hi
i have a problem with TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4.0.2.14
at start say "at address 0000b7a4 , read error occurred against address 0000b7a4"
please help me
thanks

Try here

//forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55175

reads in 3 8CM SONY DVD recorded by DVD405 camcorder, 1DVD 1st 1GB VOB only reads in 2min. This problem not exists on old version ConvertxToDVD, and the 1GB VOB plays well ob VLC.
funny thing is that TMPG seems never check whether it reads to the end of input file.

I create a custom frame, which I import to a menu item to be surrounded by the frame. However, the size handles reach to the end of the work area making it impossible to place the frame on the object properly. There is no Ctrl+O, as in Photoshop, to preclude this problem. Does anyone know if there is a way to make the size handles smaller(closer to the frame) in order to make it function?

Are you talking about the frame effect for menu items? Or is this a separate image that you're placing on top of a menu item. Can you show a screenshot? I've never seen the handles go outside of the menu boundries.

I create the frame and apply it using "Add Picture" Some frames work, others do not. Could be size of frame, but no guidance is provided. The stretch handle is at the top and can move no higher.
I don't see a mechanism for attaching a file for upload. I could email it to you, if that's OK?

Is there a way to replace the video file on a pre-existing track, keeping the audio file and chapters intact? Or do I just have to create a new track each time I make a revision to the video?

I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding what you're asking, but if you want to keep your audio and chapters but change the video source, then it's possible but you have to go the other way around. In other words, you can replace the audio and import a keyframe list (your chapter marks) in your new video.

First, export the keyframe list from your original video clip (Cut-edit window--> Edit menu --> Export keyframe list).

Then you can add your new video clip to your track and in the Clip properties window, change the audio source to the audio of your old video.

In the Cut-edit window, import the keyframe list you just saved from your old video.

Hi,

As I don't like thumbnails on my menu, how do I do the following.

If you could give a step by step look at how I would:
(a) from a menu picture of my choice, place a button that would link to the first movie, and then on completion come back to the menu.

I don't want to have, multible pages or thumbnails.
So basically I want to be able to place opening page, with linked buttons
If I can do this Authoring works, will now be regarded as the best in the world.
regards
Pete
Melbourne Australia

1.) First, start a Custom menu:
http://i40.tinypic.com/1zzq053.png

2.) When you get to the layout page, select a layout that has the same number of tracks in your project. If you have two tracks, select a layout with 2 tracks.
http://i42.tinypic.com/2whjfiq.png

3.) When you get to the Menu Composition page, select "Top menu only." This will ensure you don't have chapter menus.
http://i43.tinypic.com/31617jq.png

4.) Next is the Playback settings. Set Track end playback to return to the Top menu. This will ensure that after a track is done playing, it will return you to the Top menu instead of going to the next track.
http://i44.tinypic.com/11ke7wk.png

5.) So now you have a basic menu, with thumbnails you don't want. Double-click on the thumbnail to open the menu item editor.
http://i41.tinypic.com/24q1ms0.png

6.) In the menu item editor, you can replace the thumbnail with a picture of your choice. Click on the "File browser" button to select an image from your hard drive.
http://i41.tinypic.com/21cdyky.png

7.) You now have your own image instead of the thumbnail; resize it as you wish.
http://i39.tinypic.com/34fjew8.png

You may not want the text items such as the track name. You can't delete it completely, but you can hide it by deleting the text. Double-click on it to open the menu item editor and delete the text.

You can also change the background image in the same way you changed the thumbnail. You can also add other image or text items.

Remember that you cannot add or delete functional buttons (play, track buttons, etc.) so you either have to alter the way they look or hide them if you don't want them at all.

You can also make a custom button set that shows up in the custom menu wizard by using the Menu Item Tool found in the Start stage --> Advanced Tools.

Hi TKrave,
Thanks you for your vey conscise description. It's the best authoring program around, and now thanks to you it's even better.
regards
pete
Melbourne Australia

Hi Mate, one more question'
One of your answers was 6.)
"In the menu item editor, you can replace the thumbnail with a picture of your choice. Click on the "File browser" button to select an image from your hard drive.
http://i41.tinypic.com/21cdyky.png"

Can I completely delete ANY picture, as the project I'm working on is a boat test DVD, and I have 14 models, that I would like linked o the one page with TEXT only.
regards
Pete

If you want text only links (no thumbnails at all), then select a text only layout in the menu wizard.

For instance, in this screenshot you'd pick a layout like "#02 16:9(D)" (the one to the right of the selected layout).
http://i42.tinypic.com/2whjfiq.png

If you need an image to accompany your text link, just add a new picture menu item. However, this picture won't be linked to anything.

I should also add that while you can't delete buttons or certain menu items, you can choose not to display them by going to the Global Menu Settings (found in the Menu stage). From here, you can select what items will be displayed.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2q80z8y.png

Again thanks for your quick response
regards
pete

TMPGEnc seems to be a wonderful application. However, I require burning high definition AVCHD to conventional DVD media. I tried with the trial download and was informed that I don't have a proper Blu-ray burner. Is this possible, knowing the proper configuration or should I look for another application?

I edited high def video (880 X 496 with max bitrate of 15,000 kbps) in womble and it saves as a VOB file of 1,048,574 KB.
I have a Blue-ray template set up in TMP and with no files in it the project size is 1436 out of a max size of 22867 MB for the 25 GB blu-ray disk.
When I import this VOB file into TMP the program says the VOB file is not supported but I ignore this and it brings the file in so it can be edited. The project size is now 3798 rather than approximately 2436 that I would think it should be if TMP reads the file size as 1048MB. What happens is approximately 11GB of data in womble becomes about 30 GB of data in TMP- too big to fit on a 25GB disk without re-encoding (which I don't want to do). Any ideas why the file size is changing so much and any suggestions to avoid this? I do not get this file size issue when using standard def VOB files from womble into TMP.

Since your video is 880 x 496, it might be increasing the resolution to a blu-ray compliant resolution, which might be why the file size is increasing. Check your track settings after you import the file and see what it says.

Clip properties are:
880 X 496 25 fps 15000 kb/s.
Track properties are:
1280 X 720 bitrate 18,000 kb/s.
So how do I change that?

If I use standard size DVD files but the blu ray format to take advantage of the 25 GB disk size I don't have this file size issue.

That's because DVD resolution is lower than your video and DVD compliant files are also Blu-ray compliant so Authoring Works won't change the resolution or bitrate.
If you don't care about losing some detail, you can just change the track settings to a lower resolution (720 x 480) and also tweak the bitrate settings if you need to.

If I don't want to change the resolution, will changing the bitrate to 10,000 kb/s (from 18,000 in the track setting) make a noticeable change in the output appearance?

Yes, just lowering the bitrate will help make your file size smaller but it's hard to say how it will affect your video quality; it's just trial and error. Try adjusting the bitrate until the file size is small enough to fit on the disc first.

I've been getting errors when trying to burn projects.
The disk starts to burn then about 10% into the burn an error message pops up and says "A command error occurred. [command = 2A]. [Sense:ASC:ASCQ:=03:02:00] (00000b4c"

What does this mean and how can I get my burns to work correctly. I've tried with different disks and it happens to all of them. Currently trying to burn on TDK DVD-RW.

Cheers,

Maxy

maxy, this sounds more like a problem with Windows and/or your (drive) hardware.
For Windows: Be sure to close all other apps, including background apps, before you burn a disc. I would try rebooting your machine and, then, before you run TMPGEnc, do a Ctrl-Alt-Del and check Windows Running Tasks to see what else is loading/running in the background. Close any apps that you don't need (if in doubt, let it run) and then try burning the disc again. Presuming the problem isn't with the drive itself (always a possibility!), freeing-up Windows resources (by closing non-essential programs & background tasks) may do the trick.
For the drive: If you have another burning app (e.g., Nero, EasyCD, etc.), try burning a disc with this. If it also fails, then you've got a bad drive and you'll need to replace it. DVD drives are pretty cheap these days. Unless you have a favourite, I'd recommend an NEC or Sony, both of which are good, reliable drives that you can likely pick up for <$50 (often <$30 in generic kit form).
I hope this helps.

I have a movie in AVI format which is missing the last few seconds of the film. I found another complete copy of this movie but the color isn't as good as the first. Can I use the Batch Authoring Tool to join the two movies together at that end point. If this is possible, would the splice be seamless or would there be a noticeable break or freeze frame?

Batch Authoring won't do the trick; that's for outputting complete projects, not scenes.

You'd want to just add the two clips to the same track. I'm not sure how seamless it will be; I'll try and do some tests to see if I notice any break.

Just did a quick test and the results were seamless; I couldn't tell where the cut was.

I'm getting frozen frames (at the same point each time I view them) in some .mp4 files when viewed in TMPGEnc's Simulation screen or on the finished DVDs produced with TMPGEnc. However, the same .mp4 files view fine (w/o freezes) when viewed via a stand alone viewer like VLC Media Player.

Is this a known issue with TMPGEnc and/or is there something I can do to stop the frozen frames from occurring in TMPGEnc?
TIA.

It may be a decoder issue or a framerate issue. Being able to play it in VLC doesn't necessarily mean it will play the same in Authoring Works 4 since VLC has its own decoders.

Try use Gspot or some other program to determine the video's properties, then make sure the clip properties in Authoring Works 4 matches up with them.

You can also try to make Authoring Works use a different file reader. For mp4 video it will use the MP4 file reader by default, but if you disable it, it can use other file readers like QuickTime.
To do this, go to the Options menu-->Preferences-->Input Format List-->File Input Plug-in. You will see a list of file readers. It basically starts from the top, so if you disable MP4, it will use the next compatible file reader.

I'm not sure if that will help, but it's worth a shot.

tkrave, I think you're probably onto something there, but, so far, neither change has made any difference.

I tried raising, and then lowering, the framerate, but that didn't make any difference (the default framerate of the .mp4s is 29.97 - I tried raising to 60fps and then lowering to 15).

Then, after unchecking some of the codecs listed at the top of the File Plug-In screen, I tried playing some of the problem .mp4 files again, but they're still freezing/hanging at the same points.

To be clear, the video doesn't stop, it just sort of hangs (the picture freezes) while the soundtrack and frame counter continue as normal. After about 2 seconds, the picture will pick up at the proper point in the video (having skipped the previous 2 seconds) and continue normally until the next set of frames that hang/freeze.

Do changes in the Preference settings affect .mp4 files that are already imported into TMPGEnc or only those that I import after making the change? (I tried importing another .mp4 after making the change with the same results, so I'm guessing the change is retroactive.)

Gspot indicates the video codec is 'H.264/MPEG-4 AVC' (AVC1).
Does that provide any further hints as to the problem or how I can avert it in TMPGEnc?

Where did you get this video? Is it from the web?

You might also want to try activating the prefetch cache settings (in Preferences under Multithread settings). I'm not sure if that will help but it's worth a shot.

The .mp4s are from youtube. I'll give the prefetch idea a try this evening and report back. I'm pretty sure the problem's related to the video codec as you original suggested.
Thanks again.

Sadly, the Prefetch (while encoding) option had no effect.
But since the problem occurs during viewings in either TMPGEnc's Simulation or Editing screens, I don't think its an encoding problem anyway. I think you were right about there being some type of problem or mismatch between the .mp4 and the codec TMPGEnc is using to decode it.
Here is a link to one of the problem .mp4 files if you want to try it out on your system:
"Fast Driving Girls - Mercedes SLK - Bonnie Driving (First Video)"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=edCvtxSt9CU&

What are you using to download the video? Are you downloading it via YouTube or using some other program like Miro or Realplayer? If it is your own video, then you can download it via YouTube.

I used youtubedownloader to download the .mp4 files from youtube, but I can't really see how the downloader can be the problem since the files playback fine everywhere (i.e., VLC Media Player, Windows Media Player and Firefox) except in TMPGEnc.
A friend has a utility that converted the .mp4 file into an .wmv and the .wmv version works fine in TMPGEnc, so the problem's got to be, as you originally suggested, related to the video codec that's built into TMPGEnc. Unfortunately, I need to edit the videos and the converted .wmv versions change the frames contents, making it impossible to do the edits I wanted (or had with the .mp4 formats). So, ultimately, I'll need to figure out how to get them to play correct (in .mp4 format) in TMPGEnc. So if you have any other suggestions, I'm all ears...
And thanks again!

What version of Authoring Works 4 are you using? I just noticed that the latest update (version 4.0.9.37) lists some MP4 improvements in the revision history.

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/taw4_rireki.html

Thanks, that's very interesting. Of the fixes listed, none address this specific issue, however, I'm running 4.07.32, so I'm probably missing some other fixes/improvements. I'll give it a try and report my results.

tkrave - SUCCESS (I think?)!!! I haven't actually upgraded my TMPGEnc yet, but I sent one of the .mp4 files to a friend of a friend who has 4.0.9.37 (who's familiar with the problem I've been having) and the same file played perfectly. So I'll just have to upgrade my version as you suggested.

Unfortunately, the upgrade didn't affect my other problem with Normalization not working (on any type of video files). If you (or anyone else) knows why the Normalizing feature doesn't work, or knows how to get it to work, please let me know.
Thanks again for the help!

After setting the Volume Normalization to 95% in the Audio Filter Settings screen and saving the project, there's no change in the volume levels. When I click the "Analyze for Preview" button, the screen updates and then shows a "Normalized at xxx%". However, when I either view the compilation via the Simulation button or burn it to a DVD, the volume levels of each of the individual .mp4 videos remain at their original (variable) levels.
Am I missing something?

Anyone have any thoughts on why the Normalize isn't working (with .mp4 files)?
TIA

I think what you are looking for is Volume Uniformization at Peak -3 DB.

I would like to see Tmpgence authoring works 4 next upgrade with other format to choose from such as (1.78, 1.85, 2.00), the 16:9 that already include make the movies look too narrow to enjoy, it left too much black at the top and bottom of my television.

Thank you.

Isn't 1.78:1 the same as 16:9?