New Panasonic MPEG encoder.....

[Dr Mordrid]

Will do *both* MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. August 1st is the big day and the cost conversion (8800 Yen) is $74 USD.

http://www.networkserve.co.jp/mpeg/mpeg2-eng.htm

Dr. Mordrid

[IM_Riktar]

I will be interested in giving the trial version a whirl. TMPGEnc may have some competition. Considering the price difference between the 2, Panasonic had better be able to knock the socks off SVCD encoding quality.

I will also be VERY interested in what upgrade offers they will give to existing Mpeg1 (Like ME) owners. The site has stated the upgrade won't be free but there will be a "special privilege" to existing owners.

[dchip]

Thanks for the info Doc. How did you hear about this? I'm a registered Panasonic encoder owner but didn't get any word on this.

IM_Riktar, I too am interested in the priveleges on this. As for how good a job this new Panasonic encoder might do, I can only say that prior to TMPGEnc coming along, all I used was Panasonic for MPEG-1 and VCD and the encodes were very nice indeed. They certainly know how to make a good encoder. Had they done an MPEG-2 encoder way back when, I would have purchased it immediately. Now I mostly do DVD's and have several good methods of achieving that, so the priveleges will have to be very attractive to get me to bite. I'm thinking more like $29.95 . Guess we'll know in a few days.

[Dr Mordrid]

I have my sources

Where I found Panasonic particularly useful was when encoding things like beach scenes where you had the sun reflecting off waves & surf.

Many encoders would fall apart and pixelize heavily with this kind of source, but Panasonic stuck in there and gave great results just by slightly tweaking its motion settings.

Dr. Mordrid

[dchip]

Yep, I remember those abilities in that encoder. Albeit late, I am glad to see these guys entering the MPEG2 compression arena. Maybe they have been busy developing a knock-out encoder that we all will rush to buy.

[Dr Mordrid]

I think it's more like they underestimated the market for such products

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

Doc,

Try some of these beach scenes on MSP6.51a MPEG.now DVD template. I think you'll see it falls down here. Seems to require a threshold in overall scene brightness to trigger these "pulsating artifacts" others have mentioned.

Nature of my events is overall pretty dark video, which is why I probably haven't noticed these before. Would be a showstopper for anyone doing outdoor weddings!

I'm making an MSP6.5 Ligos encoded disk now, I'll see if the problem goes away or not. Later I'll try and compare Ligos vs MPEG.now on VCD and SVCD.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

It won't be much better with Ligos.

The advantage with Panasonic's encoder is that it has major settings for motion estimation and these help a lot.

MSPro's control panel doesn't have these settings, even with the Ligos Advanced panel (which didn't work anyhow).

MainConcepts encoder as found in Premiere 6.5 does have these settings, but I haven't got to trying them with beach footage yet. I expect it'll give quite good results.

One things for sure: the MPEG encoder competition is really heating up.

Dr. Mordrid

[Fred H]

The "old" Panasonic is very slow. Is the new faster? Is Panasonic better than TMPGEnc? 74$ vs. 0$ (TMPGEnc)?
And is the quality so bad like...
their site
I don't think my IE is wrong.

Fred H

[Sciascia]

A few years ago, if you were going to do any MPEG1 encoding Panasonic was the best. I am really curiouis as well to see what they have to offer, a lot of other companies have been developing their SW and have a leg up there. Unless they have some really good algorythms for ME that they can integrate, then I don't see them being a real contender. Too many others have a big stake in the market and are really integrated into a lot of SW as plugins or the encoding engine itself. I really was disappointed when I heard that they weren't going to develop an MPEG2 encoder because of the quality of their MPEG1 encoder and I think they missed their window of opportunity. A real shame they didn't see the big picture, they could have really been in the driver's seat.

CCE is still the frontrunner IMHO; speed and quality can't be touched, though TMPGEnc and the new MainConcept Ulead encoder are improvements. Cost wise, CCE is still ridiculous though.

[Dr Mordrid]

We'll see what happens with CCE's price after MC's standalone comes out. After TMPGEnc Plus came out it's price dumped by half.

With MC's supposedly hyper-fast encoder and Panasonics coming out they may want to re-evaluate their market position again

Dr. Mordrid

[KuroNeko]

Looks like competition isn't happening soon... they delayed release til 1 sept

Neko

[dchip]

What's the latest word on this encoder? I am ready for it. I hope it can do a reasonably fast 2-pass encode for VBR. That would be a nice advancement in encoding technology and would enable me to try 2-pass VBR. Right now, I don't even consider it because of the lengthy compression/encoding process.

[Dr Mordrid]

Got me. I'm getting itchy to try it myself. Maybe sometime this next week give the 1st was on a weekend.

Dr. Mordrid

[dchip]

Like you said before, Doc, I hope it, and the MC standalone, further shake up the market. A year or two back, I remember reading that CCE was like God's gift to MPEG video. Then came the original Panasonic Encoder and TMPGEnc and nothing has been quite the same since.

When it comes to MPEG-2, MC and TMPGEnc, of course, have a big head start on Panasonic, but, let's see what the boys and girls at Panasonic have been up to. If they've done their homework, they know what kind of market they are bringing their MPEG-2 into. It's a market where "the word," about quality or lack thereof, in new products, spreads like water on a dry sponge. Their MPEG-2 needs to be ready and right to have any chance.