Jason Dunn
10-17-2008, 03:00 PM
<p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1221769812.usr1.jpg" /></p><h6><strong>Product Category:</strong> Software</h6><h6><strong>Manufacturer:</strong> <a href="http://www.tmpgenc.com" target="_blank">TMPGEnc</a></h6><h6><strong>Where to Buy:</strong> <a href="http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html" target="_blank">TMPGEnc Web site</a></h6><h6><strong>Price:</strong> $99.95 USD</h6><h6><strong>System Requirements:</strong> The software will work on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000. Since video encoding is a CPU-intensive task, the faster your CPU the faster the software will work.</h6><p><strong>Pros:</strong></p><ul><li>A huge variety of video import and output formats;</li><li>Makes great use of multi-core CPUs;</li><li>Software is fast and responsive.</li></ul><p><strong>Cons:</strong></p><ul><li>The cut/edit tools are confusing and limited;</li><li>Seems to have trouble with certain AVI files, no support for KV files;</li><li>Requires online product activation; EULA restricts you to one install (but see below).</li></ul><p><strong>Summary:</strong>If you're looking for the ultimate level of control when it comes to video encoding, TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress is one of the best tools on the market today. When you consider that you can purchase video editing programs such as Premiere Elements for $99, TMPGEnc seems fairly expensive at $99 - but if you're tired of the limited video encoding options that most consumer-level video editing programs offer, TMPGEnc is a breath of fresh air and well worth the investment. <MORE /><strong></strong></p><h1><strong>Install and Setup</strong></h1><p>When I went through the process of getting the software set up after receiving a serial number from my PR contact, I couldn't help but notice how complex it all was. I had to register an account on their Web site, enter my serial number, then agree to a long EULA before I was allowed to download the software. I checked the online EULA and unfortunately they only allow for one install and activation of the software - in this era of laptops, it's not uncommon for people to have two or more computers, and it's unrealistic for companies to expect that any user will purchase more than one copy of their software. Per-user licensing is realistic; per-computer licensing is not.</p><p>Once I downloaded the software, installation of TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress was uneventful. When I started it up for the first time I noticed the "Obtain a License" button with a check-box for "Automatically Validate Next Time". This is their online activation process, which checks against a server to verify your serial number - although it does't seem to do it every time, because I've used the software offline. I really dislike activation schemes, because they treat customers as though they're dishonest. There's a presumption that the software isn't legitimate, and activation schemes like this are based on the assumption that the company and their activation server is going to be around for as long as the software is useful to customers. What if TMPGEnc were to go out of business next month? The software you just paid $99 might not be usable. I have a deep respect for software developers and their intellectual property, but complex security measures on software usually only end up hurting legitimate users. I think I've made my point: I don't like the licensing and activation of this product.</p><p>On the bright side, however, I was able to install and activate this software on my media editing desktop computer, and on my laptop - so they mustn't enforce that EULA as strictly as I thought they would. But why not promote a two-computer activation option as a feature? I think anyone with more than one computer would be happy to see that the company acknowledges one install of the software is unrealistic.</p><h1><strong>Step One: Select Your Video Source</strong></h1><p>The user interface is fairly simple, being based around a three-step process: source, format, and encode. You start with two choices under the Project Menu section, and selecting Start a New Project is where most people will begin. The second step is selecting the source: you can add files directly from your hard drive - a <a href="http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html" target="_blank">staggering array of file formats are supported</a>, including AVCHD, AVI, DVR-MS, WMV, MPEG4/h.264, and Quicktime - or you can use the Source Wizard which offers choices for importing a file, a DVD, or a Windows Media Center video file. I'll talk about the DVD importing option later, but it's worth noting that one increasingly popular file format isn't supported: MKV. I've run into two MKV files in the past two weeks, so it's not quite the obscure anime-encoding format that I always thought it was. I'm surprised that TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress doesn't support this format - it absolutely should.</p><p>For my first project I selected an AVI file (a vacation video) that I had created with <a href="http://www.muvee.com" target="_blank">muvee Reveal</a>. TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress correctly identified it as a 720 x 480, 30fps AVI file.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1222272450.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 1: After you've selected the file(s) you want to encode, they show up in this window.</em></p><p>There are two additional tabs as part of this source selection step: Cut-Edit and Filters. Cut-Edit, as you might expect, gives you basic tools for editing the clip - but the tools are bizarrely designed and I found them nearly impossible to use. The most basic type of clip editing would be cutting out commercials from a TV show for instance: you'd move the cursor to the spot on the timeline where the commercials start, you'd cut the clip there, you'd move the cursor to the spot on the timeline where the commercials end, and you'd cut there. You'd then delete the commercials clip, and the two pieces of your video would be joined together. This is a basic function that even the least expensive video editing software can accomplish, but after 15 minutes trying to grasp how TMPGEnc expected me to accomplish that, and I was unable to do so. This part of the software really needs some work.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223649794.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 2:The frustrating and confusing editing tools.</em></p><p>Don't you just hate it when your audio and video are out of sync? There's an Audio Gap Correction tool here that will bump the audio forward or backward one millisecond at a time. Excellent! Scrubbing back and forth on the timeline was fast and fluid - these guys at TMPGEnc really know how to design fast video decoding engines. One thing missing though is a simple fade in/fade out function, and a couple of cross-fade transitions. You wouldn't use TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress for complex video editing, but since they provide cutting tools (as clumsy as they are), they might as well offer a couple of transitions so it can be used for simple editing projects. One of my more common video editing tasks is to take a TV show or movie I've recorded off cable TV and trim out sections that I want to keep - if TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress had a fade in/fade out function, and even just one cross-fade transition, I could use it for these tasks.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223649822.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 3: Filters give you options to resize the image, crop the image, perform colour correction, and more.</em></p><p>The Filters tab gives you options such as Video Noise Reduction, Color Correction, Audio Noise Reduction, and even Picture Cropping that allows you to trim excess pixels from any side of the video, giving you a picture-perfect display. This is some powerful stuff, especially for "just" an encoder (it's obviously much more than that). The picture cropping in particular is implemented nicely - you set the left, right, top, and bottom pixel values, and you can scrub along the timeline to preview the results.</p><p><PAGE /></p><h1><strong>Step Two: Select Your Output Format</strong></h1><p>Once you're happy with the source, you move onto the second step, which is the Format tab - as in, picking which format you're going to output the video in. There are a lot of options: DVD standard MPEG2, HDV format MPEG, Blu-ray standard MPEG, AVI, WMV, Quicktime, Divx, MPEG-4, and even several audio-only formats. Oh, and an option for dumping the entire video file as a series of sequential still images. I'm a big fan of h.264 as a format, and since it's a variant of MPEG4, I selected "MPEG-4 File Output". I'm glad pressing F1 opens up the help PDF file right to the page with the screen I was looking at, because I didn't know that MPEG-4 AVC Format is the same as h.264. Since h.264 as a term has so much buzz nowadays, it would be nice if they had it listed as an option right up front.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223591122.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 4: Selecting for video format you want to encode your file to.</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223591421.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 5: Getting down to the guts of your encoding settings.</em></p><p>With MPEG-4 as my output option, I was presented with the screen that has a bewildering array of choices (Figure 3), many of them over my head. Thankfully, every option has a default, so the only things I changed were the resolution of the output video file (from 720 x 480 to 640 x 480), the bit rate, and the type of encoding. The default MPEG-4 bit rate was 2024 kbps (2 mbps) which isn't bad, but I wanted to maximize the quality, so I used VBR and multi-pass encoding.</p><p>Multi-pass encoding is critical for maximum video quality, yet it's shocking how few video editors offer it as an option. The idea behind multi-pass encoding is that the video encoder will analyze your video first, before starting the encoding process, and while doing so the encoder will figure out the most efficient way to encode the video source. Neither Pinnacle Studio 12 nor Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 offer any options for two-pass encoding, on any file format. Most of these programs don't offer much in the way of variable bit-rate (VBR) encoding either, and VBR is important to maintain maximum video quality while keeping the file size from getting to big. Adobe Premiere Elements 4 offers two-pass VBR encoding on h.264 files, but only if you create a custom profile - and it's not very easy to find. I think most companies offering video editing software are short-changing their customers by not offering higher-quality video encoding. Why not offer users "Fast - Normal Quality" and "Slow - High Quality" encoding options? Let people make the choice for themselves. But I digress...</p><p>TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress, thankfully, offers quite a few options in this area: there are options for constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate, as well as one-pass and two-pass encoding. I was a bit surprised to not see an option for three-pass encoding, because CloneDVD Mobile offers that, but I've never done any tests to confirm whether a three-pass encoding offers anything more than two-pass encoding, so maybe three-pass encoding is just empty hype.<strong></strong></p><p><PAGE /></p><h1><strong>Step Three: Encoding The Video</strong></h1><p>After setting up my video file, I started the encode. If you're not sure what your final result is going to look like, there's a preview tool that will let you see how your crop and effects were applied - it's quite useful to make sure everything is good to go. In my case, it was already good to go, so I started the encoding process. The first pass analyzes the video file, and I saw is happily using up over 80% of my CPU. After the first pass it begins the encoding process, where again I saw 80% to 90% of my quad-core CPU being utilized. That's the way every video editing/encoding application on the market should work - Pinnacle Systems in particular should be downright ashamed of their Studio 12 product which barely uses 10% of the total CPU power when encoding to h2.64.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592282.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 6: The encoding window gives you a preview of the video output, and an accurate measurement of how long it's going to take to complete.</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592141.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 7: When the encoding is running, you can select the priority, whether or not there's a preview of the encoded output, and even what happens when the task is finished - like having the software shut down your computer.</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592395.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 8: Even the abort window for cancelling an encoding process gives you some options - if you want, you can simply delay the encoding process for a certain number of minutes, after which it will automatically resume. Slick!</em></p><h1><em><PAGE /></em></h1><h1><strong>Encoding a DVD: This Works Pretty Nicely!</strong></h1><p>Curious about using a DVD as a source, I inserted <a href="http://astore.amazon.com/digitalhomethoughts-20/detail/B0019HQIGS/103-0698110-9935057" target="_blank">Where The Light Is</a>, a John Mayer live concert DVD I'd recently purchased. Unlike many other programs, TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress wasn't smart enough to scan the DVD and pick up the files - I had to manually point it at the VIDEO_TS folder. Once that step was complete, the rest of the process was easy. After it scans the DVD drive, it displays a list of the videos on the disc - it's easy enough to pick the one you want because the main movie will usually be the biggest. I was given the choice of which audio track I wanted to use (6 channel Dolby Digital, or 2-channel stereo), and the next step involves how it will be imported.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592509.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 9: If you have the hard drive space, you can opt to copy the DVD files directly to your hard drive for faster access. This process adds several minutes to the process however.</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592602.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 10: You can pick whichever audio track you want.</em></p><p>When I started the encoding process, the CPU usage shot to 90% and it began the first pass of the footage, analyzing it for optimal bit rates. After a few minutes the "remaining time" counter settled down to 3 hours 31 minutes. The CPU continued to pound at between 78% and 89%, meaning that all four cores were engaged in the process. That's a beautiful thing! The fact that I could easily move the window, and minimize it, are further testaments to the superb programming that TMPGEnc put into this product.</p><h1><strong>Further Testing Notes</strong></h1><p>I've been using this software intensely over the past few weeks, so I have a lot to say about it. First is that while it can import DVR-MS files (Windows Media Center recordings), be prepared for some serious disk grinding during the initial import, and don't bother clicking on the Output Preview in the Encoding stage - unless you want to have the software become completely non-responsive for several minutes. When getting to the encoding stage it gets stuck on "Preparing Output" for a very long time - and this is on my laptop with a 2.2 Ghz CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and a 7200 RPM hard drive.</p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1223592684.usr1.jpg" /><em></em></p><p><em>Figure 11: As stable as this software is in general, I still saw several crashes using it.</em></p><p>I also found that TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress had trouble with a series of AVI files that I had output from Adobe Premiere Elements. These were standard AVI files, 720 x 480 in resolution, but TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress refused to see them as anything other than 360 x 240 in resolution. Working with TMPGEnc tech support, they helped me find a codec that, once installed, allowed TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 to see the AVI files in the correct resolution. What's curious about this is that these AVI files played back at the correct resolution in both Windows Media Player 11 and VLC - which means that the codec was on the system. I had an AVI file that I'd exported from Corel VideoStudio Pro X2, and despite help from TMPGEnc tech support, I was never able to get the software to read the AVI file at the right resolution. Codecs are really problematic on the Windows platform, and I've yet to see any programs that helps address the problem (by offering run-time codecs for instance).</p><h1><strong>Wrapping It Up</strong></h1><p>TMPGEnc XPress 4.0 is easily the most powerful video encoding tool I've ever used - I like using it so much that with many of my video editing projects, I'm exporting them as gigantic AVI files so I can use TMPGEnc XPress 4.0 to encode them. Why? The consumer-level video editing tools I'm using always seem to lack the type of output profiles I want to use. You'd think Corel, Pinnacle, Muvee, and Adobe had never heard of 720p h.264 files. Because I'm using this software as a secondary processing tool, it's frustrating to see the problems with AVI files - but tech support was able to help me through all but one of those problems.</p><p>As good as this software is, there's always room for improvement, so here are my suggestions. First, they should stop treating their customers like criminals and relax their activation process. Consumer backlash against DRM is very strong right now, and software activation is another form of DRM. I was pleased when <a href="http://www.acdsystems.com" target="_blank">ACD Systems</a>, the makers of some of my favourite digital photo software, abandoned product activation after implementing it for one version of their most popular software. TMPG should do the same. Next, they should make their cutting/editing tools simpler and faster, and add some basic clip to clip fades. There's no reason why TMPGEnc XPress 4.0 couldn't be used as basic video editing software with a few minor tweaks.</p><p>Despite a few niggles here and there with the software, overall I've found it to be a powerful and useful tool. It's a bit pricey at $99 USD, but if you encode video on a regular basis and you want more control over the process, it will be the best $99 you've ever spent on software.</p><p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> I found out after publishing my review that it DOES have fade in/fade out, but boy is it hard to find! When you go into Filters, click on EDIT FILTER LIST. You'll see the Filter Catalog list and there you'll see Video Fade-In/Fade-Out, along with an audio fade in/out. Click on one of them then click ADD, then click OK - it will then show up in the main list, where you can add it to your clip. After discovering this I'm able to do the two things I need: fade in/out, and cut clips (now that I figured out how).</p><p><em>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com/" target="_blank">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys <a href="http://photos.jasondunn.com/" target="_blank">photography</a>, mobile devices, <a href="http://www.jasondunn.com/" target="_blank">blogging</a>, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wonders who will be the first OEM to truly cut out the crapware.</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//ppct/auto/1240336793.usr1.gif" /></p><p><strong>Do you enjoy using new hardware, <a class="iAs" href="http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/93798/dell-s-inspiron-mini-10-reviewed.html" target="_blank">software</a> and accessories, then sharing your experience with others? Then join us on the <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com/reviewteam.php" target="_blank">Thoughts Media Review Team</a>! We're looking for individuals who find it fun to test new gear and give their honest opinions about the experience. It's a volunteer role with some great perks. Interested? <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com/reviewteam.php" target="_blank">Then click here for more information.</a></strong></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//ppct/auto/1240336793.usr1.gif" /></p><p> </p>