Which MPEG encoder is the best.....Panasonic or Ligos LSX? I have heard that the Ligos yields much better results than the Panasonic. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Thanks, Cale

-- Cale Ferguson (5150@onramp.net), May 25, 2000

Answers

Hi Cale,

Ligos produces clearer picture, doesn't degrade color, but has much blockiness. Panasonic has the opposite characteristic; it produces blur picture, degrades color, but has no blockiness. From my point of view, Panasonic is still better in many ways for encoding to MPEG1.

You may want to look at: http://www.vcdhelper.com/comparison.htm

-- Beni K. (b_kartono@hotmail.com), May 25, 2000.

I used to use the panasonic MPEG recorder because it had the least blockiness but the fading of the colors annoyed me. I wrote to the company about this since I am a registered owner of the program and I got no answer. There is now a japanese freeware MPEG encorder TMPEG encorder which has a patch to translate it into english. Using its filters, it produces vivid colors and less blockiness than the panasonic. It has a setting for VCD and also other settings for higher video bit rates for VCD by lowering the audio rate, it is still accepted by EZCD creator (although it states that the system clock setting is off) and it produces a VCD on CDR which my sony DVD standalone reads and plays well. When using its internal filters (sharpen, ghost removal, noise), with my AMD k2-500 it produces the MPEG about 15x realtime while the panasonic was about 6 to 7 real time. This encorder can also do MPEG 2 encoding for DVD or SVCD. If you don't mind leaving your computer on overnight, it is an excellent encorder. If the panasonic encorder can be corrected to improve the color loss, I would stay with the panasonic for VCD. The following web sites have the necessary files and information.

www.jamsoft.com/tmpgenc/

www.jamsoft.com/tmpgenc/

-- klebsiella (klebsiella@visto.com), May 25, 2000.

try this cinema craft encoder its fast and good quality too

-- juan reyes (jpreyess@hotmail.com), July 01, 2002.