Best Transcoding software for blu-ray legal files

[planetweckesser]

I had high hopes for Procoder 3 - what with "grid encoding" and all and since I have a dual core, dual xeon 3.0 machine I thought it would be screaming fast - not so!! - the grid encoding is essentially the "HDV speed encoder" that they have had for years but only produces .m2t or .m2p. I have been encoding a 69 minute project - 2pass VBR [30000,24000,20000] set at "highest quality" output to elementary stream - .m2v - almost 9 hours and at "mastering quality" almost 10 hours and task manager shows performace between 25-50%. Since I have nearly 20 hours of footage (.m2t that needs to be encoded to .m2v) from last 2 1/2years this is quite disappointing.

 

On the other hand, I used a demo version of Sorenson Squeeze v. 4.5 set with the same parameters as above and the exact same project came through in less that fours hours and performace under task managers shows 70 to 90 % cpu usage. I also have a dual xeon 3.4 workstation and the same project was completed in about 5 hours 30 minutes.

 

Does anyone have an opinion about quality differences between these two programs (Sorenson Squeeze vs. Procoder 3 [or Procoder 2 for that matter since Procoder 3 has only been available for 2 days]. I am sure the quality is great from both since they are supposed to be high-end encoding solutions but "time management" certainly seems to skew things toward Sorenson.

 

Shuerdm - have you worked with Procoder and Sorenson - any opinions?

[shueardm]

This is like you say (dissapointing) if it's true. I hope that you have simply overlooked something?

 

I dont have Squueze but if what you say is true then I will be getting it- I had high hopes for dramatically reduced render times.

 

I get my copy of ProCoder 3 tomorrow.

[planetweckesser]

This is like you say (dissapointing) if it's true. I hope that you have simply overlooked something?

 

I dont have Squueze but if what you say is true then I will be getting it- I had high hopes for dramatically reduced render times.

 

I get my copy of ProCoder 3 tomorrow.

 

And if that isn't enough - I have tried twice now and can't find the presets that will allow DVDit Pro HD to add assests without doing a full reencode - never had this problem with procoder express and I followed the directions to the letter concerning the procoder presets as posted on this forum.

 

On another thought - I am setting up another test with sorenson squeeze (it was accepted in DVDit Pro HD without reencoding but at the last step when "adding video" it took 2-3 minutes as opposed to the usual couple of seconds. I am sort of stumped in the GOP structure section of squeeze - they don't mention anything about closed gop or use strict gop bitrate control but they have choices for I frams (range from 18,15,12,6,1) and then P frames (choice of 2,3,5). Then then have an "auto GOP" button with choices of none,fast or VCSD. Any suggestions in this area - or do you have links to any of the blu-ray white papers dealing with GOP specs. I am totally in the dark here.