INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: jolo on February 24, 2005, 07:33:25 pm
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:D
I have been a Media Jukebox customer years back and now I have paid to small upgraade fee for MC 11.0.198, the latest Besta which I am trying to use.
In General I use Nero for backing up DVD, SVCD, VCD. I also use Divx for backing my VOB files.
I usually use MC for audio backup ripping and encoding to different formats, like Oog Vorbis and APE.
Both products are certainly doing the "Swiss Army Knife Thing"
I would like to know how yu feel about comparing, particulary on the Audio side differences in quality beteen Nero and MC. With regard to ripping, encoding and encoding to APE, Oog and WAV, then burning to conventional .CDA formats .
On the Video end, I'll use Divx a lot as well as the Shrink capacity of Nero. Plus, if I am backing up a single sided DVD, I stay withing DVDDecrypter which to em is one of the most amazing products. I like to call it Donationware, rather than Freeware.
Unfortunately as mentioned earlier, MC doesn't seem to get much discussions. That has nothingto do with quality of course, to me it means, people in marketing and all of us as well could do a better job of mentioning MC in some of the major forums.
But how to people honestly feel about quality and speed differences between Nero and MC, audio first, then video.
Oh yes, I have three theories about most of the multimedia products in general.
- I believe that in general people "fall in love with" the software that they are using and know the best. Therefore most opinions are not objective.
Since the year 2000, when offshoring became the rage to evade paying taxes in the U.S. for large multi-nationals. Not only has Tech support been absolutely brutal (rxample is Palmone),. But real IT innovation has basically stopped since then Much of hardware has been made faster, greater capacities, maybe better batteries, smaller, prices better in many things. The development of the most over-rated and non-inovated Ipod. The U.S. not enforcing tax and anti-trust laws. Free market with no competition = no innovaton. Where is HDTV on every TV set?? Firefox has forced the "Dark Side" to do something. But I will stay with open source.
When I read in some of the highly technical forums, like Hydrogen and that wild and crazy Zoom9. It appeara that hours and hours are spent splitting hairs about quality of formats, nitpicking on MP3 or Vorbis settings. I think it is getting like Coke and Pepsi.
The most important thing with various formats I believe is the quality of the hardware playing the multimedia, not so much the software anymore.
First I loved all of the experimentation with a million products with multi-media, especially video. BUT, it seems to me that forums like Zoom 9 and VCDHELP really get into making relatively simple processes extremely complex where you need five or six products to to male the encoding more "perfect" , and I read about this person doing like 6-10 passes when he bakes up a movie and likes to take 48 hours to get this done. Doesn't anyone like "Keep it simple" and make add complexity for true functional reasons. I read one string where there were heavy personal battles over how to encode with MP3 and different customized versions. Then someone calmly brought up after a few pages that these big time people were fussing over frequencies that the human ear cannot hear.
I think we make a bettyer world by NOT using Apple and Microsoft products who are starting to control the audio download industry. Demand with players that they support some open source codecs like APE, Oog Vorbis, etc. Don't use anything that starts with a W.
Only purchase DVDs that allow for MPEX4 compressed formats and open source audio. At least in the states, the highest priced named products are the most expensive, the least flexable, don't allow for firmware upgrades and place the least amount of formats.
End of Rant. !! Let customers, not multi-million dollar corporations who exploit people from all over the world "win" because of their endless dollars and ability to send their lobbyists to Congress to stifle innovation and creativity.
You will never find the truth in U.S. based and censored media. An exception is my hero Lou Dobbs on nightly on CNN. Plus some alternative sites like Alternet.com. I much prefer the Guardian Unlimited, Michaelmoore.com, and various other media newspapers in India, Australila and South America. Many times google news leads me to sites which actually don't quote "unnamed sources" or say "It has been said that ...?
Jon
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For Video encoding, Nero is state of the art. In fact so much so that MC11 cant (yet) handle the files created. But the quality of the video files you get with Nero even using high compression rates is simply amazing!
This is hopefully something the MC11 team will take up swiftly, although I have to admit that my previous posts adressing this point merely triggered lukewarm response from the team...
For audio ripping, MC11 has a very decent ripper and I use it to rip most my CD's in secure mode using MC11 (into lossless APE format). I am sure Nero is pretty good at this as well, but as I have all my adio under MC11, this is just a convenience factor given that the ripper of MC11 is good.
I use Exact Audio Copy for more troublesome CD's (scratches etc..) where MC11 sometimes struggles and EAC still delivers the better results.
B
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MC is a great music organiser - Nero does nothing in this respect.
For ripping MC is much better than Nero.
For CD burning I use Nero 100% of the time. It is a great app in this respect and very few bugs exist.
I've found MC regularly has problems with track boundaries when burning mp3 to audio CD. Also data CD's in Nero play on every DVD player I've tried - whilst MC produced ones don't.
In summary, MC for everything except CD burning where Nero is better I feel.
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You say "MC11 is a great music organizer"
Yes. Absolutely right. Nobody is questioning this. But:
This software is Called MEDIACenter not MUSICCenter, ie. MEDIA is more than just music. This also includes VIDEO files. And for that, MC11 is simply not that great as it does not support some of the latest H.263 / H.264 /AVC video codeces.
B
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When the latest video codec becomes a little more main stream, we'll take a look at supporting it. Thanks for your input.
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I’ve found MC to be a very competent ripper, most of my ape files were encoded with MC. The quality is the same as nero as it is the same plugin. However many of my cd’s are getting worn and I get to many error in MC so I use Plextools for them. PT allows me to control how my plextor drive handles read errors. I have saved some pretty bad cd’s using PT.
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It appears to me what most are saying is that Nero is superior in every way, burning and ripping, except for organization.
I have in the past taken a few audio CDs that wouldn't rip in MC , then moved them into Nero and there was no problem.
On the video end, I agree, it is not even a basis for comparison.
It is hard for me to fince MC even discussed on most f the popular CD Audio forums.
Have people used Neromix for Audio and Showtime for Video (althoug Showtime plays audio as well).
I am starting to really like Showtime due to its quality and NeroMix seems to give a lot of options.
Any thoughts.
A giant edge for MC though is the strength of the product support.
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I haven't been able to comment this thread because I don't have Nero 6. I have been using Nero 5.5 for years and I have been satisfied with what it can do. However, I would like to ask some questions now.
It appears to me what most are saying is that Nero is superior in every way, burning and ripping, except for organization.
How about handhelds, support for several audio formats (besides Nero AAC), networked PCs (library server), statistics, etc. How exactly Nero has changed after 5.5? Has it become a multi-purpose jukebox program?
http://I have in the past taken a few audio CDs that wouldn't rip in MC , then moved them into Nero and there was no problem.
More details, please. Were they copy protected or too damaged for secure ripping? The good thing with MC is that you'll know if the CD is damaged. If the secure ripping is not successful MC warns you. That gives you a chance to try whatever you've got. You can also use the Normal mode in MC if you are willing to accept the possible read errors. Quite often small errors are not audible.
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I'm locking this thread. This is not the place for a general discussion of software available on the Internet.