It's very complex encoder.


Andrew

[Blue_MiSfit]

"many internal passes" is what their sales team told me also... what that actually means is another question entirely.

What exactly does doing the YUY2 conversion in AviSynth have to do with letting SP3 do more work in memory???

Derek

[Biggiesized]

"many internal passes" is what their sales team told me also... what that actually means is another question entirely.

What exactly does doing the YUY2 conversion in AviSynth have to do with letting SP3 do more work in memory???

Derek

Nothing. You're reading more into his post than what's actually there.

[yup]

TheSkiller & kolak!
Thanks for reply I use YUY2 colorspace, I have quad core CPU. May be problem is multithreading codec (Ut) and multithreading encoder CCE SP3? I try other codec after weekend and report.
yup.

[mp3dom]

yup, open the logfile that SP3 creates every time you do an encode, and watch if the input was correctly decoded natively in YUY2 or if SP3 needs to do an RGB->YUY2 conversion.
On i7 920 I'm getting > 100fps too. It also depends by hard disks. External USB or fragmented disks may offer lower reading performances so the fps will drop.

[poisondeathray]

It also depends by hard disks. External USB or fragmented disks may offer lower reading performances so the fps will drop.


This is true, but presumably he's using the same input source on the same HDD. If HCENC can achieve 100-125fps with that HDD configuration , then HDD is not likely the bottleneck, and you would expect CCE SP3 to achieve similar numbers (in the absence of other issues)

And yup says he's doing VHS capture, so he should be using UT in YUY2 mode

[Video Dude]

CINEMA CRAFT Encoder SP3 1.0.6.6

[Fix] Modified so that "out of memory" error will not happen when avisynth script file is used as a source file.
[Add] Modified so that output folders can be fixed.
[Add] Modified so that default template set can be specified.

[mp3dom]

And yup says he's doing VHS capture, so he should be using UT in YUY2 mode
I think there are some limitations. Not all YUY2 codecs can be correctly decoded. I think it depends on how the filter connects in DirectShow/VCM. For example I have some problems using AVI HuffYUV (YUY2) directly in SP3

[kolak]

If SP3 gets YUY2 on input that it's very happy. If RGB than it does conversion to YUY2 and it's slow (not sure why).

Codecs which work well with SP3: Canopus HQ, Cineform, Canopus Lossless, YUY2, ProRes should also work well. Any fast codec which outputs YUY2 should be fine.

SP3 will use up to 8 cores.

Andrew

[kolak]

"many internal passes" is what their sales team told me also... what that actually means is another question entirely.

What exactly does doing the YUY2 conversion in AviSynth have to do with letting SP3 do more work in memory???

Derek

It means it does lots of processing in memory- it will simulate 1000s of possible GOP structures and quantization matrixes and choose one, which produces lowest distortion (lowest quantization?).
Old SP2 can do 250fps on new machines with high CPU clock, but it's limited to 2 cores only. It's faster because it does not support adaptive GOP and does much less processing. There is also different motion estimation algorythm.

Not sure why, but internal RGB-> YUY2 conversion is very slow.

If you feed uncompressed you need RAID (2, 3 disks) to be sure that your bottleneck is not data delivery to SP3.

New version allows you to specify default settings, so any dragged file will use them. It was a nightmare when you had many files (eg. menu files) and you wanted them to use different than SP3 default settings. Now it's much easier to do.
If you have any other ideas for improvements report to CTC or let me know :)


Andrew

[mp3dom]

It was a nightmare when you had many files (eg. menu files) and you wanted them to use different than SP3 default settings.

In that case I setup a single file, then drag all the others selecting 'last used' (this will keep all the same settings as the first file, while changing only the path/output filename). :)

[kolak]

In that case I setup a single file, then drag all the others selecting 'last used' (this will keep all the same settings as the first file, while changing only the path/output filename). :)

Never tried :)


Andrew

[Biggiesized]

Andrew, do you mind asking CTC why CCE SP3 still doesn't accept YV12/I420 input? CC-HDe has had this for years!

[kolak]

Andrew, do you mind asking CTC why CCE SP3 still doesn't accept YV12/I420 input? CC-HDe has had this for years!

CC-HDe never did it and still does not support YV12. Only pure yuv (i420)

They said some time ago that yv12.avi is not good as a source.
You can make request or ask- they will answer.

Andrew

[yup]

mp3dom!
top log file
10/11/12 16:10:32.140 Video output file: E:\Video\Сысоев\palvhsprog.m2v
10/11/12 16:10:32.140 Video info file: E:\Video\Сысоев\palvhsprog.vaf
10/11/12 16:10:32.140 Log file: E:\Documents and Settings\Yury\palvhsprog.txt
10/11/12 16:10:32.359 biCompression = ULY2
fccHandler = uly2
10/11/12 16:10:32.359
<< Codec info >>
Name: Ut Video (ULY2)
Description: Ut Video Codec YUV422 (ULY2) VCM x86
Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\utvideo.dll

10/11/12 16:10:32.359 Trying YUY2...failed.
10/11/12 16:10:32.359 Retrying YUY2...succeeded.
10/11/12 16:10:32.546 biCompression = ULY2
fccHandler = uly2
10/11/12 16:10:32.546
<< Codec info >>
Name: Ut Video (ULY2)
Description: Ut Video Codec YUV422 (ULY2) VCM x86
Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\utvideo.dll

10/11/12 16:10:32.546 Trying YUY2...failed.
10/11/12 16:10:32.546 Retrying YUY2...succeeded.
10/11/12 16:10:32.546 imp processor: 3 -> 2
10/11/12 16:10:32.671 exp processor: 2 -> 3
10/11/12 16:10:33.609 Encoding started.
yup.

[Biggiesized]

CC-HDe never did it and still does not support YV12. Only pure yuv (i420)

They said some time ago that yv12.avi is not good as a source.
You can make request or ask- they will answer.

Andrew
Yeah, I know it accepts I420 and not YV12. U and V planes are swapped.

If the final output must be YV12 MPEG-2, why is 4:2:0 an unacceptable source format? That makes no sense whatsoever.

EDIT: I sent an e-mail to CTC Japan and I got some Engrish reply about CCE SP3 supporting any file that plays back in Windows Media Player.

[kolak]

Yeah, I know it accepts I420 and not YV12. U and V planes are swapped.

If the final output must be YV12 MPEG-2, why is 4:2:0 an unacceptable source format? That makes no sense whatsoever.

EDIT: I sent an e-mail to CTC Japan and I got some Engrish reply about CCE SP3 supporting any file that plays back in Windows Media Player.

Engrish :) Japanese don't recognise L and R - for them it's the same :) Have you seen Lost in Translation movie :)

YV12 has no information about interlaced/progressive type- this was some explanation which I have heard. When you do some filtering it's betetr to have 4:2:2 on the input, I think this is the issue.

Ask again- why YV12 is not supported natively.

Andrew

[Biggiesized]

You could specify the frame type in your encoding settings. I still don't understand why this should matter.

[kolak]

You could specify the frame type in your encoding settings. I still don't understand why this should matter.

Don't know. SP3 was designed for use in authoring houses- it expects 4:2:2 source.


Andrew

[TheFluff]

I don't get it. YV12 and I420 are the exact same thing except for which order the U/V planes are stored in memory; in fact what most people call "YV12" usually is I420 anyway. Avisynth's IsYV12() will return true for both orders and pretty much all source plugins that output "YV12" will actually output I420 (there's almost nobody who actually uses the reverse order). If it claims to support YV12 input, it will most likely actually support I420 input. It's impossible to tell the difference between one and the other without looking at it anyway; if you're a computer program you have to know (or guess) the chroma plane order if all you have is a raw yuv file.

[Biggiesized]

Don't know. SP3 was designed for use in authoring houses- it expects 4:2:2 source.


Andrew
And CC-HDe is not? It permits I420.

Not everyone has a tape deck.

This conversation is getting very circular. Suffice it to say, CTC doesn't have a good explanation.

[kolak]

And CC-HDe is not? It permits I420.

Not everyone has a tape deck.

This conversation is getting very circular. Suffice it to say, CTC doesn't have a good explanation.

I don't know. They have some reasons or simply didn't implement it.
SP3 does support avisynth, but CC-HDe does not (and never will, probably). With avisynth there is no problem to convert any input to YUY2.
I said- ask CTC :) I'm not thier support :)

CC-HDe suggested input format is 10bit 4:2:2. Most internal filtering is done at 14bit 4:4:4. i420 is supported but not preffered.
Same with SP3- YUY2 is preffered format.

Andrew

[Biggiesized]

They prefer you input v210 if you want to do any filtering.

I wouldn't, so I'd feed it I420.

[kolak]

They prefer you input v210 if you want to do any filtering.

I wouldn't, so I'd feed it I420.

Yep - if you have you final (dithered, etc ) i420 than it's good.


Andrew

[yup]

I try use Canopus lossless codec and get only 50 fps, also i try use Ut AVI file with old good VFAPI Reader 1.05 and get the same speed 50 fps. My quad core load 50...60%.
yup.

[poisondeathray]

I think vfapi converts to RGB (frameserves RGB) , and canopus lossless IIRC as well

[kolak]

I try use Canopus lossless codec and get only 50 fps, also i try use Ut AVI file with old good VFAPI Reader 1.05 and get the same speed 50 fps. My quad core load 50...60%.
yup.

Try Canopu HQ- this gives the fastest speed with SP3.


Andrew

[Lyris]

New version today with many bug fixes and a new feature: the encoded result is shown beside the source in the Bit Allocation window.

[subair37]

Hi friends

I am using CCE SP2 for my Mpeg2 encoding now is CCE SP3 bug free now to do the encoding ,? Also my Avisynth 2.5.8 can i use it with cce sp3 looking forward to a guide on how to use CCE SP3 as i never used this b4 Please help me guys to learn CCE SP3............