What do use to encode?
 

What do you guys use to encode to DVD? thx

Sony DVD Architect 5

Compressor, or Quicktime encoder on Mac

Same here.

Compressor here as well.

That's 4 for Compressor. Takes anywhere from 2-6 hours depending on length.

When you say encode do you mean to prepare the DVD menus and build the VOB files or just to render your timeline? We render directly into a DVD compatible stream from Vegas.

Cinemacraft encoder (CCE), for all my MPEG2 encodes...

I'm averaging 3.8x realspeed from DV sources...

Grass valley Procoder 3

Peter, how do yo like CCE?

I was looking at the plug in that will work in Compressor.

Earlier in the year I was curious about it and was looking for anyone with some exeperiece in it to give some feedback on it.

But, being that there's no trial version of the software, and $750 is quite a bit to drop on it I never pursued it any further.

What encoder do you guys recommaned for PC based system? thx

Michael....

I believe the CCE has a Basic version for $85...
Some features might be disabled. It's a speed demon.

The GUI isn't anything fancy, and you need to read the PDF, but once you get beyond the esthetics, and grasp the speed and performance, you'll be amazed...

Again, it's not as robust as compressor, but for DVD encoding, it's definately a Formula car..

ffmpeg: Works like a charm for both MPG (DVD) and HD
With "-threads 4" on a Quad Core, I am encoding in less than 2 hours,
what used to take more than 10 hours with CCE or TMPGEnc (MPG only)

HCenc is mentioned as being good too.

So Peter I take it that you have CCE basic?

I was curious how the image quality is for final output.
I have read that the CCE plugin for Compressor produces some ratehr stunning results.

What I am interested in is converting of HD QT render files from FCP to 16:9 SD files for DVD. Speed is important but what's most important to me is quality of the render.

As some problems arise form time to time with my HD down converts in Compressor to SD files. Also I have read that the CCE encoder is Hollywood studio quality, so the overall compression for final output is negligible and stunning.

No, i don't have Basic...

Yes, results are stunning, but everything is subjective...
Some comments from serious encoders (back in the day) was that it tended to "Soften up" the image..But playback on an interlaced TV can't compare to complaints coming from watching interlaced material on a progressive monitor..It's just not a fair comparison.

I get a multipass encode, and it allows me to use up every bit of bitrate for the alloted amount..Especially important for scene changes..
And since 90% of my footage is interlaced, so i can imagine that progressive footage is stunning..
You can even get down to scene detection, and correct localized bitrates..Very powerful under the hood.

Your biggest hurdle would not be with CCE, but rather, how it gets served. My older version of CCE doesn't resize, crop, rotate, color correct etc...It expects a legal frame to get served.
The encoder will be at the mercy of the resizing alogorithm that's being pumped through her engines..