I have an automated process for generating a time lapse movie from an HD weathercam each day and needed to find a way to use TMPGEnc *unattended* to transcode and (and crop and deflicker) the very large avi file into a final form suitable for uploading to my website. Since I have a project file already defined with all the necessary options that operates on and produces fixed files all I needed was a way to get TMPGEnc to run it automatically *without any operator input*.

Although you can pass a project file and have it load it on startup, a bit of searching led me to understand that there is no other command line interface. So I then looked to see if there was an option for having it automatically start a project file when it's loaded. Unfortunately I didn't find anything even though the corresponding "finishing task" option does exist.

Not willing to give up I put together the following simple vbscript code segment that will launch TMPGEnc with the specified project file and then send the keyboard shortcuts for moving to the Encode window and start the process. The only extra thing it does is to first delete the old previously generated movie to prevent the TMPGEnc UI from hanging with the “file exists, do you want to overwrite” dialog.

Note that this is far from an ideal option and assumes a preexisting project file in a known location and both the input and output files are “hard coded” in that project. Although there is no meaningful error checking and essentially no flexibility, at least it allows the basic unattended operation I needed to allow the encoding job to run automatically in the middle of the night as part of a larger automated process.

Dim outFile, filesys, objShell, objExecObject, cmd

outFile = "I:\time_lapse_capture\mymovie.mp4"
wscript.echo outFile

Set filesys = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

'wscript.echo "checking for old movie"
If (filesys.FileExists(outFile)) Then
wscript.echo "deleting old movie to prevent TMPGEnc dialog"
filesys.DeleteFile outFile
End If

cmd = """C:\Program Files\Pegasys Inc\TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress\TMPGEnc4XP.exe""" & " " & """I:\time_lapse_capture\mymovie.txp4"""

Set objShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

objShell.Exec(cmd)
' wait for program to launch
WScript.sleep 10000

' send the keyboard shortcuts to select the encode window and start the encoding process
objShell.SendKeys("{F8}^+S")

Set objShell = Nothing
Set objExecObject = Nothing

Hopefully this will help others get past the lack of either a command line interface or autostart option.

aaa

I got this software to edit my movies so I can remove the scenes I don't want and keep the scenes that I do. I have the trial version BTW.

I start the software, click "Start a new project" from the Project menu, click "Add file", load the movie I want to edit, then I select Cut-edit, and edit my movie. But I can't find a way to save my edits?

So what's going on here?!?

EDDY :)

You have to output your video in order for the video to actually be edited, otherwise you're not really doing anything. Outputting will not overwrite your original video; instead it will re-encode it to the format you specify in the format stage.

You can also save your project if you don't want to output, but I think that's disabled in the trial version.

How do I output it? I've tried but can't figure out how to do it.

At the top of the main window, there's 4 buttons: Start, Source, Format, and Encode. These are the basic steps to edit and output your video.

If you've edited your video, you're probably at the Source stage.
Now click on the Format button to choose your output format.

Once you chosen your format, you can click on the Encode button and click on the Start Encode button (the round button in the bottom left corner) to start the encoding process.

It's time to reduce the file space being taken by my 13,000 music videos and it is apparent that the mp4 file format will be the eventual winner in the video compression codec wars.

All the older videos are NTSC 4:3 size ratio BUT are being viewed on a high def wide screen 52" monitor.

All the newer videos are NTSC 16:9 size ratio AND are being viewed on a high def wide screen 52" monitor.

My cry for help is hopefully very simple to answer.

A) When converting the 4:3 vids to mp4, what are the ideal settings in TMPG to insure a very high quality audio and video output with the greatest reduction in file size that will maximize the available screen space on a wide screen monitor? Please, be specific, tab by tab, and as simply defined as possible. I'm not too smart.

B) When converting the 16:9 vids to mp4, what are the ideal settings in TMPG to insure a very high quality audio and video output with the greatest reduction in file size that will maximize the available screen space on a wide screen monitor? Please, be specific, tab by tab, and as simply defined as possible. I'm not too smart, remember.

Currently, this is what I'm doing for any video regardless of wide screen or not:

Output Container: Normal

Video:
Profile: Main; Level: Automatic Level 4.1 and less
Size: 720 x 480; Framerate: 29.97
Rate Control: 2 pass variable; Ave bitrate: 3,500; Max bitrate: 10,000; Motion Range: 63; Bitrate Buffer: 0 Auto
Video System: NTSC; Detect Scene Change: unchecked

AVC:
GOP: 33; 8 Frame: 0; Reference Frame: 2
Quantization: I Picture: 24; P Picture: 25, B Picture: 27
Entropy coding mode: CAVLC; Motion Estimation subpel: Quarter pixel

Audio:
Encode: AAC encoder; Sampling rate: 44100; Channel: Stereo; Bitrate: 256; MPEG version: MPEG-4 (ISO/IEC 14496-3)
Object Type: Main; Output format: raw

Other:
Do not create a thumbnail

Thank you for any help, settings advice, and recommendations you may offer.

Answered via support email. Thank all.

You mentioned that your question was answered via support email. Can you provide the answer on this forum?

Thanks.

Suddenly, my TMPGEnc 4 wouldn't play (and embed) the subtitle file that exists in the same folder (and has the same name) than the Avi(divx) file I'm trying to convert. Funny, it used to do that before, when I didn't needed. Now that I need it, it won't work! What could be the cause for this? Is there anything I can do?
Thanks in advance...

Typically subtitles are not automatic. At least, I've never experienced them automatically being added to the video.
You have to activate the subtitle filter and then import your subtitle file, then it should show up.

Yes, I used to be able to watch any movie in any kind of player (mostly GOMplayer) with subtitles, charged automatically by having the same name. That happened too with TMPGEnc, even when I used the subtitle filter and resychronized a subtitle file (mostly in srt): when exporting/converting, BOTH subtitles (edited from the filter, and the srt file) would be interpreted into the video!
In that cases, I used to change the name of the srt file, and re-add the video file... that worked.
But now that the subtitle filter doesn't allow some specifically settings (font, italic, font color, etc.) to be set into different lines of a same srt file (changing layout editor affects all lines), it is no use to me. I finally edited my srt file exactly as I wanted (using Subtitle Workshop), it can be played with GOM Player, but TMPGEnc doesn't play it like it did before! I tried srt files, ass files, ssa files, sub files, txt files, but nothing works... not only with AVI files, but with rmvb files, divx files, xvid files, wmv files...

Finally, I managed to make it right... I used VirtualDub to embed subtitles, and then recoded the avi file . The results were satisfactory. Thanks a lot for the hints! Keep going.

I have a dvd that im trying to format to a 4.7gb size, ive had no problem doing that before but randomly it will stop the output and pop up error 0x80040216 the output has stopped. Then i have to restart and every time the error pops up. does anyone know whats causing this and/or know how to fix it?

In a menu I want to use bullet buttons in front of background text to select chapters.

How do I set a bullet to appear/be visible only when it is the focus?

I don't think there's an easy way to do it, at least, I don't think there's a built in function for it in the menu editor.

The only way I can think of doing it, and this is just a trick (and a theory since I have not actually done it yet), is to make a button image where the bullet is same color as the background. So when the button does not have focus, you wouldn't see the bullet since it's the same as a background, but when it becomes highlighted, it would appear due to the color overlay of the highlight.

Like I said, that's just a trick and not a proper way of doing it, but there's just no official option to add bullets.

Hi All,

I am currently going through a process of converting some old VHS recordings to DVD. I have the recordings on a DVD but would like to improve the picture quality within Xpress 4.0.

Can anyone recommend some basic configuration settings that would help me in this Project and improve the quality. Things like you would normally see with a few lines in the recording from time to time, ghost noise etc. Any ideas or recommendation to start that I can then use as a Template>

Thanks very much,
Richard

These are the filters I recommend taking a look at. Of course, their use will vary depending on the quality of the VHS footage, so you need to adjust the settings until it looks good to you.

Contour:
This is a nice filter to sharpen the image and make details more defined.

Smart Sharpness:
Another good filter for making the image sharper. Avoid the regular Sharpness filter; I can never get it to look good.

Color correction:
If your video is discolored or washed out, this filter can help intensify the colors.

Video noise reduction:
This is good for getting rid of the graininess of a video. Don't overdo it though; if you do, you'll lose fine details.

Ghost reduction:
If you've got some ghosting, this might fix it.

Color phase correction:
Your ghosting might also be caused by color phase misalignment; if so, try this filter.

Anyway, those are the ones I'd try for a VHS transfer. You can see a preview of what these filters do on this page:
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp_feature_filters.html

Hi tkrave,

Many thanks for coming back with the information and link.

I am not sure what to place on each setting and it would take some time and rendering to see the finished effect. With regards to these filters any ideas on what number to at least start with which I can use as a Template basis.

I can then +/- from the base to get the desired result.

Thanks!
Richard

You can actually see the results immediately, no rendering required. Navigate to a place in your video where you can clearly see what you're trying to fix. So if you're trying to fix ghosting, try and find a frame where you can clearly see the ghosting.

Then just enable the filter and play with the settings. You'll see the affects immediately. You probably won't be able to play the video smoothly but just looking at one frame should give you an idea of how it will look.

I have no idea what your video looks like, so you might not even need to use all of those filters. Me guessing what settings to use probably won't help since the settings always depend on the video quality. Just play around with the settings until it looks good to you.

Hey,

Thanks for this, very much appreciated.

The quality seems to be better and is improved over the original recording.

Regards

Hi. I've been using TMPGEnc MPEG Editor since version 1 in 2004.
I have been using version 3 since December 2009. I've not had problems until recently. Tonight, I tried to start version 3.1.2.108 and it crashes at startup every time. I uninstalled version 3.1.2.108 and then installed version 3.2.0.127. Both of those versions crash at startup. I have not tried older version 3.1.1.95, yet.
I am running Windows XP Pro (service pack 3). I wonder if anyone else has seen this crashing? I wonder if some recent Microsoft Update has caused this? Help appreciated! Eric

From what I have seen in this BBS, it looks like TMPGEnc is sensitive to what version of .NET you have on your pc. It now seems very likely that a Microsoft update of .NET poisoned the water for TMPGEnc. It looks like a recent .NET 3.5 service pack update was downloaded by Microsoft Automatic Updates. Is this the culpret?

The bottom line question is, what versions of .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 does TMPGEnc need to work correctly in Windows XP Pro with SP3?

Eric

It might be something else. My TME3 is working okay. I'm also using Win XP SP3 and I've got the most recent version/updates of .NET including the .NET Framework 4 client profile.
I believe for TME3, you need to have at least .NET 3.0.

Not sure what else could be causing the crashing. You should contact user support, because they may know the reason or at least maybe they've had other people reporting the problem.

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/support/support.html

I hope somebody here can help me out. I've got an m2v file which I am trying to turn into a DVD. I am also trying to include 2 audio tracks - 1 lpcm, 1 AC3. Here are the bitrates they are encoded in (according to mediainfo):

m2v - 7243 Kbps (9800 Kbps)
lpcm - 1536 Kbps, 48.0 KHz
AC3 - 448 Kbps, 48.0 KHz

I am making a DVD-9.

Here's the problem: With these 3 files loaded into DVD Author 3, here is the warning I get when trying to iutput the DVD:

"The clip's total bitrate is too high for a DVD-Video.
The Clip current total bitrate is 11784 Kb/s. However, in a DVD-Video the clip total bitrate should be lower than 9848 Kb/s.
If you ignore the alerts the DVD_Video you build will not conform to the DVD_Video standard. Do you wish to continue anyway?"

This makes no sense to me. I have used 2 different bitrate calculators to come up with the recommended bitrate for the video file, taking into consideration the total bitrate of both audio files. One recommended 7550 Kbps maximum bitrate for the video and the other recommended 7768 Kbps max, so I went with 7600 max bit rate. If you add the video and audio bitrates I listed above together, you will get 9227 Kbps.

So why is DVD Author 3 telling me the total is 11784 Kbps? That's what you get if you add the 9800 bitrate displayed in mediainfo in parentheses with both audio tracks. But it shouldn't be doing that should it? Gspot lists the m2v video bitrate as 7552 Kbps. So add 7552(m2v) + 1536(lpcm) + 448(AC3), and you get 9576 Kbps, still under the 9848 Kbps max that DVD Author 3 mentions.

So should I just completely ignore the warning and still make the DVD anyways? Why does mediainfo list 9800 Kbps in parentheses if it says the bitrate is 7243 Kpbs? Any advice would be much appreciated.

I would just make the dvd anyway and ignore the warning.

I have a source that is 854 x 480 which I converted to an NTSC DVD compliant MPEG (720 x 480) with 16:9 aspect ratio. I then used that MPEG file as the source file and authored a 16x9 format DVD using TDA3. What I notice when viewing the DVD on a widescreen 16x9 TV is that it fills the screen with no black borders, and a little bit of the original content is cropped from each side and the top and bottom with no visible aspect ratio distortion. My question is how does it go from an 854x480 to 720x480 without any aspect ratio distortion or black borders? Thanks.

854x480 is pretty much 16:9 (not exactly perfect, but close enough).

You'll also notice that 720x480 is NOT 16:9.

What the DVD-Video format does is it applies different pixel aspect ratios depending on the format of the video (widescreen vs. 4:3). So for a widescreen video, it's actually stretching the pixels to the 16:9 ratio, and conversely squashing the pixels if the video is 4:3.

So this results in an image that should look 16:9 even though the actual pixel dimensions are not. Since your original video was 16:9 and not wider, it does not require black bars to be added when viewed on a 16:9 TV/monitor.

Thanks tkrave for the great explanation.

I have created & burned DVD-TV disc - for 16:9 HD.

Tech. info:
1.Videos were created from Photodex Producer as HD-1080i - MPEG-2 Video
2.The is was runt hru XPRESS 4.0 with several Filters output was MPEG-2, interlaced, 1440x816, frame rate: 29.97
3.These files were inserted into Authoring 4 - and Menu was created.

Tested several different settings, came up with one, which LOOK GREAT on TV (16:9 - HD flat screen) and DVD-player (very geneneric) at home.
Photos were sharp, colors same as on photographs, details were good - no pixelation.
(It look good on both Menus & the photo/slides)

Burned the DVD, thourougly checked it several times - it played also well on computers.

MAILED it TO CLIENT ... he called yesterday - result on his Office TV was a DISASTER !!! - Blurred photos, colors distorted toward yellow, details blending into patches, even the Menu was blurred ...

QUESTION #1:
WHY it is playing so good on one TV with DVD player - on so horrible on other??

Question #2:
HOW to find some "generic" settings ??

Thanks in advance for any advice on this problem.

Alexandra

Can your client try it on some other TV? I don't see how it can play well on your TV and computer but not display properly on their TV. The only thing I can think of is that their DVD player is not decoding the video properly.

Did you change any track settings in Authoring Works 4? By default, the settings are pretty standard/generic so there shouldn't be any problems with the settings as long as they weren't changed.

Thank you very much for your reply.

My client said, he will try it on more DVD & TV at home.
(He said, he's got about 6 (six) (!!!) of them there...)'

As for your quote: "I don't see how it can play well on your TV and computer but not display properly on their TV. " ... that was my assumption, that once it will play on our ($25- 1 year old) DVD player - it will play without problem anywhere else.

As for "settings" - I'm very much novice to any tranfer from: "Computer-to-TV" jargon or terminology.

I did about 25 different settings (about 25 hours - 3 days) ... (well documented on paper, especialy ones, they did NOT work....) - untill I've got one setting , which worked well on OUR TV/DVD PLAYER.

I'm baffled and confused .... Is this MY problem,(some sttings not done properly ... is this CLIENT problem - something changed on HIS TV/PLAYER ....

... until this will be sorted / solved / discovered "HOW & WHY" ...
regardless how my Slideshows/Photoshows are GREAT ...

I do not dare to approach another potential customer - for fear of getting same response / reaction again ...

**********************************************************************
**********************************************************************

Are we getting ahead of ourselves, technology and computer capabilities ???

... I'm thinking of "poor Leonardo DaVinci" .. and his dreams of helicopter... Just 300 years too early ...

********************************************************************

Comfused & very greatfull for any responce or ideas:

Alexandra

Did you save this project? Can you open it up again in Authoring Works 4 and tell me what the track settings are?

To find out the track settings, go to the Source Stage and in the track list on the left side of the window, click on the "Settings" button for your track(s).
A new window should open. Click on the "Video" tab. If you've changed any of these settings, list what you've changed. Likewise for the "Audio" tab.

If you haven't changed anything, then the problem might be something else.

Thank you for your reply,
I'll check it out as you've suggested.

What type of connection is he using between the DVD player and the TV?

There is a very wide range of playback and display quality depending on the the players, the make and model of set, any upscaling implemented, and the type of connection (RF, composite, s-video, component, HDMI). What looks good on one combinationmay not look good on another. Also, folsk who have gotten used to HD material will fond SD material looks, well, poor. Viewing via a RF or composite connction is about the worst, especially if the color space pushes the limit of the TV standard.

I am trying to install the latest demo version
of TMPGend Authoring Works 4.

The installshield setup runs, then an error message
appears:

Error 1714. The older version of TMPGenc Authoring
Works 4 Trial Version cannot be removed. Contact
your technical support group.

Then the install wizard finishes.

I installed a demo version of TMPGenc a year or so ago,
and had removed it.

I have searched my computer for remnants of the program,
and removed them, but still the error message appears.

Can anyone please suggest a solution?

had the same problem
solution is download "windows installer cleanup utility" search google.
find tmpg references and delete them. 1714 is a windows installer error. not the program itself. now install should be fine.

>had the same problem
>solution is download "windows installer cleanup utility" search google.
>find tmpg references and delete them. 1714 is a windows installer error. not the program itself. now install should be fine.

this also worked for all the installation errors i was getting like
"wizard was interrupted", cannot install, invalid installer, cant find "tmpg..._.msi" no matter how many times i browsed for it and told it exactly where it was!...package corrupt, etc.