Just getting started with my project to capture old VHS and 8mm home movies to lossless AVI and would like to keep the AVI files for archival purposes while making a MPEG-2 file as a master copy for viewing on either a computer screen or set top box like Apple TV. I understand from this forum that Mainconcept Reference (or TotalCode Studio) is one of the preferred and best encoders out there for converting AVI to MPEG-2, but the stand-alone desktop application comes with a pretty hefty price tag.
The Mainconcept website includes several references to their codecs being used in commercial editing software, including Adobe Premiere, Corel Video Studio, and
Vegas Pro/Movie Studio. I have been playing around with the free trail version of
Vegas Movie Studio 16 using some of my initial AVI files, and one of the output/rendering options for exporting files is "Mainconcept MPEG-2". I have attached a screen shot of the Vegas encoding options. Does anyone know if this option will provide the same quality encoding as TotalCode Studio? Is there a reason that the encoder used in the Vegas product would be different that the Mainconcept software?
Vegas Screen.jpg
I have not tried the TotalCode Studio trial yet - the few MPEG-2 encodes I did in
Vegas Movie Studio look better than ones I have done with
Avidemux.
Thanks for the feedback and help.