Vitec Multimedia MPEG Maker

Version Tested: 2.1
Type: Software encoder
MPEG Standards: MPEG 1, MPEG 2, DVD, VCD
Bit Rate Control Modes: CQ VBR, CBR
Bit Rates: 0.01-15 Mbit/s
GOP Formats: I-frame, IP-frame, IPB-frame
MPEG Audio Modes: Full MPEG-1 layer 2 support
Frame Sizes: Anything (works off of input frame size)
Multi-threaded Encoding? No
Scene Change Detection? Yes (details below)
Encoding Rate: 8.0 fps on a 1.2 GHz Athlon
Web Page: http://www.vitecmm.com/
Availability: Video specialty stores
Price: US$100

Ignoring everything but the technical issues, MPEG Maker is a reasonably-fast encoder that makes high-quality MPEG streams. Unfortunately, it's got that signature Vitec bugginess: I found one hard-to-reproduce crippling bug in this package, and several other small bugs and odd misfeatures.

The first of the three major bugs I noticed is that with one particular AVI file, I could not make a video CD file: it would always crash right before starting the multiplex operation. The second bug is, in addition to encoding from AVI, this encoder will also encode from an MPEG 1 or 2 file, but on some source files I tried the color palette got smashed. Transcoding those MPEGs down to AVI with either FlasKMPEG or DVD2AVI and then encoding the AVI resulted in correct colors. The third bug I found is that with HuffYUV AVIs, you have to enable HuffYUV's "always suggest RGB format for output" option. If you don't, the encoder shows video frames correctly in the preview window, but it does an incorrect color space conversion when making the MPEG stream. I tested an MJPEG file, and MPEG Maker read it correctly.

This encoder has an odd form of scene change detection. All other encoders I've seen with scene change detection create a new GOP when they detect a scene change. MPEG Maker doesn't do that; it just uses an I frame in place of a P or B frame. I don't think this is better or worse, just different.

Output

Frame 0, Frame 1, Bitrate and Quantization Data.

MPEG Maker only has one VBR mode, a pure CQ mode. See my MPEG Encoder Modes article for a discussion of the problems with pure CQ modes. Despite the problems with pure CQ modes, it's worth messing with it. I tried its CBR mode at 3 Mbit/s, and which caused it to give a very high Q curve, almost as bad as that for the Hauppauge PVR. The resulting video file seemed to validate that comparison, on casual inspection.

This program will only encode from an AVI 1.0 file. To open AVI 2.0 files (a.k.a. OpenDML files), you can use Avisynth.

Once you get past all the problems I mentioned above, this encoder is capable of very high quality. For a commercial encoder, it's the best quality I've seen short of spending at least twice as much on an encoder. For that magical low price/great output combination, I can forgive a lot of buglets and odd behaviors. At the same time, I wouldn't foist this encoder off on a novice.

This encoder has a specific VCD mode which does work. It doesn't have an SVCD mode, but it is possible to make a compliant SVCD stream, with a little work. You have to encode to separate video and audio streams, taking special care to keep within the SVCD spec's limits, and then multiplex those elementary streams using something like TMPGEnc which understands how to make a proper SVCD program stream.

Bottom Line

Should you buy this encoder? Its main competition is TMPGEnc and Ligos' standalone encoder. MPEG Maker is priced between these two, but less featureful and slower than either. While the quality isn't bad, there are better options that are either cheaper (e.g. TMPGEnc) or faster and with better documentation (e.g. LSX-MPEG) with the same or better quality. The only reason I can think of to use this is if you already are going to get the DVD Cut Machine, which includes this encoder as part of the bundle.

Usability: 2
Functionality: 4
Quality: 9
Core Value: 8
Bundle value: 0

Overall: 6.45