Encoder Criteria

1. Our users are not video professionals, and have no desire to be. If our final product requires more than a basic getting-started manual, the product is too hard to use.

2. Despite that, we are not expecting to find an "MPEG for Dummies" product. It's permissible to have highly-technical features, as long as they have reasonable defaults, or you can form a simple model of what each feature does. (E.g., "Crank this slider up to make better video, at the expense of encoding time.") Alternately, the product could offer "templates", so we can configure a few useful presets before we ship the final product to the customer.

3. The budget for the MPEG encoder is US$1500, but we're under no compunction to blow the whole wad. :)

4. We are not trying for broadcast or production-house quality. Quality is important only to the extent that our customers are interested in making the smallest watchable files, even with challenging footage. Full D1 video at 3 Mbit/s is the ideal target.

5. By and large, our customers will be doing little or no editing. Therefore, boards that don't offer IPB MPEG editing features, or don't have I-frame only modes are not punished in these reviews. That said, boards that do have fancy features like this do get a small plus.