I am using Broadway Pro to encode mpeg. For best quality, I use the 2-pass approach. On and off in this forum, Panasonic Encoder has been hailed as a very good mpeg encoder. I wonder how it actually compares with Broadway Pro that I already have in terms of output video quality and whether it is worth to get a copy of Panasonic myslef.

Can someone share his experience on this?

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@sp.edu.sg), February 09, 2000

Answers

Daniel, I don't have first hand experience with broadway's quality, but i had seen the samples at their site. I just got the Panasonic encoder today and tried it out myself and I am a believer. It's slow but it produced high quality result. I had tried both LSX and Panasonic now and both are marginally the same. I am leaning more toward LSX as being a little better, but Panasonic has one thing that won the contest. Panasonic will take both mpeg & avi files as input, while LSX takes only avi. This is very important to me because i preferred capture straight to mpeg file on the fly (save space and less hassle with 2gigs limit).

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.

I am using the Broadway Pro 4.0 and although it is very good I wish I could get a little better quality. It is very close to the original I can tell it's computer generated. There is a little fuzziness but not too bad. The original avi looks great. Is there anything I can do to improve the quality using the Broadway? I am capturing from a VCR through a composite connection( I know svideo is better but I don't want to run out and buy a $300 VCR right now)I have tried the evaluation copies of Xing and LSX and definitely think Broadway is better. I also tried the Dazzle DVC and returned it as soon as possible. Some people here clain to have gotten results with it but I don't see how. The Panasonic I have never tried but I hear a lot about it as well. I just don't like the time it takes for software encoders to do their thing

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), February 10, 2000.

It looks like those who previously argued for Panasonic encoder have little or no knowledge of how Broadway performs.

Having read the comments by both Lnguyen and A1 McCraw above, I am now convinced that Broadway is still a better choice.

The samples that Lnguyen saw on Broadway's site may not represent Broadway at its best, ironically. I say this because I have, through the 2-pass approach, managed to get pretty high quality mpeg with Broadway. I would say the quality is almost as good as one produced by Optibase in real time. Let's face it, Optibase is about 4 times as costly as Broadway.

Since Lnguyen says that LSX and Panasonic are marginally the same, and A1 McCraw has found that LSX is not as good as Broadway, the conclusion that can be drawn here is obvious.

I would not bother to try Panasonic since I already have Broadway.

Thanks Lnguyen and A1 McCraw for your precious inputs.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@sp.edu.sg), February 10, 2000.

Daniel, Go to www.bernclare.com/mpegprod.html and find the sample section for the Vitec RT-6 and look at the RT6VCD.mpg sample. Tell me if your result from the broadway is like that or better. That sample was made from BetaCam S-video connection and captured straight to Mpeg VCD on the fly (That's what Vitec tells me). I've gotten similar result using Panasonic 2.3 with Dazzle DVC @ 3000kbits/s mpeg1 recording using S-video input from VHS tape. I get better than that with Digital S-video input source using Dazzle DVC @ 3000kbits/s mpeg1. It's time consuming with the encoding (@ 1:3.8 ratio /w the 600MHz K7 Athlon ~ 1hr video= 3.8 hours of encoding). That's a lot better then when i was using Ulead to do the same job(1:11+ ratio)! I've tested out LSX 3.0 with AVI files and the result is slightly better than Panasonic; However, LSX only takes AVI format.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.

lnguyen,

Lets face it, it doesn't matter if that RT6 sample MPEG is better than what broadway can do for this simple fact----the average user doesn't use Betacam or Digital-S. Those are Pro formats and OF COURSE will produce great quality. Just like a DVD will produce better images than a VHS tape no matter what encoder you are using.

The average user encodes from VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, and SVHS. The real test of RT6's power would be to take a plain old VHS tape and encode that in realtime.

It is also worth mentioning that if you pair a Broadway with a Darim M-filter, Encode to AVI, then Encode to MPG (both steps done with a Broadway, and a Pentium 2 has a 2:1 ratio and a Pentium 3 has a 1:1 ratio), then the results will rival even the mighty Optibase which is at an ungodly cost to the average user.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), April 09, 2000.

Having used both the Broadway (for home), Optibase (at work) and Panasonic (for both) i think the answer here depends on how much time you have. Broadway: Produces shite results when capturing directly to mpeg (realtime). Capturing to AVI and then converting to MPEG - 2 pass encoding - is much much better, but as the Broadway cannot exceed 2GB AVI's this is not "Pro" as far as the industry goes. But as it is not possible use a high quality software video filter aka Panasonic Encoder (which i believe has the best video filatration options i've ever come across, beats M-filter in my humble opinion) the resultant MPEG is only "perfect" if your source material is "free" from noise, and this discounts most VHS/analogue recordings. However, feed it a good quality S-Video signal from a DV camcorder and the Broadway does 2-pass encoding (2xrealtime) what other encoders need 20+ hours to do. Panasonic: Slow slow slow!!! Although if you have a dual-cpu setup you can use Premier plug-in which is dual-dpu aware and you can on 2xP3/933's encode in 3xrealtime. The results are amazing, and in some circumstances exceed the Broadway by a very wide margin. Optibase: I dont even know why this is mentioned here, no point in comparing the industry reference against Pro-consumer (broadway) and home-consumer (Panasonic).

-- kevin (khm@btinternet.com), February 13, 2001.

Kevin, No point answering question from last year. Don't you think the guys who discuss are not interested in this anymore?

-- Anon (noname@nowhere.net), February 13, 2001.

? to be honest i didnt look at the date, i've been sifting through these threads as i just found this site, this one i found interesting because its still valid today becausse all these encoders are still on the market.

-- kevin (khm@btinternet.com), February 14, 2001.

hi kevin, what do u think about optibse card. is the optibase realtime mpeg encoding better than broadway pro dual pass mode??

thanks

-- (mpg1vcd@yahoo.com), February 15, 2001.

have you ever seen the Broadway used with the M-Filter captured in Realtime mpeg? Looks shite doesnt it (not the m-filters fault, its the broadway to blame). compare this to broadway avi with m-filter and you get "acceptable results" from analogue sources (eg vhs, hi8 or s-vhs). now kick out the m-filter and feed the broadway an s-video signal from a dv source (camcorder) and the result is excellent. the difference is the source material, the broadway does not like noisy sources, and to top it all it has zero selection of noise filters (apart from the soft-filter for avi capture which isnt really a filter more of an anti-aliaser). it would be unfair to compair these to moviemaker, which can compress to mpeg2 vbr in realtime - whilst simulatenously decoding for preview - and produce perfect results every time; a basic system costs about £20k. so yes....optibase sees off anything i've ever seen apart from uncompressed video.

-- kevin (khm@btinternet.com), February 15, 2001.