Video Encoding

[PixelJockey]

Hey guys and gals,

Just wondering what your favourite app is for video encoding (avi, mov, wmv, etc). I haven't done much video work in the past but have received more requests lately. I was just using Max's video post to generate the avi or mov, but I don't really care for the output quality/compression.

I was thinking about Cleaner by Discreet for video encoding. I don't have anything like Combustion, After Effects or Premier either. Any options would be greatly apprecitated. Thanks

[cpnichols]

If you are just thinking about encoding Cleaner is great... in fact, it is better then any other one I have tried. Much better then doing it through Premier, AE, etc...

[percydaman]

haha would like to get cleaner, but my boss used it way back when and is convinced its overly complicated and no good. We use premiere. haha

[Syclone1]

Using Vegas 5 here, if your looking for something quick and dirty you could try Quicktime Pro and for $29.99us its quite cheep, above that you could look in to Vegas Movie Studio ( http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...ct.asp?PID=932 ) for the low low price of $99 which is similar to Vegas except I believe you can only have 2 video and 3 audio tracks where as Vegas is unlimited.

I know some in here will scoff at Vegas but I tried Premiere and Vegas in real world tests a couple years ago and liked Vegas way better (actually started with the cheeper editor and upgraded after) due to not having to wait for a preview like in Premiere and it was all around easier and faster to use and with Vegas 5 there is now network rendering

-dave

[cpnichols]

I love Vegas... I think it is supperior to Premiere. Vegas is now owned by Sony I think... it is much better in a lot of ways to Premiere.

What Premiere can do at the same time is connect with Cleaner. Meaning you can publish your project and have Cleaner do the encodeing. Why is Cleaner better at encoding? Since it is much better at getting the keyframes in, it also has filter to help optimize compression/quality, it can help you set your quality based on size, etc... It is goal oriented. I want a quicktime for the web, make is sorensen, and I want to datarate to be 300kb/sec. I want a Mpeg2 for DVD with a 7Mb/sec data rate. etc....

[PixelJockey]

Has anyone tried Squeeze 4 by Sorenson?

http://www.sorenson.com/

CGNetworks gave it a very favorable review: http://www.cgnetworks.com/story.php?story_id=2583

[Miguel]

Hello everybody,

can anyone help me with this, please??

I am having some problems with a video sequence

The settings:
rendered @ 30 fps
saved each frame as .tga
square pixels
the video is to be shown in ntsc

Now there is some flickering in the edges that are perpendicular to the direction of the camera, some kind of ghosting. A guy who knows more than me of tv and video says that the reason is that the rendering must have fields, do you know how to fix the problem. Don't want to render the whole sequence again!

Thanks

P.D: I will post later a small part of the video were the problem is more evident

[ezrhythm]

compressing to MPEG and DVD? TmpgEnc... thats the only quality and fast encoder ever. Cleaner is bad... well, MPEGwise... the rest is fine i suppose.

[rhino]

I use AE for most things, Alpary Lossless or Huffy UV.
I highly recommend this little app for multi format conversion http://www.winavi.com/video-converter.htm
Does everything, fast. You can also batch encode, it does pretty much every codec on your system Divx, Xvid, realmedia, all formats to DVD VCD SVCD, (ISO, Video, Vob) inserts automatic chapters, you can specify disk size it will compress to fit, file splitting.....blah blah blah and it will encode a full movie eg Divx to DVD in around 40 minutes on a single P4 2.4. Cost $30 USD, $200 for a business.

[Da_elf]

i too swear by tmpgenc. its lovely. just save the settings you like and voila. simple as that.

[mike_kennedy]

migel,
need more info to give a proper answer
PAL or NTSC
render size,
NTSC can be either 720 X 480
or
720 X 486 (D1 vs DV)
Not sure about PAL, never render too PAL

There are a number of things to think of when render to video.
1: You need to know the requirements of the video system.
For a DPS Velocity for instance (What I use at work)
NSTC D1 (720 X 486)
Fields (Lower)
Also, you might be seeing a bleeding effect, turn video color checking on In Max when you render to avoid, make sure the preference settings is set to luminance or even better, saturation, never leave this on the defualt black.

A bit of a rushed primer, but I am at work....

[Miguel]

Mike,

Thanks for your answer. It seems like the fields are not the problem, nor is the video color check option. Loooks like the camera/target movement are too fast, I have done everythin with no result. Will post as soon as I get the answer

Miguel

[anders]

Has anyone tried Squeeze 4 by Sorenson?

http://www.sorenson.com/

CGNetworks gave it a very favorable review: http://www.cgnetworks.com/story.php?story_id=2583

We use it at work .. and it's THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPEND TO ONLINE VIDEO !!

no more messing with stupid html code to get media player 6 7 and 9 to play nice with your .wmv's ...

I can't recomend this enough, if you need to put your videos on a web page!

Even if you need to make cd's you can just make a flash .exe file that you can right click to play in full screen! with NO player installed

[mike.edel]

Video codec shoot-out:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/codecs-104-1.htm
Sorenson is not in there since the test is avi only
don't get fooled by the strange url - the site is quite known for their good comparisons