KDVD: CCE or HC - which is best quality?
 

Hi all,

I've been wondering for some time, what encoders everyone is using.
In the past, CCE was IMO the best encoder for higher rates on MPEG2.

With all the progress HC Encoder has made, I think CCE has a real good competitor.

What do you guys prefer, CCE or HC? Which of these encoders gives the best result in your eyes?

I use HC for almost all my DVD. It's only with DVD-RB that I use CCE, just because I prefer to use "RB-opt" for the prediction, and it does not support HC.

Have you noticed any difference between CCE/HC?

I'm using CCE for the most of my encodes, but the new features of HC 0.21 sounds promising, so I think I'll look into that.

Visually speaking, the result is about the same quality and HC is almost as fast as CCE is. Reason to not use it are really few.

Well, did some visual testing on somes frames of Transformers DVD.

In the first tests, HC shows some blocking in low-lit scenes with smoke in it, where CCE doesn't. CCE on the other hand is a bit "grainy" in its encode.

Time to tweak some more with the LUMGAIN option of HC :D

CCE as by default a "film effect" (that grainy aspect) that can/must be removed using it's advanced settings. You won't have this in HC except if you add some noise with a script.

Actualyl I compared the results with no artefact in both of them.

sorry for offtopic but is it possible that you could write a little guide for using dvd-rb/rb-opt. or do you have a link to a good one. all i've found are for basic settings only. thanks!

You mean the quantizer characteristics setting? I had this at 17.
What do you recommend?

Now I mean the "Detailed settings" that are by default at "Natural 3" but must be set as flat. Actualyl all settings in the "Picture settings" must be uncheck.

RB-Opt is not really difficult, and sorry I don't have time. But open a thread and and your questions, I will answer to them.

Thanks.