What MPEG encoder would you recommend for the best quality with VCD/SVCD?

[rodgreen]

I have downloaded the following MPG encoders and seek your advice on what is the best one to use for VCD/SVCD.

1.Panasonic MPEG1 2.30
2.LSX-MPG 2.0 and 3.0
3.Xing 2.2
4.AVI to MPG 1.2 using BBMPEG

My idea is to archive my camcorder tapes to CD (PAL VHS).

I have found that the Panasonic is the best quality for the file size. I would not mind a larger file if the quality is higher.

Are there any other MPEG encoders you would recommend for VHS-type quality.

Rod

[elister]

Well for VCD i use the following.

Adobe Premier 5.1a
Panasonic Mpeg Plug in (2.0?)

I am waiting for Panasonic to provide a SVCD version. But for now i hear one can feed multiple avi files into ANY encoder (say like LSX w/SVCD profile) via Virtual Dub.

[Sciascia]

I have tried all of those at one time or another myself. Actually I went through with a clip I made of varying degrees of action and video levels and tried all of the encoders, with all of their settings. The one with the best visual quality and the least amount of artifacts was the Panasonic. By far the best one out of the group. I am not sure about the SVCD, I haven't even heard of it until just now. What is that, like a higher compression or better quality? Is it a new standard?

[Sciascia]

I have tried all of those at one time or another myself. Actually I went through with a clip I made of varying degrees of action and video levels and tried all of the encoders, with all of their settings. The one with the best visual quality and the least amount of artifacts was the Panasonic. By far the best one out of the group. I am not sure about the SVCD, I haven't even heard of it until just now. What is that, like a higher compression or better quality? Is it a new standard?

[rodgreen]

Elister:
I use MSP 6.0, do you know if there is a plugin for it?

Sciascia:
SVCD is like VCD but at a higher resolution and uses MPEG-2.

[Flying dutchman]

Hello Rodgreen,

I would be interested to know if you use Panasonic in "half pel" or "full pel" mode.

I find that "half pel" has the least artefacts, but makes the picture rather unsharp.
That's nice for low-bandwidth encoding (I've managed to get two hours on a cdrom!) but is hardly near-vhs quality. I've found that full-pel mode gives sharper image, very similar to LSX; but unfortunately with more artefacts than half-pel mode.

[Tinnes]

I use to use the Panasonic Plug-in (Premiere) but it usally gave me quite soft picture. I'll have to experiment a bit more with this full/half pel thing. Also it takes about a MILLION YEARS to encode anything on my poor old AMD K6-2 300 (About twice the time of any other encoder).

Anyway along the same lines I've been playing with the Xing plug-in (Again for Premiere) and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to change the Stream profile. The Advanced options button was greyed out and I couldn't find anything usefull in the help file. I'm probably missing something REALLY obvious. So if anyone has used it in the past/using it now could you please shed some light on the matter?

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[Grigory]

I am using Panasonic encoder for full size video. It makes the image smoother on TV screen when I use my Hollywood+ decoder card.
For full size video, the full pel mode mixes fields and makes the movie bad on TV.
Another finding: if I convert mpeg back to DV with VirtualDub Fast recompress mode, and look this movie on TV via DV camcorder analog output, the image looks sharper than original mpeg!
I suppose that mpeg decoders (and probably software decoders too) have some smoothing effect to reduce compression artefacts visibility.

I use IBPBP... GOP structure and datarate from 5 to 7 mbit/sec.

LSX may give me better sharpness, but always produces some distortions that is absent on Panasonic fiels.

BTW, both these encoders support dual processor PC. But, LSX plugin for Premiere works only on single CPU! This makes LSX encoding at least x2 longer than with Panasonic.

I also tried to apply some sharpening filter before compression. Typically, you can apply at first smoothing filter and then sharpening. This reduces video noise and then sharpens edges. The image looks sharp, but actually it has less details than unfiltered movie, but might look sharp.

Finally, I think it is better to stay with Panasonic encoder.
Another promising (and free) solution is TMPEG encoder http://www.ingjapan.ne.jp/hori/data/....11.19.95.zip.
Recently english language patch became available at http://www.jamsoft.com/tmpgenc/tmpg_en505b.exe. I am only in the beginning of testing this encoder, but the first results with two pass vbr encoding look very promising.

Grigory.

[DrMordrid]

I've been playing with the TMPEG encoder (aka: Tsunami) too and it's starting to look *real good*. I*'ll know more next week.

Dr. Mordrid