Optibase MM200S Publisher DE review

On paper, the Optibase MM200S Publisher DE is an impressive beast, offering real-time capture and encoding to DVD, SVCD and VCD-compliant Mpeg streams.

It even provides device control for professional editing decks and a Dolby digital audio encoder. However, this encoding board is likely to cost more than your Power Mac and software combined, weighing in at around $11,000. This is a high-end product, and even its more feature-light versions - which range in price from $3500 to $9000 - will be well beyond the reach of enthusiasts.

The MM200S Publisher is a chunky half-length PCI board and PCI cover, providing AV output for output monitoring. Video ports on the main capture board are BNC connections that accommodate composite, S-Video and digital SDI feeds, and an additional D-15 connector for audio input. All the necessary cables and adaptors are provided, but there's no support for component video-input, which should have been offered by such an expensive card.

Also frustrating is the discovery that it will only encode from incoming video capture and can't work from files already on the hard drive. For editors, this means that projects must leave the digital domain to be encoded by the board. It could be argued that the MM200S Publisher is intended for use by companies whose clients will be bringing along media on tape, but we would have liked to see a little more versatility in its feature set. The limitation also prevents the encoder from interfacing with Final Cut Pro for direct Mpeg export, and there's no way to pass chapter-marking decisions to the board. HDV users will be doubly maddened at the need to downsample work to an S-Video feed to be processed.

On the audio front, the board provides connections for balanced and unbalanced sound, as well as accommodating digital XLR feeds. The kit also comes with a USB controller device so it can control professional editing decks in the same way FireWire controls DV devices.

As long as you have a compatible, controllable video deck, the board is capable of batch encoding. A list of files is created, in which you specify names, source tapes and timecode start and end points of the media you want to import. The Mpeg Composer application provides a good choice of encoding parameters, crunching for SVCD and VCD as well as DVD.

For DVD-compliant files, the software allows constant or variable bit-rate encoding with a free choice of average and maximum bit rates, as long as they don't exceed DVD specifications. You can select aspect ratio and video standard, and there are three DVD-compliant frame resolutions. 'Scene detection' is also an option. Rather than dividing the capture into smaller files, however, the feature places an I-frame at each cut it detects, helping to keep the encode clean and enabling more accurate placement of chapter markers later. You can adjust brightness, contrast and saturation for the incoming feed, along with levels for left and right audio channels, and results are displayed in a monitor window.

This version of the MM200S allows Dolby AC-3 encoding, as well as supporting PCM and Mpeg audio. Dolby audio capture isn't the board's most crucial feature, as encoding with Apple's A.Pack works quickly from PCM files and yields good results, but it's a bonus nonetheless, and helps to greatly streamline busy workloads. It only offers mono and stereo sound, although this comes in different flavours, including 'dual mono' and 'intensity stereo'. It also provides a Dolby pass-through function for audio that has already been mixed and encoded on the master tape - naturally, this can only be imported via the digital audio channel, and it supports multi-channel surround sound, too.