MPEG1 vs MPEG2

[jurassicpc]

I still can't believe you held onto your P2 so long Jurassicpc, I can see where you would be planning encoding as an overnight o
ordeal . You are so right Xayd.

I'm currently encoding Stephen King's 'Golden Years' from DVD. The status bar shows 14 hrs elapsed, 7 hrs to go.

I was going to try encoding an .ifo, that I knew took 9 hours for MPEG1, into MPEG2 format to see if there were advantages for me. Unfortunately when I started the process, I was given an encoding time of 25 hrs. I can't wait until I can afford a new system.

In the meantime, are there any advantages to MEPG2 when I'm recording to CD-Rs? I'd hate to spend the time if there's no real benefit for me. All input greatly appreciated.

[Xayd]

Well your quality is always gonna be better with MPEG2 since you can use a variable bitrate. Higher for the high detail scenes, lower in the low detail scenes to compensate, etc.

Hehe, 25 hours? That would be hell. I encode MPEG2 with my P4 at slightly faster than real time with CCE .

BTW, the program you're using, does it simply downsample the original or does it completely re-encode the movie frame by frame?

If it's downsampling, that's always gonna take longer since it'll attempt to preserve the original GOP structures. Try using TMPGENC with the VFAPI plugin (can download from Doom9.org, it's freeware) to frameserve instead of downsampling. It creates a quasi=uncompressed avi out of a TMPGENC project file, which then feeds the encoder frame by frame as it encodes. The VFAPI plugin reads the original and takes "chunks" of frames at a time to send over to the MPEG encoder. It's much faster and your quality will be better as well.

[jurassicpc]

I believe the software does a frame by frame. When I specify an output file (MPEG), an .avi file is created with the same name. At end of encoding, I get a count of number of frames done, and the .avi file no longer exists.

Just to be sure, MPEG2 can be burned to CD-Rs and work?

Thanks.

[Xayd]

SVCDs are MPEG2, VCDs are MPEG1, so yes.

It sounds like the software you're using is doing it via frameserving rather than downsampling, I guess that's just Pentium 2 speed :\.

[jurassicpc]

More like jurassic pc speed LOL. Thanks for help. See you in forum(s).