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MillimeterIntegrate Review
Oct 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Frank McMahon
A speedy software encoder in its first generation nips at Cleaner's heels.
 ProCoder has a wizard that helps users quickly convert files to formats such as MPEG-2 for DVD, but there are advanced options for changing every possible setting before starting the encoding process. |
It's about time that a company came along and tried to unseat Discreet's Cleaner as a multipurpose encoding program that outputs to MPEG and web-video formats. Cleaner is a more developed program, spanning five versions, so Canopus is playing the quickness card here, touting its new ProCoder as high-speed transcoding software. It also packs a lot of features that Cleaner fans have come to expect.
ProCoder converts several file types to several other file types, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Windows Media, RealVideo, Apple QuickTime, Microsoft Video for Windows, as well as several varieties of the DV file format. The program installs easily and includes a dongle as copy protection. Always an inconvenience for legitimate users and not likely to stop hackers at all, the dongle approach will still stop casual copiers from passing on the program. Once booted up, the program looks similar to Cleaner, except its interface contains less clutter.
Three big buttons sit on the left side of the interface: source, target, and convert. Pick the file you want to convert, choose a preset (such as MPEG-2 for DVD), and then hit convert. A wizard steps you through these basic options in record time. Despite such simplicity, you can get as advanced as you want with the program. Most parts of the program have an advanced section that lets you get into the nuts and bolts and tweak multiple settings. In fact, once you change settings to your liking, you can save them as a preset. Not only that, but you can also create a droplet, a small executable file. Drop video or audio files (or folders) onto the droplet, and it will encode to your exact specs. Very cool and very streamlined.
Hiding away in the advanced menus is a large number of high-end features that allow you to set pretty much any parameter. For example, in the source tab you can preview video and set in and out points, as well as apply various video and audio filters such as blur, gamma, pulldown, color safe, crop, normalize audio, and low-pass filtering. The target tab has just about every setting for each available format, such as frame rate, interlacing, field order, aspect ratio, speed vs. quality settings, and more. Outputting via the convert tab lets you preview the files as they are encoding and get an estimate on how long each will take.
Many features make ProCoder worth recommending, and several set it apart from competing programs — with only a few problem areas. You always have the option to stop the rendering at any point and view what you have encoded so far. However, you cannot continue encoding from that point. If you hit Convert again, the program will start from the beginning of the encoding process. For Adobe users, a plug-in encodes a timeline exported from Premiere. Select just part of the timeline for quick test renders in the specific format.
One of the best features is the stitch option. With one click, ProCoder stitches together many files with different formats and resolutions and encodes them as one. This is an excellent option for burning to DVD those miscellaneous video files collecting on your hard drive.
In addition to outputting multiple files to one file, ProCoder just as easily outputs a group of files, or one file, to many files. For example, a few clicks will batch-encode a DV source to MPEG-2, RealVideo, and Windows Media. The program's advanced algorithms need to read the media only once. So after ProCoder grabs the source file, it plows ahead, creating multiple output formats one after the other.
The program also converts from NTSC to PAL and back.
On the downside, the program does not feature many audio filters. But most users will opt to do their processing while editing.
The video filters are a little cumbersome to use, and some standards are not available, like levels with a histogram. While the filters adjust pretty much anything video-wise, other programs such as Cleaner make it a bit easier to clean up and brighten your output with a few clicks. On the plus side, the encoding process doesn't incur much of a performance hit from these filters, which render quickly. Several are unique and quite handy, such as bitmap keying, for superimposing a graphic or logo over encoded video, and fade in, for automatically adding fades at the beginning of video clips.
Finally, a loud little sting plays after an encode is complete, and I can't seem to toggle it off. It startles me every time!
So how fast is the software? Way faster than Cleaner 5, especially at doing MPEG. However, I would not call it blistering — it is, after all, a software encoder. Typical rates I got for a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 machine with 512MB of memory were from half to a quarter realtime. Various quality settings speed things up, but encoding MPEG-2 for DVD, for example, I averaged 6-8fps on the high-quality setting and about 15fps on the high-speed setting. Using a dedicated video drive, the high-quality rates ramped up a bit to 9-10fps.
Your mileage definitely will vary, and using a dual-processor machine will crank those numbers up. Buried in the help file are some tips on improving performance, and there is a lively ProCoder user group over at Creative Cow's www.canopuscow.net, which offers excellent advice from the Canopus team.
The program comes with everything you need to get rolling, including an excellent 200-page book on video compression concepts and even, for no apparent reason, a four-port USB hub.
You can use ProCoder as a quick-and-dirty, drag-and-drop encoder and get outstanding image quality. Unlike some shareware programs that produce pretty good video after mucho parameter tweaking and experimentation, ProCoder produces truly excellent final encoded video even under basic settings. It's nearly as robust as Cleaner 5 in the feature department, and it is definitely faster at encoding some formats, such as MPEG. In short, ProCoder does a great job of getting multiple formats ready for DVD and the Web.
BOTTOM LINE
Company: Canopus San Jose, Calif.
(888) 899-EDIT
www.canopuscorp.com
Product: ProCoder
Assets: Relatively fast software encoding, especially to MPEG; just-released version 1.2 adds HD resolution support through MPEG-2 Main Profile at High Level (MP@HL) encoding.
Demographic: Cleaner users who will take speedier encoding in exchange for features.
Price: $699
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