TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress released including various new features

May 20, 2004

rendez2k and H-EvA-K both used our news submit to tell us that Pegasys Inc. has released TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress. This new version adds several new features which include native MPEG 1 and 2 (inc. unprotected VOB), unprotected Windows Media, uncompressed AVI and QuickTime input. Its interface has also been redesigned to suit beginners. it makes use of
Intel's Prescott SSE-3 acceleration for MPEG encoding where available.

Its MPEG 1/2 encoding engine has been redesigned to give better audio & video quality and a 5% to 30% speed improvement. It includes the other processing features and filters of TMPGEnc 2.5 Plus as well as native support for Windows Media Video, AC3 audio output and XDVD (eXtended DVD) support for higher DVD video compression and quality (may not be supported with certain DVD player models).

TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress can be purchased as a standalone encoder or with extra features such as AC-3 audio plug-in, DVD Authoring or both together. Its minimum hardware requirements are a 1GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 1024x768 display, 100MB space and an Internet connection during usage for periodic license verification. Software requirements include Windows 2000/XP only, Windows Media Player 9 and DirectX 8 or higher.

TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress is a High quality MPEG-1/2 encoder software based on the famous "TMPGEnc Plus 2.5" and completely reworked to offer beginner and advanced users, the ease of work and quality that can be expected from a modern software. TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress natively supports source files in MPEG-1/2 format, unprotected DVD-Video VOB, Windows Media VideoÂ®, uncompressed AVI and QuickTimeÂ® files.

Furthermore, the code has been optimized to take advantage of the IntelÂ® PrescottÂ® SSE-3 acceleration to output MPEG files with higher performance and without losing quality. Output format is no more limited to MPEG,

TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress offers native interface for Windows Media VideoÂ® and also a Pegasys brewed eXtended DVD format pushing the DVD-Video standard to its limits.
*TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress is compatible with the TMPGEnc Sound Plug-in AC-3.

Easy to use thanks to the new Technical Wizard
High-quality and optimized TMPGEnc Advance MPEG 1/2 Encode Engine
New Video Mastering Engine (VME) unit for high performance cut-edit and audio/video filtering
TMPGEnc Sound Plug-in AC-3 architecture compatible.

Visit Pegasys Inc. here for further information and to download a trial version.

TMPGEnc has been known as one of the best MPEG 1.0 video encoders availble and has been very popular when it came to creating Video CDs. TMPGEnc originally started as a freeware MPEG 1 & 2 encoder, but dropped free MPEG 2 support due to licensing issues. Since then, they released a commercialised 'plus' version with MPEG 2 support although at a very reasonable price at that time.

TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress has have overcome most of the missing features of its predecessors such as native MPEG 2 and VOB source input as well as DVD authoring with AC-3 support with the additional plug-in options. I find it disappointing that they decided to go deeper into commercialising their products. TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress with DVD Authoring support costs US$ 106.00 which is now over double that of even Ahead's AV and DVD-authoring suite. Finally, there is no freeware edition of TMPGEnc 3.0 Express and an Internet connection is now essential while using the product for it to periodically verify its license!

Feel free to discuss and read more about TMPGEnc and video encoding on our Video (e.g. MPEG-4), (S)VCD Editing and Authoring Forum. Visit the Pegasys Inc. website here.

Source: Pegasys Inc.