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Posted by Smarty on 02/19/07 18:02
For whatever it's worth, I've been comparing real-time encoded MPEG2 / DVDs
from my Hauppauge PVR-150's, my Panasonic DMR-E30 set-top DVD recorder, and
numerous (extremely time consuming) MPEG2 software encoders for quite a
while, and have made many samples for comparisons. With a great deal of
scrutiny, my wife and son (whose eyes are a lot better than mine) both
occasionally see a difference between hardware encoding and software
encoding, even though I have spent prolonged encoding times with Apple's
Compressor / Final Cut Pro HD, Mainconcepts MPEG Encoder, Cinema Craft,
TMPGE, and Ligos in their "best" configurations with manually tweaked
parameters. The differences are slight, and demand extremely good source
material to reveal in the first place, to say nothing of good playback /
display hardware.
I think the hardware encoders are way less efficient, and certainly will not
provide the ultimate storage / compression benefits of 2-pass VBR, but if
space is not the principal issue, then image quality if really not terribly
jeopardized by using the hardware approach. And the time savings are huge.
Smarty
"Ken Maltby" <kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:SsKdnbgYEL-h80XYnZ2dnUVZ_uOmnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
> <nospam@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:_XVBh.76918$qO4.5069@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
>> "PTravel" <ptravel@travelersvideo.com> wrote in message
>> news:53qcdeF1sqq4vU1@mid.individual.net...
>>> "Gene" <genes@wildblue.net> wrote in message
>>> news:W7qBh.36$EP6.44076@news.sisna.com...
>>> > Looks like plugging a camcorder into a
>>> > DVR is a MUCH faster, and from what I have seen, gives as good as, if
>>> > not
>>> > better
>>> > quality than DVD-Rs generated from a PC program.
>>>
>>> Then I'm sure you'll be happy doing it that way. First of all, you're
>>> wrong -- a DVR will not produce as good a DVD as _properly_ transcoded
>>> and
>>> authored DVD produced on a computer.
>>
>> That's more than a bit overstated. It depends on the quality
>> of your source material, and of the codec used on the capture
>> device. E.g. I've done side-by-side comparisons of DVD
>> and broadcast cable TV material captured direct to MPEG
>> with a stock Hauppauge PVR-150, and capturing to AVI
>> (via Dscaler) then transcoding to MPEG. I've rarely been
>> able to duplicate the quality of direct captures. So what's
>> the point of spending hours and days transcoding? It's
>> not a matter of "good enough"; the direct captures have
>> been AS GOOD AS manual transcoding in every case.
>>
>
> PT will never get the point. Do a Google "Groups"search
> with: PTravel "Ken Maltby", and see what you get.
>
> For PT all video must be treated as if it is the DV-25 from
> his 3CCD camcorder.
>
> Luck;
> Ken
>
>
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