just wondering.

i checked out the official website and saw they are selling the new HD encoder. the only downfall is the price.

$70.000 wow!

so i was thinking. does anybody actually know how good it actual is , or worked with and why it is so expensive compared to other encoders like coreAVC for example.

it is more intrest as hobbyist. because i would never ever by a encoder for $ 70.000 :)

Coreavc is an compressor now? I thought it only decoded files.

Is that $70K or $70?

$75K is the current price. :eek:

CoreAVC is a decoder only. And it's not the best quality one out there, that's why it's so fast compared to other ones like FFDshow.

It would be interesting to see a comparison between the $75K Cinecraft encoder, the Mainconcept H264 encoder included with the $800 Adobe Premiere Pro, and the free, open-source x264 encoder.

The 75K price tag is not just for the encoder. Encoders are software and software is not that expensive. What you're REALLY paying for is the endless amount of licensing of one kind or another that is included.

You can get cheaper encoders that work just as well..... but then you have to live with the various license restrictions that exist.

The 75K price tag is not just for the encoder. Encoders are software and software is not that expensive. What you're REALLY paying for is the endless amount of licensing of one kind or another that is included.
Professional software really is that expensive. It can be priced anything folks want. For example, unless something has changed, a Flash server that serves large number of users was around $200,000. Of course, it is just "software." :)

It is true however that when codecs are used for professional applications, they incur orders of magnitude higher royalties. I thought this was $1,500 but I can't seem to find it in AVC terms.

You can get cheaper encoders that work just as well..... but then you have to live with the various license restrictions that exist.
I think you are thinking of the commercial software that is priced two different ways depending on feature set from the same company. Here though, there are companies which produce "mass market" software which because of their higher volume, price their software much, much lower than professional ones.

Of note, the market for encoders being used to create optical discs numbers at most, in hundreds of units over the lifetime of the product! This is the top reason for their high cost. And even then, it doesn't make economic sense for the most part to be in that business. A single shop buying half a dozen seats, can take care of the needs of multiple studios....

thanks for the answers.

i bought CCE basic some time ago, to add cam stuff on dvd. like avi to mpeg2. costed only $60 bucks :)

since i read so many good things about CCE and it worked great for the small stuff i wanted to do. so i was checking just incase i wanted to buy a HD cam and encode to AVC.

and i was thinking to buy that cinecraft HD encoder. that was until i saw the price lol.

actually i do not have any experience with HD encoding. what if i want to encode uncompressed avi to AVC. what kind of encoder would i need? or do handycams that automatic these days?

actually i do not have any experience with HD encoding. what if i want to encode uncompressed avi to AVC. what kind of encoder would i need? or do handycams that automatic these days?
I think for your use, you would want any number of the free AVC encoders out there. I have not kept up with them so can't recommend one but a quick look in the HTPC forum or input from others here should point you in the right direction.

The professional encoders have a steep learning curve since they are designed with hand-holding/support in mind.

thanks for the answers.

i bought CCE basic some time ago, to add cam stuff on dvd. like avi to mpeg2. costed only $60 bucks :)

since i read so many good things about CCE and it worked great for the small stuff i wanted to do. so i was checking just incase i wanted to buy a HD cam and encode to AVC.

and i was thinking to buy that cinecraft HD encoder. that was until i saw the price lol.

actually i do not have any experience with HD encoding. what if i want to encode uncompressed avi to AVC. what kind of encoder would i need? or do handycams that automatic these days?

I am not sure if this is related, but I use VideoStudio to create AVCHD discs from my HD camcorder video. It is extremely easy, and since much of the footage is already in the AVCHD format, it usually does not re-encode it.

I also use the software to create HD DVDs on DVD-Rs and am waiting for them to support VC-1. I know the developer's kit was released recently.

you mean ulead VideoStudio everdog?

i am checking that out now on the website. also nice price too $60 bucks.

thanks for the input. amirm/everdog.

There are several consumer encoders out there... Ulead Video studio, Ulead DVD Movie Factory, Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas (both consumer and pro versions) and Nero.

All of these with exception to Sony (only does avchd for BD) will do both AVCHD disks for BD and HD DVD disks for the Tosh players and they will encode with DD5.1 sound if you need.

you mean ulead VideoStudio everdog?

i am checking that out now on the website. also nice price too $60 bucks.

thanks for the input. amirm/everdog.

Yes, that is the one. As bigbarney mentioned, there are others too. If you have a panasonic BD player or a PS3, an AVCHD disc plays just like like a BD one. Since DVD-Rs are cheap, I usually make 2 AVCHD discs and 2 HD DVD discs for each of my home movies.

The PS3 will also play M2T files copied straight to dvd media (M2T files are the native captured files from HD cams such as the Sony HC3, HC5, HC7, and Canon HV20), which is kind of nice since there is no rendering involved (no losses do to rewriting/converting)

AVCHD is nice because you can get more on a disk but there is always rendering involved so you suffer a small bit of quality loss.

The Cinemacraft AVC encoder is a complete HW/SW solution. It is a multi-core PC. It has HD-SDI inputs for content injestion. It has lots and lots and lots of filters for NR/EE, etc... For QC, it performs a full decode first. Then you playback the decoded file to QC. This way you get real-time playback over HD-SDI.

Only one project at a time can be done on the Cinemacraft. However, it is cheap relative to the other professional encoders from Sony, Toshiba, Thompson and MEI. I mention these as they are the primary encoders used for HD optical. Sonic has their SW encoder, along with re-selling Sony's AVC encoder. I believe Saw and Saw 2 were encoded with Sonic.

Ratatouille was encoded on the Cinemacraft. It does well on animation. All of the filters were disabled when it was encoded. The 10-bit to 8-bit conversion was actually done using Microsoft technology instead of Cinemacraft's.

If you encounter a BD disc that uses AVC for the main feature and VC-1 for the extras, the main feature most likley used Thompsons AVC encoder.