Bababoom is advertised as the best of both worlds when it comes to video encoding - Fast and High Image Quality. Right now, I honestly have to say it really only lives up the to Fast portion of this advertised benefit.
It's speed is further put in question when one intentionally degrades the quality of their encoding to match the output of Bababoom's. This is not to say when this is done a dual or quad core CPU can match the speed of a good GPU (GTX 260 in my case) but when put directly in comparison with one another, the advantage is not as great. And if one had to pick which to go with, you'd have to go with the slower CPU encode which is provides better IQ. This is probably less of an issue when somebody encodes for a portable media player but if you're going for an HD encode, where you'd see the most benefit from Bababoom, the IQ is simply not acceptable.
Set to max settings for everything (this results in a file size larger than the DVD source even) the Image Quality appears even poorer than real-time decoding playback. The reason for this is mainly your Deinterlacing is not effective - at least not on all video sources. This results in Interlaced lines showing, jagged edges and breaking up the image whenever there is motion which gives the overall feel of the Image Quality to be very poor. However, the actual color quality and image smoothness is pretty good.
I don't know what Deinterlacing methods Bababoom uses under the hood since it's just a switch option. I suspect the application likely only has one method which results in it being only effective for one type of interlaced video. Here is a list of Deinterlacers I know of which I feel you should include a few of to make good on claims of Fast & High Image Quality:
Decimating
Decimating Anime
Film
Interlaced
Leave Interlaced
Partly Film
Partly Interlaced
Progressive
Safe
An Auto-Feature would also be good since most people won't know which to choose from.
Please consider making these changes as proper Deinterlacing will visually improve quality to an exceptional level.
Thank you.
