Best encoder / frontend

[eathasa]

Hi,
I've been using Nero for my occasional h.264 encoding for a number of years, but now I have a lot of video to encode and am concerned about achieving archival quality as well as reasonably limiting encoding time and storage space requirements. Nero does not seem to be cutting it quality-wise.

I am pretty technically savvy but don't have a PhD in video encoding. I want access to as many features as possible while keeping the process as simple as required to achieve great results.

My source material is mpeg2 - a combination of DVDs and DVR-MS.


I was amazed with the poor results of a video encode I have been trying for a couple days. The source is a very crisp DVR-MS (it was firewire captured from a cable box). Trying various settings in Nero 10 Recode, and testing with a bitrate only slightly lower than the DVR-MS source, the MP4 is BLURRY, and overlayed text (titles, channel logo) fade in and out when there is movement behind them in the action.

Trying various encoding options, I'm pretty convinced that Nero can't produce a good enough result to bother with at all, at least with this video that I am analyzing carefully. How can an MP2 source at a similar bit rate be much better than h.264 with options resulting in 13+ hrs encoding time...?

I'd rather avoid the command line and use a full-featured yet straightforward GUI.

Suggestions?

:thanks:

[CruNcher]

Best encoder / frontend

if you found the holly grail tell us, ;) such thing is not existing they're Scenario specific preferred ones like megui (one of the oldest and not everyone's thing) then there is Staxrip or Handbrake, Avidemux, Virtualdub + x264vfw, Hybrid, MediaCoder and many more.
Look in the Mp4 GUI thread to find one, though with the defaults and x264cli you already get great results and the learning curve for cmd line isn't that high if you aware of the basics and have some reading time @ hand ;). Nero is based on a old Ateme H.264 core that in today's times is outdated you could also give Tmpgenc Masterworks from Pegasys a try though it's a slower framework and not free like the others.

MediaCoder comes pretty close to the so holly grail, (its a MultiEncoder Gui with a lot of options also some you find in no other gui) based on all the OSS solutions available combined under 1 hood) though because it is so versatile its learning curve for it as a GUI is higher then it might be for others and it has not a good name in the OSS World, but its more advanced then most of the other solutions Virtualdub, Handbrake and Avidemux could be counted to its class of buildup too. ;)