Encoding software

[ME BIGGD01]

Just curious to know what you guys are using to encode video with. Not sure if any of you have ever heard of Sorenson Squeeze but this is what I use and I am extremely happy with it. You can download a trial copy of it but it costs around 400 bucks. I will say I am just about done encoding my projects for tomorrows appointment and I am amazed how fast this worked. The quality is outstanding and allows me to convert to any format I want. I am liking this much better then procoder.

if anyone needs any video converted let me know. I may have to hook a friend up who just got an IPOD with video.

[Sirc]

First of all, I have Video Studio 7. This program takes freakin forever to do anything at high quality. And it takes a huge amount of memory, and pretty much locks up the computer while it is running (transcoding). Nero is better if you just want to burn a DVD from different file formats, but is still pretty slow, and chokes on some wmv movies. For some reason, when using wmv files, it will burn the DVD as if everything went fine, but when you play it the wmv file will play at something like x32 speed and then have blank space for the rest of the actual time it should be playing.

I've heard VDub works pretty well, but what I would really like is to have a program that will join the same kind of file type (assuming all the same video/audio formats) without trying to reprocess the files. Just link them together, that's all. I have one that will do mpgs, and used to have one that will do avi files, but it won't run on Win2K or XP.

I know you are talking about something more sophisticated BIGG. But sophisticated doesn't equal intelligent, especially if all you want to do is join segments.

I would also like to find out which video editing programs are best, within a consumer price-range (i.e. less than $200). Video Studio may have come a long way since version 7, but just the name gives me chills now. :eek:

[FUS1ON]

Huggy I edited your post and deleted the part where you discussed defeating the copy protection. Please do not discuss illegal activities on this forum.

[SALvation]

When we have a client that has to get video on the web, we use Windows Media Encoder. Nice and free.

[EXEcution]

Ulead is very easy to use for beginners. Dunno about the encoding ability but I render out my videos uncompressed and then use vdub. The best codec out there is the h.264. This covers it pretty well. http://wiki.meaz.org/index.php?title=X264_Encoding#Instructions
Other options are xvid and divx which produce lower quality but are a tad bit easier to learn and use. Then there's audio encoding (assuming your production has sound) which can also get somewhat tricky.

As for other editing software Vegas from Sonic Foundry is very easy to learn and use goes for less than $200 i believe. Plenty of editing options. Adobe Premier is also good, but it can get a bit more complex and previewing your work on it also can be problematic.

If you want video composition programs where you can actually create your own "effects" then you gotta go prety hardcore. Adobe After Effects is probably your best choice since you can pretty much re-create any effect you have ever seen. People actually edit entire videos with it (since it also has good compression options). I really couldn't recommend anything unless I knew what you are trying to edit. Since editing is half technical and half art, its very hard to find a perfect program that balances both ease of use and artisitic freedom.

[Caged Anger]

I do movies for school as it almost always guarentees a 90+ because they can see it takes some effort. But by having no money, I journeyed the wb over to find my collection of free utilities, one that can even change a .mov to .avi.

Bink Video Tools
VDub
Auto Gordian Knot
Gordian Knot
Windows Media Encoder
Windows Movie Maker 2

I mostly used Movie Maker to make the movies than saved them as a highest quality AVI. I later compressed it with the other tools, all of which are free