Transcoders.

[Anhar_Miah]

Ok well, i'm not sure if this topic has been covered, i've looked around and haven't yet seen it in this forum so, i think i'll ask it.

When you have edited your masterpiece what is the best encoder you can use to output to DVD (PAL) progressive?

I have a lot of experience with TMPgenc and although i know its quality is extremly good (along with its flexibility) how ever it is veeery slow, i've tried Cinema Craft Encoder 2.XX SP (trial) and its only slighlty better than Tmpgenc but doesn't have half the functions as the TMPgenc...

Any way what do the 'proffesionals' use like in Hollywood? and would i have to sell my kidney to get one? (i.e how much)

Or can anyone recommend a good encoder, i dont want to see *any* macro blocks or other type of mpeg compression, i mean take a look at a hollywood movie (DVD) you would be hard pushed to find compression artifacts, they are almost non-existent

thanks for your help,

if anyone has any personal experiance i would love to hear your trails and tribulations about this matter!  

 

[Flintstone]

Re: Transcoders.

If you want speed, then you need a realtime encoder board. A very versatile board made by Digital-Rapids, the DRC-500 with MPEG out, is about $1400CDN. It also allows you to encode Quicktime, Windows Media, MPEG4, Real, etc...

What Hollywood may use are specialized cards such as the SD-1000 and the SD-2000 from Sonic Solutions. Coupled with Producer or Scenarist for Authoring DVDs, it is probably the best out there. But those cards (and authoring software) are in the many thousands of dollars.

The cheapest solution is probably from Canopus. There are other options, and a quick search on google will reveal quite a few. But unless you have really fast computer, almost all software encoders will always be slow. And if they are fast, then what is the cost on quality?

 

[Anhar_Miah]

Re: Transcoders.

thats just the problem, i want speed AND quality he he   maybe i'm asking too much (i know there is always a trade off) Still AMD has brought out the its 64bit processor with hyper threading soo..

i'll try googling for them cards you mentioned, hey maybe they might be some second hand sd-1000  ;D

sorry i almost forgot to ask, what kinda results have you obtained from transcoding from dv to DVD, was it good/bad/ excellent what combinations did you use?