Re: CyberLink PowerDirector 7 Deluxe "smart encoding"?

Smarty wrote:
"jmc" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:768e5$49f32fa6$d1fb96f1$2229@xxxxxxxxxx
Smarty wrote:

SNIP

Nero 1.25 meg file. PD 1.9 meg file
(source- a 6 second 8Mbs video clip. 6.8 megs)

Once I got the file sizes about the same (1.4 average/1.4 max) 1.3 meg file)
PD suffered badly.

Hope I am just doing something wrong.
Because I want this program to work out as it is does support ATI GPUs!
(not in the trial version, you have to buy the full version and patch it).

Thoughts Welcome!
jmc



jmc,

I have never used either of these programs (Nero or PD7) to transcode from mpeg2 to AVC/h.264, but it isn't surprising that one does better than the other for a given bitrate. They use different codecs from different companies, and it is entirely predictable that the results will vary.

Even if the same codec from the same company are used in two different AVC/h.264 encoders (such as Vegas 8 Pro versus Pegasys TMPG Express 4, both of which use the Mainconcept H.264 encoder), the results still vary quite a bit in my own experience.

Further..., one implementation such as Vegas does not necessarily "...always..." do better with Mainconcept than Pegasys since the lower bitrate performance in one version may look better but the higher bitrate encodings may look worse.

The bottom line result is that a particular encoder and software combination has its own characteristics which the skilled compressionist will learn and understand, thereby getting the best performance achievable.

Regarding your most recent experiment / comparison of Power Director 7 Ultimate versus Nero, I am trying to better understand what your goals and intentions are, having gone back and read your original post.

It was originally stated that you were looking to take edited DVD content and preserve quality with the use of 'smart rendering', a feature both of these two software programs provide.

Your more recent post seems to indicate an interest in converting these DVD clips to AVC/h.264, a process which is inherently subject to very noticeable losses due to transcoding, greatly worsened by doing the type of bitrate choices you have indicated. In particular, your 8 Mbps 6.8 megabyte source file you have used will NEVER survive a reduction you have chosen to 1.25 or 1.9 megabyte size without very obvious quality loss. Although h.264 is more efficient, you still cannot throw away over 80% of the original content and expect the reduced file to be anywhere close to the original content (unless the original file was severely oversampled to begin with).

Pleased clarify what you hope to accomplish and I will be glad to offer further assistance.

Smarty

Wow, looks like quite a search to find what suits a person's individual
preferences!

One encoder does better at high bit rate, the other may do better at low-Ouch.

Most of my effort is clipping the unwanted segments out and splicing the pieces
back together without loss of quality. Sounds like the PowerDirector smart
rendering will take care of that.

Oh yes, the "water marking" of the Trial images does mean
NO smart rendering is possible.

The next step I'm now researching is the H264 conversion.
The 8Mbs video clip is my test piece I can compress that a
good bit more then 1/5 and it still looks acceptable to me.

Now my vision is not the best (even if I was 20 again)
and as I understand it the video player may "adjust" the video.

Also my 37" flat screen TV may also be making changes
as the video looks better on my 1080P 37" then it does on
my 24" 1900x1200 computer monitor!

The material I am really working with is my TV shows at 5 Mbs. I do compress
them down to 1/5 with nero H264 compression (don't laugh) and they work for me.
Now I agree 1/5 is horrible using PD. :(

So I may have to go with Ken Maltby's system and use separate programs for
each step.
But I have run into a lot of problems with installing several video processing
programs in one system. You're lucky if they get along!
I believe one of the programs I looked at said that if you were having
problems to REMOVE all other installed video editing programs.

I have had to (in the past) have a multiboot system set up in order to use
different programs.
I really, really don't want to do that again. Which is why I was trying to find
an "all in one" program to use.

Maybe I'll get lucky and Nero and something that alters
brightness/color/sharpness etc with get along.

I may give PowerDirector (only $56 at Amazon.com) a chance to work along side Nero
and still use Nero for H264.

Tho I really hope to find a good H264 encoder that uses the ATI GPU !

Elecard that Ken Maltby suggested does very good work.
Just hope I can find a program not quite so pricey-(for consumer use).

Sill a lot of programs to test!

Thank goodness for disk image software.
Getting back to a clean start take 5 minutes!

Thanks,
jmc







































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