TMPGEnc Plus – Video Encoding Software

There are many different DVD, SVCD and VCD encoding suites out there, but not one of them can hold a candle to TMPGEnc in the departments of customized templates, speed, and functionality. It isn’t “pretty” software, it isn’t bloated software, it doesn’t have visible “bells and whistles” that knock you out of your chair as soon as you open the program. What is does have, though, are powerful video encoding options that are all the bells, whistles, and eye candy you need.

This review is not intended as a tutorial on how to use the program, by any means. There will be a walkthrough of certain screens and options to illustrate certain key points of the software and it’s flexibility in giving you options to choose from.

THE WIZARD: TMPGEnc Plus has, like other software of it’s kind, a wizard that pops up when you open up the program. You can choose from the included templates, Video-CD, Super Video-CD, or DVD. Among these choices include whether you would like to encode in NTSC format (the North American video encoding standard) or PAL (the European video encoding standard). You can also create templates for yourself.

This isn’t recommended for someone who is new to encoding one’s own video, however, there are some templates available on the web that you can use. The templates come in .mcf format. To use them with the Project Wizard, you save them to the templates folder. This done and the next time you open up TMPGEnc Plus you’ll see your template(s) in the “Other” section of the menu.

Screen 2/5: The Project Wizard ask you to choose your input video. Now, this works best if you are using .avi files or .mpg files, especially if you are new to encoding. You can put practically any video file in the video file slot, but if it does not have pre-done & encoded audio, you open up a whole new can of worms that I’m not prepared to get into here. (Again, however, this illustrates just how flexible TMPGEnc Plus is for encoding). The input screen also has “Epert Settings for Source”. These generally should be left alone, as TMPGEnc is very good at deciding the correct settings.

Screen 3/5: This screen allows you to apply some basic filters to your project. You can specify the range of the original file you’d like to encode; you can clip the source to a custom size (this option causes you to lose parts of the screen; kind of like cropping a picture file); you can reduce noise (slows down encoding time); and you can open up the “Other Settings” options.

The Other Settings options include Video Stream tweaking, more filters, arrange method (ie: widescreen vs. full screen, etc), more sound options (the sound in your video is too quiet? boost it here). There are also many more filters and options you can choose in this area of the program. Most of the extra options should be used with caution for the first time users as they can either cause all kinds of seemingly unfixable problems or create much more pleasant to watch and hear video. Usually the former is what happens, though.

Screen 4/5: This is where you choose what resolution you want. If you are going to be encoding your video so that you can play it in a standard home dvd player on a standard home television (not widescreen), your best resolution is 240 x 480. If you’ve got a widescreen digital input (s-video) tv, you’re going to want to use different settings for this, however most people don’t have these items (yet), so 240 x 480 is the best route. You also choose what type of media you’re going to be putting your video on here. Generally, when I’m choosing file size, I select what type of media i’m going to be using, and how much space on said media I want my file to take up. After that is done, or before, you can choose which video and audio bitrates you’d like your video to have.

Screen 5/5: This is the last screen in the Project Wizard. Here you will choose what you want your file to be called, where you will save it, and whether it will be a completely encoded ready to play file, or if you’re going to save your project as separate video and audio streams. The last feature in the wizard is my favourite one, especially since I don’t have a lot of time to sit at the computer these days. You have the option to “Start encoding immediately” or to “Create another project(s) for batch encoding”.

If you have one file to encode, the first option will be perfect. If, however, you are like me and have umpteen files to encode for a project, the second option is a great time saver. As soon as you click “OK”, the software brings you back to the first screen of the Project Wizard. You can set as many files as you want to “batch encode” and once you have the last one ready to go, you switch to the “Start encoding immediately” setting, and click OK for the last time. TMPGEnc Plus will then proceed to encode all of your files in one shot, one after the other. Best of all, it takes relatively little time, once you’re familiar with the Project Wizard layout, to set a number of files to encode, and you don’t need to be present to set the next one up to go.

TMPGEnc plus also has another feature that I use often. They are actually a set of features called MPEG Tools. In this set is something called “Merge & Cut”. This is a great tool for taking several video files you have and cutting clips from them. You can cut a clip from a single file and save it, or you can cut clips from several files and save them together as one big file of clips. There are also some advanced features in the MPEG Tools used for Muxing and De-Muxing (Multiplex and De-multiplex).

All in all, TMPGEnc Plus is an excellent encoding tool. The Project Wizard is easy to use and easy to figure out for even the new user, but the application also has many more levels of usage for the advanced user. It is not a single point and click program by any means, but that doesn’t make it any less simple to use. There just happen to be a few more steps, and with video encoding software, I have found that having a few more steps, and having many more advanced options available not only give you relative ease of use, but a better end product as well.

If you’re new to video encoding, stick with the Project Wizard. If you are an advanced user, have fun with the extra options in this powerful piece of software. Another nice thing about TMPGEnc Plus, is that someone new to encoding can easily figure out what most of the options are for via trial and error, or with simple tutorials (the best of which can be found at VideoHelp.

TMPGEnc Plus is available from Pegasys Inc. for $37.00 USD. There is also a basic version of the encoder available for free (although with not all of the features presented in Plus) at tmpgenc.net. The free version would be a great way to familiarize yourself with TMPGEnc, but I definitely recommend the Plus version. It is relatively inexpensive compared to other software out there in this category, but a whole lot more powerful.

Encoding time for an XVID/DIVX .avi of around the 1 gig size to .mpg is approximately 50 – 80 minutes on my computer. System Specs on system used: Windows XP Pro SP2 on a 2.4GHz Celeron processor, 768MB RAM and onboard Intel Graphics Controller. During an encode, I can run all kinds of other applications. During the course of writing this review, I had TMPGEnc, Opera, TextPad, Firewall, Anti-virus, MS Office, and one game running (for breaks in writing). On systems with much better video cards, but with similar processing power and RAM, your encoding time for the same file could be half the time.