Hey all, ok first off just let me say that you are slowly converting me over to the tmpeg from the Panasonic, but i'll mention more later. HERE IS why Tmpeg can suck it. the stupid thing is taking 9hrs to encode a 30min file (running 550mhz with intel pent 3), but thats not a problem. The problem is that less then an hour left, we had a small thunder storm, my electricity flickered for a millisecond (but enough to shut off my pc). And when i finally checked it later, I lost the entire file!!! It was their but had 0 bytes. At least with panasonic when it got interupted what it encoded was what you had. So if their is a storm (minor enough to leave some things on, well also it was at 4am so i was already in a sleeping daze) and you already spent quite a number of hours encoding, abort your encode(which it will then save what it did) and just pick it up from that spot later on, otherwise you will waste so many hours for nothing.

Ok, onto other things. I ran in a cartoon from a 16 or 17 year old Beta tape. Playing more so with the noise filter only, it acrually made the quality of the image LOOK BETTER then my original file i ran in!!! I couldnt beleive it.The noise filter for this program is incredible!! However, that 22min file only took 7hrs to encode. Does anyone else out there get these horrendous encoding times as well? Besides turning down the filter is their anyway to speed this thing up? I do not know if i can take 7-9hr encodes for 22-30min files.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), September 02, 2000

Answers

I too am getting long encoding times with Tmpeg on a P3/450 96mb ram. The quality of the output file for a vcd is questionable though.

-- John (jellison@tx.freei.net), September 02, 2000.

I mostly use DV-coded AVI type 2 which means, for a start, the files can only get 18mins long max (4GB) after rendering from MSPro6 timeline. I get a number of these files and batch encode them with TMPGenc. Each 18min such file consumes 8hrs30mins to encode with no filter on (they look great to begin with) on a PIII600, 128MB machine but I can't complain because the MPEG-1 (VCD template, super-high- quality, default values on all others) quality is really great: color sat just like the original and blockiness so minimal you have to pause and play frame-by-frame to tell where they are. The long encoding times get to you when you need the MPEGs ASAP; I store the AVIs and when I have ten of them or so I do the batch encode and go away and return to the PC a few days later. Of course, you do understand, this is an ideal case where no lightning storms/power failures are forthcoming. All other things being equal maybe if you had a >1GHzPIII then THAT would really cut down the encoding times...:)

-- MTekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), September 02, 2000.

Well, I usually run TMPG with VCD Template with Super-High Quality, Optional Sub-pel, and macro-block softenting and it only takes me about 3 hours to encode a 30 minute file.

The diffrence between u and me though is I have TWO PII 450s & 128m ram.

If you're gonna be doing a lot of encoding, it might be worth it to get a dual capable mother board and another processor. It would be only about ~400 for both & a good new case. Of course you'd have to change to WinNT or Win2k to use the other processor.

-- FunOne (FunOne@tyler.net), September 02, 2000.

Hey FUNONE i think also another reason for the shorter time is that you do not use a noise filter. i ran some test with this and at one point shut it off, with it off my 30min clip would take between 2-3 hrs, with it on (depending set to what) it would take 6-9hrs (yikes), but that filter works so damn good. I do use the macro block soften as well as a few other things. thanks

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), September 02, 2000.

Ditch the noise reduction in tmpeg it really doesn't do a good job.

Use vdub and frame server the results to tmpeg. Using this methos I generally encode 45 minutes of video to 480x480 mpeg2 with filtering ( noise reduction, and picture cleaning ) in 7 hrs on a PIII770 ( 700@110 ).

The filters I generally use are

temporal cleaner ( 8,2,30) 2d cleaner ( 1,5,interlaced)

Hope that helps. I originally tried the tmpeg noise reduction ( really just a 2d cleaning ) and it takes forever. I also do NOT use the super high quality option, as it tripples my encoding time with little visible diffrence.

Cheers,

-- eric (eric@nospam.snowmoon.com), September 02, 2000.

Hey Eric, thanks for the info, but if i showed you a before (i can take a jpeg of it) and after with the noise filter you would agree it does one hell of a job. Also keep in mind im doing these off of watched 17 year old Beta video tapes. Tapes degrade after a long time and that nosie filter alomst makes it as if i have just taped it the other day. Movies are a little different, but as far as this cartoon went, it is great. i did try the temporal cleaner, but it did not seem to do much of a difference, but hey ill try anything again. thanks

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), September 04, 2000.