Encoder Comparison

[petermg]

Now I'm all about freeware, and I am very excited about the quality of the free encoder that QuEnc is. Having said that, I have noticed blockiness even in 8Mbps encoded clips where as CCE does not display this. For example, on gradients. [The settings for QuEnc were high quality VBR 2 pass using the same matrix as CCE's standard.] Again, I *love* Quenc, but for top notch quality, not only is CCE best, but I can even tell a difference without doing exhaustive comparison testing. And from what I heard about ffmpeg, they might not be around long enough to improve these issues. If anyone wants a screen shot, let me know, I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about.

[SAPSTAR]

Now I'm all about freeware, and I am very excited about the quality of the free encoder that QuEnc is. Having said that, I have noticed blockiness even in 8Mbps encoded clips where as CCE does not display this. For example, on gradients. [The settings for QuEnc were high quality VBR 2 pass using the same matrix as CCE's standard.] Again, I *love* Quenc, but for top notch quality, not only is CCE best, but I can even tell a difference without doing exhaustive comparison testing. And from what I heard about ffmpeg, they might not be around long enough to improve these issues. If anyone wants a screen shot, let me know, I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about.
Did you try AQE ? (AutoQMatEnc) ;)

[petermg]

SAPSTAR,
I have not tried AQE. Sorry if this sounds ignorant, but I am when it comes to that program, does it have a GUI or is it command line only?

[SAPSTAR]

SAPSTAR,
I have not tried AQE. Sorry if this sounds ignorant, but I am when it comes to that program, does it have a GUI or is it command line only?
It uses an ECL file (same than CCE SP 2.67), you can generate it with CCE SP it self or with ECLCreate : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=678077#post678077
Then : AutoQMatEnc -ecl youreclfile.ecl

[petermg]

Ok, I just tried it.. but umm... I cannot find the mpeg file that it output. I looked in the dir for AutoQmatEnc, I looked in the dir that the source is in... nothin'. Am I missing something?

[petermg]

And I'd also like to know how to save an ECL file with CCE SP Trial and I cannot and when I try, it says TRIAL LIMITATION cannot save ecl! I am using 2.67!?

[hutch1711]

Ok, I just tried it.. but umm... I cannot find the mpeg file that it output.
Can you be a little more specific as to what you did?

[petermg]

I created the ECL file with the ECL creator program, then I copied the ecl file to the same dir as AutoQEnc, ran it with the command line -ecl [ecl filename], lines of information scrolled for about 5 mins, then it gave what looked like a matrix report and it also output some qmatrix txt file on the root of the drive. Any of this making any sense?

Then I tried it wtih an ECL file made with CCE, at which point it said that it was starting pass 1 of 4!? after having said that it was accessing AVISYNTH environment, something to that effect, ... done, but although it wasn't using any CPU, my HDD was going crazy.. slowing my entire machine to a halt.. I had to reboot to stop it, then when I tried it again, the exact same thing happened with my HDD and had to reboot.

[hutch1711]

First delete ALL files created by AutoQmatEnc on your initial attempt, then put ALL of your files into the root directory C:, including all the AutoQMatEnc files, the source file, the .avs file and the .ecl file. Without directories and sub-directories, for what ever reason, it will usually work. Give it a try. :)

[petermg]

::::::::UPDATED::::::::

After I enabled AUTO MAX BITRATE in QuEnc, the blockiness that I was seeing before, I no longer could see. Although I've not done a side-by-side comparison with an image from CCE, it's much better looking than it was.