Procoder has changed my life!

lol...no not really, but I've had it for a few weeks now and overall I'm very impressed. Its allowed me to do things that I'd hoped TMPGEnc would let me do, but just plain wouldn't deliver quality-wise.

Those with DVCII know that it is an outstanding value at creating MPEG2, but generally makes a pigs-breakfast of MPEG1...for which its chip was not designed. Procoder helps change that. I elaborate for each encode type below.

First of all, I've been using Procoder to encode source at 8-10MB's per second. DVCII people should be aware that using MovieStar above 8MB can result in dropped frames. Fortunately Tateu's "Bugsy" program can set the mux to a higher rate to eliminate any problem. I though I was experiencing the issue while testing on some commercial source...something I usually DON'T encode. I was getting minor but reproduceable skipped frames. At first I suspected Procoder, but discovered the glitch in my source! I'd never seen it before! I subsequently discovered that this was limited to capturing copyrighted material, and I believe its a minor copyprotection side effect...thats a guess if you like. However, I've not been able to reproduce the problem encoding from TV or amateur sources.

Anyway, once it is encoded at mombo-bitrates its ready for Procoder.

DVD: Ordinarily DVCII produces such sweet MPEG2 that there's little reason to reencode. However If your production is more than 90 minutes then your final source will need to be under 6500, and at 120 minutes it'll need to be below 5000. For the best quality then, you can encode at 8-10MB per sec, and then do a single or 2pass VBR with Procoder. Set the average/max bitrates, light the blue touch paper and retire...to bed actually, because if you're using 2pass Procoder will take some time, but still less than TMPGEnc, and with a much better result. I've not used 2 pass much at the DVD level because I usually don't have much issue with fitting higher bit encodes, but it works very well indeed.
SVCD and VCD: I've resurrected these two formats because although DVDR's are much cheaper, I use the highest quality, and that means they're still roughly 8x the cost of a cheap CDR. Also, I tend to record TV not movies (which is why I had so little experience with encoding them as shown above). First of all movies are down the street at Blockbuster, whereas many TV shows are gone forever. When they do come back they're chopped up for additional commercial time, and with cheasy quality. So that is that.

Last night I encoded Buffy at 8MB trimmed with Womble (Rich would be proud), and set it for two pass encode at 2050. Then hey!...to bed. The next morning I burned the 650MB file to cd, and it played like a DVD...verrrry sweeet. With 2pass, I can now put 60 minutes of excellent quality SVCD video onto a CDR...game over!

Procoder also makes very nice MPEG1 from MPEG2 source...not quite as good as SVCD using 2pass, because I found it indistinguishable from DVD, but very watchable...and indeed better than any MPEG1 I've ever produced before. The bitrate and format rather limit what I can do here, but presumably I can get 82 minutes as usual on VCD when I need an odd length.

There, that's it. Procoder has a few minor bugs, and there are some key presets missing, as well as some advanced settings that don't seem to be available when I want them. Some of that appears to be in a fix coming out by end of month.

Pal to NTSC: This is a very difficult encode, but Procoder makes it look easy. I've documented this elsewhere, but it really is good. Interestingly, the glitch I had was from trying to take commercial Pal to NTSC...I found a solution by taking an NTSC tape and outputting as Pal from my VCR...then the encode has no glitch! Of course you need a world std VCR to do that, but it does work...it also works in reverse from Pal source.

All in all, if you need the flexability to reencode cleanly and clearly, Procoder is worth the dear price they charge.

cheers,
mark

Good message Mark, but I disagree a little on the VCD capabilities of the DVC II. I have read lots of gripes about its ability to make VCDs, but for some of us, it works very well. If you want, drop me an email and I'll
see about sending you a sample clip from a VCD I made with it from a VHS tape source. I thought it turned out to be pretty good at VCD making, although I rarely use it for that. I have read from other guys who said it worked fine for making VCDs and I don't know what the deal is. Maybe it works better on some PCs than others, maybe some people are hard to please, I don't know. Quality is very subjective, but I'm hard to please and I find that the DVC II works very well for me if I want to make VCDs.

I have two different systems including a 2.2ghz P4 with 512megs ram, a 533mhz bus, and a P3 1ghz. Both are Dells.

I don't know what your other experiences in producing VCD's are, but I used to make them with a crappy little ATI TV card. It made clearer mpeg1 that I get on my DVCII, although I grant you that the DVCII product is watchable.

Using an MPEG2 encode and then reencoding with Procoder I can make MPEG1 that is much cleaner, and on my fast machine Procoder can do the job in very nearly real-time despite its reputation for slowness. In any case, VCD is something I don't and won't need often.

cheers,
mark