digigami or compressor?

I have been trying out demos of all compressor competition and have found digigami does the best job for my specific project. BitVice does everything except the darker shots well. Can anyone shed light on their findings of the Digigami MPEG2 encoder?

If you perform a seach in this forum, you'll find lots of stuff. Be prepared to be surprised, though. Some notorious compression experts, like Ben Waggonner, have pointed out that, at least in terms of visual quality, Compressor's MPEG-2 encoding is superior to Digigami's or BitVice's. He said Compressor 2 is the best encoder on the Mac, period. I am not a notorious compression expert, but my experience confirms that view IMHO, there's always a bit of the "it comes for free and others are charging for it, so it can't be good" syndrome. Other users, I think Hal was one of them, expressed other valid concerns outside the scope of visual quality, like a degree of unreliability in terms of final bit rate, which I feel got better in version 2.

The truth is that final quality depends as much in the source material's quality as it does on the encoder. Underexposed or handheld shots, or heavily compressed materials like 4:1:1 DV NTSC, are never going to look really nice with an old, interframe technology like MPEG-2.

I really like BitVice. I used it a lot in the DVD SP 1.x days. At that time, Apple's original encoder was really bad. When the new encoder (DVD SP 2 and later) came out, I felt there wasn't a need for a third party encoder anymore. At least for DVD authoring, I mean. Compressor really shines at the difficult stuff: small typography, gradients, busy graphics, etc. Neither Compressor nor Digigami can cope with those things like it. Plus, for whatever unfair reasons related to how Apple can access their own Quicktime technolgies and other developers can't, the color fidelity is really good.

Compressor 2 (like any encoding tool) requires some experience and testing to get the most out of it, but its' quality is pretty much the best you can expect from software MPEG-2 encoding at DVD bit rates. Now, with the Intel Macs and Boot Camp, the field is open for trying other encoding options like Cinemacraft and Procoder. Those could be tough competition for Compressor. In my opinion, again, the other Mac options aren't.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

I have now tested all three with a short documentary project i am working on and have concluded the following results- some slightly varied from what you've said about Compressor:

Bitvice- overall great quality, but gamma correction fluctuates on certain scenes, causing a strange iris effect on the subject in darker situations...

Compression Master- Fairly good quality but they admit their files aren't compatible at most bit rates with DVDSP for some reason

Digigami- Best quality on darker stuff that BitVice seems to have the gamma issue with, but troublesome dissolves

MainConcept- too dark, tougher color replication

Compressor- best color, as you say, but the dissolves are chunky and the blacks aren't that crisp- I've compressed using the DVD 90 minute setting and then trying CBR and VBR alternately with little difference....

Wish there was an easy answer to this because I've spent three weeks trying to get this right and I'm on the verge of just buying a hardware encoder or sending out the whole project....

I would suggest that you don't think hardware encoders are the total answer.

Look at it this way. A hardware board has certain capabilities driven by a computer. A computer has those capabilities by itself. except that it will take longer to finish a job. The issue's you speak of are probably driven by wild background color changes or stark black to white lit scenes. At least that is what I imagine you are dealing with.

I have used Compressor for everything I do and it does take some time and trials to get the output you need. CBR-VBR and 2-Pass VBR all affect the output in different ways. Compressor has the tools to adjust gamma settings and control the encode in many ways. Maybe not as many settings as Cleaner, but certainly the settings are more relevant.

You may possibly want to send this encode to someone who has the necessary experience to give you what you want. Again - I would warn you that what is good enough for one person is not to another.

In FCP's or Compressor's timeline, place a compression marker (regular marker in Compressor) in the middle of the defective dissolve. That will help, because it will force a new I-frame. However, if you go and rent or buy a doumentary DVD shot on video, you're very likely to see the same kind of thing



Post Edited (07-25-06 12:53)

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com