bbMPEG

Version Tested: 1.24 beta 18
Type: Software encoder
MPEG Standards: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, SVCD, DVD, HDTV
Bit Rate Control Modes: min/max/average-based VBR, CQ VBR, CBR
Bit Rates: 0.001-100 Mbit/s
GOP Formats: 3-30 frame configurable IP and IPB-frame GOPs
MPEG Audio Modes: Full MPEG-1 audio layers 1 and 2
Frame Sizes: Any
Multi-threaded Encoding? No
Scene Change Detection? No
Encoding Rate: 3.8 fps on a 1.2 GHz Athlon (standalone version)
Web Page: http://members.cox.net/beyeler/bbmpeg.html
Availability: Download
Price: Free

One of the nicest things about this encoder is that it has both a standalone module and Premiere integration, and that the settings UI is the same for both. All of the other encoders in this review that have both standalone and Premiere plugin versions have different UIs for encoding settings. The plugin version will have a slightly different UI from the standalone version, such that you can't easily switch from one to the other — you end up learning them as separate programs. bbMPEG's standalone encoder is just a basic interface to the plugin, so once you've learned one version, you've learned the other.

Output

Frame 0, Frame 1, Bitrate and Quantization Data.

I was completely unable to get the encoder's min/max/avg VBR mode to behave sanely. The remaining two modes produce video very close to the best encoders in this roundup: TMPGEnc, Ligos' LSX-MPEG and CinemaCraft Encoder SP. Unfortunately, bbMPEG is slower than all three of those encoders. (The encoding rate given above is for the standalone version. The Premiere plugin version encodes at 2.9 fps on my test machine.)

Bottom Line

If you don't want to spend money on an MPEG encoder, bbMPEG is the only reasonable choice among those reviewed here. I'd encourage you to look at TMPGEnc as well, however. bbMPEG is easier to use from Premiere than TMPGEnc, and TMPGEnc is easier to use standlone than bbMPEG. As for speed, TMPGEnc beats bbMPEG both when used standalone and when used via the Avisynth Premiere plugin.

Usability: 0
Functionality: 8
Quality: 10
Core Value: 10
Bundle value: 6

Overall: 4.6

(By "bundle" above, I'm considering the associated bbtools package.)