I have been using DVD Author 3 for a few years with no problems. My sister-in-law gave me MPEG-4 clips of her vacation which are HD. I wanted to put the clips together, add subtitles, and burn them to a DVD that can be viewed in a regular DVD player. Everything goes the same as usual until I start the output. About an hour into the output, which it says is 17% done, the process stops and I get the error message:
>Could not initialize QuickTime (-9461).
Thinking that the problem was with QuickTime, I installed the newest version, but that did not solve the problem.
Is there some setting that needs to be changed when working with HD videos? Does DVD Author 3 work with HD MPEG-4 clips?

When you import the file, what file reader is being used?

You can see the file reader in the Clip Properties window that appears right after you import the file.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2llmygy.png
(this screenshot is from Authoring Works 4, but it's pretty much the same in DVD Author 3).

When I import a MPEG-4, the DirectShow file reader is the one that is being used.

QuickTime file reader was used.

Thank you for the screenshot. That helped me locate the information.

There's a couple of things you can try.

1) Open QuickTime Player (Windows Start menu-->QuickTime-->QuickTime Player). Then open the preferences (Edit-->Preferences-->QuickTime Preferences). In the QuickTime Preferences window go to the Advanced tab and make sure the box is checked for "Enable encoding using legacy codecs". If it's already checked, or if this doesn't fix the error you're getting, try option 2:

2) Disable the QuickTime file reader.
In DVD Author 3, go to the Preferences (Options-->Preferences), then go to the File Input plug-in section (Input format list-->File input plug-in). You should see a list of the file readers. Uncheck the QuickTime file reader and click the OK button to confirm your settings.
This should force your MPEG-4 file to be read by a different file reader, most likely the DirectShow file reader. Try and import your file. If you get an error that the video or audio part can't be opened, then you'll need to install some codecs. ffdshow will probably do the trick, and you might need Haali Media Splitter if you don't have that either.

Thank you very much, tkrave. Option 2 worked.

I really appreciate your help in getting my DVD Author 3 to work with the MPEG-4 files. We ended up with a nice DVD.

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I specifically downloaded tmpenc express to change the playback speed on films & lectures, basically speed them up, are there any options as i cant see this anywhere in the demo i've downloaded

No options to alter playback speed in filters or options

Which is surprising even VLC allows you to change the playback speed decoding ...

As far as I know, only TMPGEnc MovieStyle can speed up or slow down the playback speed (of all the TMPGEnc products).

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tms_feature.html
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the "Time Stretch" feature.

If you learn some of the basics of AviSynth, you can easily write an .avs file with whatever you want to do - such as change the speed (& lower the pitch), crop, fade, etc... TMPGEnc AW4 & XPress both import .avs files, along with most other encoding programs that will accept an .avi file.

I am trying to create mp4 file from my AVCHD camera clips. I can create mp4 file, but I cannot find any way to create chapters in the mp4 file. Can TmpGenc Express 4 do that?

As far as I know, there is no way to make chapters with an mp4 file, as the format does not support it (it's like trying to make chapters with an AVI file)

That's not entrily true. Next to TmpgEnc I've been using an application named Handbrake. That can create chapters for your mp4 files.

You can mark keyframes in 4.0 XPress, but I'm not sure if they can be turned into chapters for mp4 files.

1. Convert .vob to .m2v
Advanced Tools -> MPEG tool -> Demultiplexer

2. Clip addition source
From a file -> browse where the new .m2v file is -> select Cut-edit and on that window I only see 2 frames (the star and end frame) and I don't see anything in the midle.

Am I doing something wrong ?

Thank you,
Gonzalo

P.S: If I open the .vob anyway, on the Cut-edit window I can see the complete video.

Not sure if you're doing something wrong...I demuxed a vob and I was able to cut-edit the .m2v file just fine.
Have you tried it with other .vob files?

I still don't understand why I can't see the full chapter after doing these steps:

Select 4 chapters:
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3800&d=1286822993

Demux video, audio and subtitles
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3801&d=1286823016

Final result of the ripping process:
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3803&d=1286823042

Now, with all these files I go to TMPGenc:
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3806&d=1286823587&thumb=1
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3807&d=1286823597&thumb=1
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3805&d=1286823580&thumb=1
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3804&d=1286823568&thumb=1

Why, why, why is the chapter empty ?

I start thinking that this could be a bug on TMPGEnc, if not, it doesn't make sence. (to me)

Thank you anyway for your help.
Gonzalo

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