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Having purchased an upgrade himself, Labarge had the following to say about
the latest version of HEURIS’ MPEG Power Professional v2.0:
- "MPEG Power Professional v2.0 has the same clean
and intuitive interface as previous releases, providing a nice balance of professional
features and usability."
- The new release, "provides a number of new
features including faster performance, improved image quality, image processing
capabilities, source file concatenation, and closed GOP (Group of Pictures) support."
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Looking closely at the features of MPP2, Labarge noted that "the look
and feel of MPP2 is similar to the previous release." He reviewed the main user
interface, video segment, compression parameters and audio. In the course of his review he
explained that he prefers to use AC-3 rather than MPEG audio compression for DVD titles
because all DVD players are required to support AC-3. Following the MPEG standard, Labarge
pointed out that MPP2 encodes video that allows for the control of a variety of
compression parameters, perhaps even more than necessary.MPP2 supports several formats.
Those formats mentioned include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and Half-D-1 MPEG-2 at the full range of
resolution, frame rates, and television standards of the MPEG standard.
Constant bitrates and variable bitrates are also
supported by MPP2 providing a "good selection of motion vector search
techniques." Global filter settings are provided as well as Inverse Telecine
processing. Labarge noted that unwanted content may be removed from the source prior to
compression through the use of the Source Crop option.
Finally, Labarge reviewed the detailed compression
parameters such as GOP size, closed or open GOP, reference internal, aspect ratios, VBV
size, frame rate, and field/frame (interlaced or progressive) encoding. Looking at the
Multiplex window, Labarge noted the user can control the target data rate to match the
delivery medium, set the type of multiplexing, set stream IDs, and even control the
Initial Clock Reference. For the novice user, the default settings are available also.
To put all this in perspective, Labarge mentions that
MPP2’s performance depends on several different variables including how fast a user
CPU is and what specific compression parameters are being used. For his review, Labarge
used a 500MHz Pentium III running Windows NT 4.0 with 256MB RAM.
Despite the many complimentary things he had to say,
he also stated there is room for improvement. He suggests that future releases include
support for AC-3 audio compression and pan/scan vector supports to allow the use of the
automatic Pan/Scan feature of the DVD-Video format.
Labarge concluded that prospective users looking for a
reasonably priced, high performance software MPEG encoder should take a look at MPP2. For
those already using HEURIS’ MPEG Power Professions, he suggests they "seriously
consider upgrading to MPEG Power Professional v2.0."
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