I know of the Optibase but the board only uses Windows NT only and not Windows 2000..... price wise is also too much. Any Ideas >>
Any one knows of a Good Hardware based MPEG 1-2 Encoder
- Thread starter dvdman3
- Start date
Try the higher end Pinnacle cards (around $300) or Matrox cards also (also around $300), however be wary that the Matrox cards are hard to install. 
Check out Tom's Hardware since he did a few reviews on encoders. Enjoy.
(Pst...wrong forum btw. )
Check out Tom's Hardware since he did a few reviews on encoders.
Enjoy. (Pst...wrong forum btw.
)Depends on how much you want to pay.
The cheapest one that's okay quality would be the Sigma Designs card.
However the really good ones are thousands of dollars.
Check the specs, only a few will capture full-frame using VBR at low data rates in real-time.
If you need real-time MPEG encoding at SVCD or VCD bit rates its going to cost you.
The cheaper way to go is to capture at DVD bit rates using a cheaper capture card in combination with your computer's processing power. Then transcode down to the lower data rate with Cinemacraft CCE software encoder. It takes longer but quality will be good. The software encoder provides better results (VBR w/ multi-pass); unless you're willing to pay mucho money for real time processing. You can get fairly fast transcoding with these new 2GHz processors.
The cheapest one that's okay quality would be the Sigma Designs card.
However the really good ones are thousands of dollars.
Check the specs, only a few will capture full-frame using VBR at low data rates in real-time.
If you need real-time MPEG encoding at SVCD or VCD bit rates its going to cost you.
The cheaper way to go is to capture at DVD bit rates using a cheaper capture card in combination with your computer's processing power. Then transcode down to the lower data rate with Cinemacraft CCE software encoder. It takes longer but quality will be good. The software encoder provides better results (VBR w/ multi-pass); unless you're willing to pay mucho money for real time processing. You can get fairly fast transcoding with these new 2GHz processors.
ADS's "USB Instant DVD" is the best affordable capture box I've used. I highly recommend it.
And stay away from Dazzle products....not good.
And stay away from Dazzle products....not good.
I too would reccommend doing your mpeg encoding in software. Capture with a cheap card to a high-quality codec, like mjpeg, or high-bitrate mpeg2 (e.g. with the etymonix codec), or huffyuv, and then encode your mpeg with tmpgenc. Although it's slow, it'll produce some of the highest quality output you can get in mpeg (and it's free). The CinemaCraft encoder is very fast, but in my tests it isn't great quality-wise, and has issues with making VCDs and SVCDs. Also, it costs hundreds of dollars.
-=Marcus
-=Marcus
Go HARDWARE, not software!
Get the PCI Dazzle _DVC2_ (not one of the other cheaper ones). Does hardware based mpeg2 capture at up to a stunning 10MB/s - almost DVD quality. It can be tough to install, but once it's running, you'll be more limited by the quality of your source material than by what this baby can do. Should be able to pick one up for under 2 bills at eB@y.
Get the PCI Dazzle _DVC2_ (not one of the other cheaper ones). Does hardware based mpeg2 capture at up to a stunning 10MB/s - almost DVD quality. It can be tough to install, but once it's running, you'll be more limited by the quality of your source material than by what this baby can do. Should be able to pick one up for under 2 bills at eB@y.
MPEG 1 or 2 Encoding on the Fly seems nice.. other than waiting for 5-18 hours....... or CCE even can take a good bit of 3-4 hrs.
I love CCE...it rules! And marsh...I dunno about issues with creating vcd or svcd, but I have made some real quality ones with no probs
ajf3, just because it's large doesn't mean it's high quality. 10MB/s is much higher than DVD bitrate (which doesn't necessarily have to do with quality -- try compressing with cinepak). DVD bitrates tend to be around 6Mbit/s. As for VCDs,
352*240=84480 pixels in an ntsc vcd frame
84480 * 3 bytes per pixel = 253440 bytes per ntsc frame
253440 * 29.97 frames per second = 7595596.8 bytes per second = 7.244MB/s
So a 10MB/s MPEG2 is a larger file than the uncompressed original at VCD resolution. In any case, you're likely to be running into the limits of your hard drive's reliable minimum transfer speed around 3-6MB/sec. I'm guessing you meant 10Mbit maybe? That does sound more reasonable, though still in excess of DVD bitrates, and besides, I can't emphasize enough how silly it is to say that an mpeg encoder is good because it can make large files. That is the opposite of the point of compression.
As for DVD and SVCD encoding, obviously no hardware solution can do 2 pass vbr encoding, which is a huge advantage.
Also, the DVC2 is about $250, which is much more than the $0 for a top-quality software-based solution with, for example, huffyuv and tmpgenc. If you must have the speed of CCE, CCE Lite is $250, although it will only do cbr (another reason I don't like CCE much -- if you want vbr you need to spend $4000).
About CCE's vcd and svcd support Aquarius, try burning one with a burner that checks the stream for compliance (e.g. Nero). CCE mpeg streams are incompliant and as a result won't play in some players. You can, however, fix this by demultiplexing and remultiplexing them in tmpgenc, which won't take too long. Read what the people at VCDHelp think of CCE for vcd and svcd.
I'd say if you MUST have your mpegs right away when you're capturing them, go with a hardware solution, although if you have a cpu fast enough to compress on the fly, you might still want to go with software, unless you're willing to spend >$1000 for a hardware unit that's better than on-the-fly software encoders. If you aren't in a situation that demands that you have mpeg streams instantly, go with a software solution that will get you better quality for a lower price. That's the much hotter deal imo.
-=Marcus
352*240=84480 pixels in an ntsc vcd frame
84480 * 3 bytes per pixel = 253440 bytes per ntsc frame
253440 * 29.97 frames per second = 7595596.8 bytes per second = 7.244MB/s
So a 10MB/s MPEG2 is a larger file than the uncompressed original at VCD resolution. In any case, you're likely to be running into the limits of your hard drive's reliable minimum transfer speed around 3-6MB/sec. I'm guessing you meant 10Mbit maybe? That does sound more reasonable, though still in excess of DVD bitrates, and besides, I can't emphasize enough how silly it is to say that an mpeg encoder is good because it can make large files. That is the opposite of the point of compression.
As for DVD and SVCD encoding, obviously no hardware solution can do 2 pass vbr encoding, which is a huge advantage.
Also, the DVC2 is about $250, which is much more than the $0 for a top-quality software-based solution with, for example, huffyuv and tmpgenc. If you must have the speed of CCE, CCE Lite is $250, although it will only do cbr (another reason I don't like CCE much -- if you want vbr you need to spend $4000).
About CCE's vcd and svcd support Aquarius, try burning one with a burner that checks the stream for compliance (e.g. Nero). CCE mpeg streams are incompliant and as a result won't play in some players. You can, however, fix this by demultiplexing and remultiplexing them in tmpgenc, which won't take too long. Read what the people at VCDHelp think of CCE for vcd and svcd.
I'd say if you MUST have your mpegs right away when you're capturing them, go with a hardware solution, although if you have a cpu fast enough to compress on the fly, you might still want to go with software, unless you're willing to spend >$1000 for a hardware unit that's better than on-the-fly software encoders. If you aren't in a situation that demands that you have mpeg streams instantly, go with a software solution that will get you better quality for a lower price. That's the much hotter deal imo.
-=Marcus
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