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Activity Forums Compression Techniques digigami MegaPEG.X

  • digigami MegaPEG.X

    Posted by Keith Hill on October 16, 2005 at 4:17 pm

    Has anyone used this MPEG video compression tool?

    I’ve read wonderful things about this application but is there anyone here that has used it?

    Keith Hill
    https://www.LightedPath.biz
    Dallas, TX
    Final Cut Pro 5.0.2, Combustion (MAC-v3.0.4), Cinema 4D, DVD StudioPro 4 (v 3.0.2); MAC G5 (v10.4.2-Tiger) 2Ghz, 1.5 RAM

    Jrmcgee replied 19 years, 1 month ago 6 Members · 11 Replies
  • 11 Replies
  • Ben Waggoner

    October 21, 2005 at 4:55 pm

    The digigami codec itself was pretty weak (among other things, no bitrate limited 2-pass VBR mode!), but their analysis tool is very cool.

    Best MPEG-2 for DVD on Mac today is Compressor 2.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Matthew Keane

    October 21, 2005 at 6:58 pm

    > Best MPEG-2 for DVD on Mac today is Compressor 2.

    Looks like today is ‘follow-up ben’s posts’ day for me… Last one, I promise!

    MPEG2 encoding in compressor 1 was pretty disappointing, but seems much better in compressor 2. I’m just curious as to how you’d rate its output against a PC based solution like Procoder. I’m working in FCP, so a mac workflow is simpler, but if a PC encoder offered better quality I’d shift to that.

    Matthew

  • Ben Waggoner

    October 21, 2005 at 7:05 pm

    Compressor 2’s MPEG-1 is too limited for me. I do pretty much all my non-DVD mission critical MPEG-1/2 in ProCoder/Carbon.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Matthew London

    November 2, 2005 at 11:43 pm

    Ben,

    You say Compressor 2 is the best MPEG-2 encoder on the Mac. I’m curious if you have done comparisons with BitVice and MegaPEG.
    I need to encode PAL material with alot of motion. Do you know if Compressor still stands up to alot of movement in the frame?

    Thanks…

  • Ben Waggoner

    November 2, 2005 at 11:48 pm

    Compressor 2 is definitely better than both. MegaPEG is especially weak – it doesn’t even have a proper 2-pass mode. BitVice isn’t bad, but can’t hold up to high motion like Compressor 2, and is a lot slower to boot.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Matthew London

    November 2, 2005 at 11:52 pm

    wow, that was quick….

    OK, I’ll give it a try. I have it on a test Tiger partition, but I’m not using 10.4.x as my main system yet, due to being in the middle of a giant project.

    Do you happen to know if DVDSP/Compressor2 are happy with 10.3.9 and QT 6.5.2 ? I’d rather not upgrade to QT 7.x yet.

  • Matthew London

    November 2, 2005 at 11:55 pm

    off topic, but I just looked on Amazon to read about your Compression book. I see it is from August of 2002. Is there a new version coming out? How “outdated” is it ?

    thank you….

  • Ben Waggoner

    November 3, 2005 at 12:05 am

    Compressor 2 works on 10.3.9, but requires QT7.

    But 10.4 and QT7 both rock! You’ll be happy when you upgrade.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Ben Waggoner

    November 3, 2005 at 12:06 am

    Soon?

    Well, I have a contract for it, but my third child is two months old, so the deadlines have been whizzing by. I really, really hope to have an update in stores sometime in 2006, but it won’t be until well in the year.

    The first half of the book is quite evergreen – fundamentals about how you process video and audio for optimum compression. The second half is a little out of date in places, since it doesn’t cover the latest and greatest codecs. But I imagine it still would be a useful read.

    My Book: https://www.benwaggoner.com/books.htm
    Squeeze and ProCoder tutorials: https://www.classondemand.net/benwaggoner/
    Compression Class at Stanford: https://www.digitalmediaacademy.org/compression.html

  • Gen Kiyooka

    November 4, 2005 at 5:59 pm

    Even though our codec is ‘weak’ Ben still has a bit of trouble getting his HD MPEG-4 movie trailers down into the bitrates our single pass VBR MPEG-1 encoder is producing 😉

    Nevertheless, I think it is great that Compressor is tops for SD MPEG-2 DVD on the Mac. That’s the way it should be. We’re more interested in having MegaPEG be the encoder that people use when no other tool can get the job done. I’m working with a TV station right now that is using bitrates that can afford a true constant quality encode – but requires CBR. Try that with other encoders.

    I also think as MPEG-2 HD sources become more popular that people with an eye for quality will be turning to our built-in MPEG-2 .M2V reader which uses the high-quality videophile decoding pipeline we developed for MPressionist. Especially folks who are shooting features and documentaries on HDV.

    As far as I’m concerned, in the MPEG-2 universe, we are still very early in the game.

    Gen Kiyooka
    Digigami
    http://www.digigami.com/megapeg/

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