[MikeyMoves]

I have this app and I am not exactly sure why I bought it. I do some video editing and stuff, but now I am getting into creating (s)vcd's and dvd's. I have tried to use the encoders but they take WAY too long. I have been getting rates like " at this rate...1min will encode in 12 minutes yada yada" Am I doing something wrong? Can someone who uses this app tell me what they mainly use it for?

Thanks!

[jcarr]

Cleaner 5 is great for producing movies for the web. It does batch production, and creates multi-run movies for various bandwitch, etc.

It may be a bit of overkill for all but the serious high0end user. I use Sørenson Squeeze myself.

http://www.sorenson.com/

[pkjackson]

YES....I also find Cleaner WAY TO SLOW to be a usable program!!!!

[ph@lmi.net]

you mean cleaner is slower than after effects, or final cut pro, or quicktime, due to some application overhead or something?

or that re-encoding quicktime video files is too time consuming in general?

Cleaner 5.0.2 is great for making MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files, since that is the best
version and fastest version. Cleaner 5.1.1 is the latest version, but it does not
display anything in the Output window anymore when encoding and also has a white
Preview window unless you close the Project window before, so it is hard to
use and it is impossible to see when encoding is finished.

3-4 minutes of DV source is encoded on my iMac DV with 400MHz G3 in 3-5 hours with
Cleaner 5.0.2, but took 10 hours or more with Cleaner 5.1. MPEG-2 files also end
up much brighter in Cleaner 5.1 and higher which makes dark areas become
gray, even if you use Black Restore.

Maybe Cleaner 5.2 will be better some day.

[MikeyMoves]

Well, I used Cleaner to convert an MPEG-2 SVCD to DV so I can edit it in FCP( anyone know a quicker way to do something like this??) and it took me about 6 hours to encode 50 minutes worth of MPEG-2 data to a DV file. That wasn't so bad and the quality actually kicked ass.

[kidtexas]

Originally posted by MikeyMoves:
<STRONG>Well, I used Cleaner to convert an MPEG-2 SVCD to DV so I can edit it in FCP( anyone know a quicker way to do something like this??) and it took me about 6 hours to encode 50 minutes worth of MPEG-2 data to a DV file. That wasn't so bad and the quality actually kicked ass.</STRONG>

anyone know how to do the exact opposite of what was just described? FCP (or iMovie) -&gt; MPEG-2 -&gt; SVCD?

[MikeyMoves]

Originally posted by kidtexas:
<STRONG>

anyone know how to do the exact opposite of what was just described? FCP (or iMovie) -&gt; MPEG-2 -&gt; SVCD?</STRONG>

Okay, here goes.

Export the FCP or iMovie to a .Mov file so you can open in it in quicktime. Then, you need the MPEG-2 codec supplied with Cleaner or DVDSP to encode the .mov file to MPEG-2 by using Quicktime Pro's export to feature. From there you can use a program to extract the bin and cue file from the MPEG-2 file ( I think these are mostly PC apps that are Freeware * VCDimager*) Drop the Bin file into Toasts's Multitrack CD-ROM section and you should burn a compliant SVCD. Be warned though, most stand alone DVD players do NOT read SVCD's. There may be an easier all mac way to do this, but this is the only way I know.