Version History

Summary Tables

Software Encoders, Summary Data

Product	Price	Frames/s	MPEG Standards	Video Mbit/s	GOP	Rate Control
bbMPEG	Free	3.8	1, 2, V, SV, DVD, HD	0.001-100	I, IP, IPB	CBR, 2xVBR
CCE Basic	$58	n/a⁵	1, 2, V¹, SV²	0.5-15	IPB	CBR
CCE SP	$1950	n/a⁵	1, 2, V¹, SV², DVD	0.5-15	IPB	CBR, 2xVBR
LSX-MPEG	$180-250	8.7-18.2	1, 2, V, SV, DVD, HD	0.1-15	I, IP, IPB	CBR, 3xVBR
MPEG Maker	$100	8.0	1, 2, V, SV²	0.01-15	I, IP, IPB	VBR, CBR
Studio DV	$80	5.9	1, 2, V, SV, DVD	0.25-9³	IPB	CBR
TMPGEnc	$58	9.7	1, 2, V, SV, DVD, HD	0.001-100	I, IP, IPB	CBR, 4xVBR

Hardware and Hybrid Encoders, Summary Data

Product	Price	Frames/s	Type	MPEG Standards	Video Mbit/s	GOP	Rate Control	Audio Cap.	TV Out?	Live Prev?
ATI AIW	$130-230	30⁴	hyb.	1, 2, V, SV²	0.4-15	I, IP, IPB	VBR, CBR	No	Yes	No
DCM	$500	30⁴	hyb.	1, 2, V, XV, SV, DVD	0.01-15	I, IP, IPB	VBR, CBR	Yes	Yes	No
PVR	$220	30	h/w	2, V	2-12	I, IP, IPB	CBR, VBR	No	No	No

Key, Summary Data Tables

1, 2, V, XV, SV, DVD, HD	MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD profile, XVCD profile, SVCD profile, DVD profile, HDTV profile.
2xVBR, 3xVBR...	This encoder has more than one VBR rate control method
MP2	MPEG-1 audio layer 2
Type column	Encoder type; hardware or a hybrid design (hardware capture, software compression, possibly with some preprocessing in hardware)

Summary Data Footnotes

This encoder can produce VCD-compatible video elementary streams, but it can't combine that and an MPEG-1 layer 2 audio file to make a VCD-compatible system stream. Nevertheless, it is possible to use a VCD-aware multiplexing program like bbMPEG or TMPGEnc to re-multiplex a system stream made by this encoder into a VCD-compatible system stream.
Same as the previous footnote, but for SVCD instead of VCDs and MPEG-2 program streams instead of MPEG-1 system streams.
The Studio DV only supports up to 3 Mbit/s in MPEG-1 mode.
Hybrid encoders can only sustain 30 fps if the CPU is fast enough. If the CPU is too slow, a hybrid encoder will drop frames.
I removed the frame rate numbers for the CCE encoders because at the time of testing, their plugins didn't work with Premiere 6.0, which I used at the time.

Software Encoder Scores

The scores in each category are normalized. Each category has at least one encoder scoring 0 and at least one encoder scoring 10. All other encoders' scores are relative to the high and low-scoring encoders. There may be encoders that we do not review that would score higher than our "10" or lower than our "0".

Product	Overall Score	Usability	Functionality	Quality	Core Value	Bundle Value
LSX-MPEG	9.5	10	9	10	10	2
TMPGEnc	7.4	5	10	10	10	8
Studio DV	6.9	9	0	4	9	10
CCE SP	4.9	3	9	10	0	0
bbMPEG	4.6	0	8	10	10	6
CCE Basic	4.5	3	2	8	8	0
MPEG Maker	4.45	2	4	9	8	0

Hardware and Hybrid Encoder Scores

Product	Overall Score	Usability	Functionality	Quality	Core Value	Bundle Value
AIW	9.2	10	6	9	10	7
DCM	6.5	6	8	6	7	10
PVR	5.45	6	5	0	8	3