I compile a DivX Ultra project. I add several videoclips from DVD-video. I chose not to import chapter entry points. Then I chose Chapter menu from template. In Link Editor I made sure all the chapters have proper links. During Simulation all chapters played correctly. Then I output my progect as *.divx. But when I opened the ready *.divx in Divx Player and chose to play chapter 2(x), the player always started with chapter 1, no matter which chapter I choose. Why can it be so?

Got the same problem here. Been in contact with DiVX "Support", filed numerous bug reports and all I get is that it's a problem in the DiVX Player. It's on their To-Do list...

It's almost a year since I filed the first bugreport, I've requested updates every quarter or so. But it's always the same negative answer.

What really upsets me is that they advertise that it has chapter support but it's never worked! How can you claim something when it's obviously not working?!
My bet is that they don't know how to fix it...

/J


>I compile a DivX Ultra project. I add several videoclips from DVD-video. I chose not to import chapter entry points. Then I chose Chapter menu from template. In Link Editor I made sure all the chapters have proper links. During Simulation all chapters played correctly. Then I output my progect as *.divx. But when I opened the ready *.divx in Divx Player and chose to play chapter 2(x), the player always started with chapter 1, no matter which chapter I choose. Why can it be so?

I think this really is just a DivX Player problem and not a problem with Authoring Works 4. If I remember correctly, chapters worked fine on my friend's DivX Ultra DVD player. I'll try and make sure when I have the chance.

The problem is Divx player, before DivXInstaller 6.8.2.8,that divx player works very well with chapter support. You should ask divx company to fix this problem. Anyway, I already complained that problem without any response.

I'm trying to add music to my video clips. I would like to loop the audio if the clip is too long. I can't seem to find a way to do this. I tried clicking Audio 1 and stream to audio 2 if necessary, but Audio two is then grayed out. Is this possible? Thanks.

i am having trouble with this trial software
i have a avi file that has ac3 5.1 sound but when i insert it into works it only shows it as 2 channel. i thought this new software was 5.1 compatible.

hope someone can help as i really was looking forward to buying this.

Is there a PDF User Manual for this product (TMPG Authoring Works 4) that I can download to print out?

Thanks
NigelS

OK so no response. What excellent support. Got no response from the official support route by email either. I guess I will look elsewhere for my software products in future....

NigelS

I guess at the moment there is not a PDF file but I hope they make it.

I installed the trial version of Authoring Works 4 earlier today.
After making my chapters and the menu.I clicked on Simulation,clicked on start.
It showed the menu that I had made,but...it looked really weird.Green,pink and yellow,heavily saturated.Kind of like when you watch one of those shows on Discovery Channel and they use a special kind of device to show someones body heat..if that makes sense.
What causes this?I didn't have that problem when I used an earlier version.
Anyway,I clicked on output,in the hope that it's just some weird Tmpegnc glitch and doesn't show up when I play the DVD.

Is there away to automatically make the track name the same as the clip name? Or, make the clip name the label in the menu?

There's no way to automatically make the track name the same as the clip name, but you can set the chapter menu labels to be taken from the clip name(s).

Go to Options --> Preferences --> Project Default Settings.
There, you can set the Chapter Label to "Clip name + number".

In the upper left hand corner it identifies the Track you are working on. If you select "Settings", you can rename "Track 1" to whatever track name you want and it will use that for your menu track name.

Hi,

I tried yesterday (quickly) V4 and I found it very promising. But I would like to know if and when will be added H264/VC-1 support to create a BDMV (in this moment only MPEG-2 is supported).

TIA

Yes, That's my question too!

I believe that AVC is sharper then MPEG2!

Is this possible in the future?

I've added a number of Xvids to a project and I keep getting GOP errors, saying that they are not DVD compatible? I've left all the render settings on default. I've had a look in the settings for each video but I can't see anything related to GOP? I thought as video rendering was on auto, that it would be able to change the setting itself anyway. Any ideas?

I have the same GOP error issue. I did a test DVD yesterday and it played fine on my home player, but I am not expert enough to be able to tell if this is likely to be a problem in the future.

Further to this, I've noticed that this only seems to happen when encoding for PAL DVD (25 fps) but the discs I've made have played fine, thus far.

Hi
I also have this problem when makeing a slideshow using PAL DVD. Happens every time whether on auto or re0encoding

So does anyone have TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 yet? What do you guys think? worth buying?

I got it last night and had a quick play - so far its very similar to v3. To be honest if you don't need Blu-ray and you've got v3 I'd give the demo a good test to see if its worth it to you. I'm hoping theres some hidden gems in there somewhere that I'm yet to find! Anyone else found any killer new features?

I'm a lot disappointed.
It's much similar to v3, H264/avc codec are not supported and it's a big problem for me because my HD files are H264/AVC not mpeg2.
It's impossible to burning HD files on DVD, so I must use blu-ray for HD.
Therefore I have decided not to buy it until these problems will not come resolved and I will continue to use v3.

I don't know the reason behind not supporting H.264, but I have the same problem with their TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress. When you import a file containing H.264 encoded video it always shows the wrong duration. This is really sad, because I'm a huge fan of their TMPG encoders, but lack of support for H.264, 5.1 audio (in 4.0 Xpress) and DTS is dumbfounding me. For a Japanese company I would expect to always introduce the latest technology in their products not lagging behind. Very strange indeed.

Bought this a couple of days ago and apart from the Blu-ray support (which I don't need at the moment) the main improvements I've found so far are;-

1. Definitely much faster authoring on my Intel Quad-Core 6600 system - getting on for half the time version 3 took. (Obviously burning still takes the same time as before.)

2. Transcoding seems to be much faster and quality appears to be better than I remembered as well although I never use this facility much.

3. They've added an option to make it much easier to line things up when you're dragging them around on the menu screens.

4. A few more menu buttons and thumbnails and more information on how to make your own buttons/thumbnails and import them from 3rd party programs.

There are a number of smaller improvements such as adding tags to your custom menu templates to make them easier to find, and I like the new, darker colourscheme of the GUI. It still won't accept non-DVD standard resolution mpeg2 material (such as is broadcast by a number of digital TV channels here in the UK) without doing a full re-encode despite all my DVD players handling it without a problem.

Is it worth the $59.95 (roughly £40) upgrade charge if you have no need of Blu-ray? For me, yes, I think so. I use V3 a lot and the increases in speed are probably worth the upgrade alone. If it wasn't for the increase in performance I've seen on my system then I think I would've been disappointed and felt a bit ripped off. So, if you're running an older system or are only an occasional user then you might want to give the trial version a thorough workout before deciding whether the upgrade is worth it to you. Hopefully they'll release some more templates and menu buttons/thumbnails free of charge to help sweeten the pot a bit more.

I have just been trying TAW4 trial version, and I am quite impressed apart from the following points:-
1. It will never compete with Ulead Movie Factory until it stops having to render the preview files. Even the smallest change takes forever, whereas MF does it instantly! The final output render is also longer than MF.
2. There are no menu page transitions, unlike MF, apart from fade-in and fade-out. The transitions should happen when a button is selected not on a timed basis. Why would anyone want a page to fade-in then fade to the same page shortly afterwards?
3. In the trial version it does not seem possible to change templates once the custom menu option has been chosen. I may be missing something here, but in previous versions I am sure you could choose to use a template in the middle of setting up a custom menu.
I can't see me buying TAW4 especially when it is more expensive than Ulead Movie Factory and not as flexible in operation, although I could be persuaded if the above issues were addressed.

I purchased this program yesterday, but it sure does have a lot of bugs in it. It crashes the computer. it seizes up during editing the clips, and I'm not sure its worth the buy. Just for now, I would advise everyone not to purchase this program yet. (funny it worked ok on the trial version).

I have mpeg editor 3 and it works perfectly and I have not had an issue with it.

I hope this company can get it fixed...

As someone who was just considering buying this program and have not even downloaded the trial yet, I can't believe that it doesn't support importing H.264 when the product page clearly says it does, multiple times.

"Input MPEG-1/2, AVI, WMV, QuickTime, DivX, MPEG-4/H.264, AVCHD, DV/HDV, DVD-VR, DVR-MS video files and author to DVD-Video, Blu-ray (BDMV), and DivX Ultra formats."
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/taw4.html

There's even a picture of supported formats incl H.264 on this page:
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/taw4_feature.html

So you are saying this is not true?

ALL of my video is H.264/AVC mp4 and that was the ONLY reason I was considering this software.

I think I'll not even be trying this software out until I can verify the actual capabilities are going to be what they purport them to be.

TAW4 supports H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. It may have had problems reading the header information on certain files, giving the wrong duration of the file. I just tried importing a H.264 file in the latest version, and it seems to be correct.

I say just try out the trial version to see for yourself.

Sorry, but I tried the new version and it still has the same H.264 problem.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean that the latest version corrected the problem, I meant that on my machine with the files I tested, the duration is correct.

Stan, where did you get your H.264 file? Is it something off the web or something encoded yourself? I've tested a couple podcasts and they import fine. If I can download a file that shows up incorrect on your machine, then we can do a controlled experiment.

Downloaded the new version and I still get the same problems. Trying to edit movie seizes computer. So what I did to get by is load the file with tmpgenc 3 mpeg edidtor (which works fine). Then save it (dvd file on computer) Reopen it with Tmpgenc 4, and create the menus and then write the disk. Seems like a log of toying around but at least this way works for now.

Maonstad, are you trying to edit HD video? If so, I recommend using the proxy file option, otherwise it will be a slow and painful process.

If it's not HD video, then please let me know what type of file you're editing (format, resolution, framerate) and I'll try to recreate your situation.

>Maonstad, are you trying to edit HD video? If so, I recommend using the proxy file option, otherwise it will be a slow and painful process.
>
>If it's not HD video, then please let me know what type of file you're editing (format, resolution, framerate) and I'll try to recreate your situation.

No standard DVD mpeg video. Use a DVD recorder to record movie (i.e. sci-fi, tnt, etc). Move DVD over to computer to edit movie. I tried to use the DVD first which then copies the movie over, then I edit it. 2nd attempt... I copied the movie over onto hard-drive then use tmpgenc 4.0 to add it to its directory... same thing again. The tmpgenc mpeg editor ver. 3.0 works perfectly so I'll use it that way for now.

I don't have a DVD recorder so I can't test tv recordings (unless someone gives me one), but I've imported DVD-Video that I've made with no problems.
Have you tried importing DVD-Video from a different source other than your DVD recorder?

Ok,,, I have found the problem. It was my video card which was lacking memory, speed. etc. I had an xabre 400 in the system, which came out in 98 and did work great but just didn't have the umph to handle the frames in the editing and the motion in the simulation. I have installed an Nvidea 6200 card in the computer and wolla... it works great. No more seizes and freezes. So I'll take back the problems i have had, and blame it on hardware in my computer. I believe that the minimum requirements should be set a little higher for the graphics card since that could result in problems like I had.

Still though, why did it work in the Tmpgenc 3 editor program? Don't know the answer to that one.

I hope this helps everyone!!!!
Mark

That's great! I never would of thought about the video card being the problem. They must be doing the same thing they did with MPEG Editor 3 where they use the graphics card to handle most of the rendering of the video in the editing window.
For MPEG Editor 3, they recommend an "ATI Radeon 9600 or higher, nVidia GeForce FX5200 or higher, on-board Intel G965 or higher."

But then that begs the question, why did your video editing go smoothly in MPEG Editor 3 but not in Authoring Works 4?

I guess Authoring Works 4 is just more intensive on the hardware?

I was looking at the specs for the Xabre 400 graphics card and it doesn't seem to be DirectX9 compliant. Maybe this was part of the problem. It's possible that MPEG Editor 3 was just a bit more lenient when it came to using DirectX8. Just a theory.

Another theory: video overlay mode. Turning off video overlay mode in Authoring Works 4 with your Xaber400 card might have solved the problem...maybe.
It's possible that video overlay mode was off in MPEG Editor 3 which is why you were able to use it.

To check if video overlay mode is on or off, you can go the cut edit window and right-click on the main video preview. The contextual menu should have an option for video overlay; if it's checked, then it's on.

I checked both 4.0 and 3.0 mpeg and the video overlay is checked 'on'. So that may not be the case...

But thanks... its something to check in about..

Mark

>I don't know the reason behind not supporting H.264, but I have the same problem with their TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress. When you import a file containing H.264 encoded video it always shows the wrong duration. This is really sad, because I'm a huge fan of their TMPG encoders, but lack of support for H.264, 5.1 audio (in 4.0 Xpress) and DTS is dumbfounding me. For a Japanese company I would expect to always introduce the latest technology in their products not lagging behind. Very strange indeed.

I use both Xpress 4.0 and Works 4.0 and they import H.264 if you have installed the K-Lite Codecs package and Windows Media Encoder. Both are free. You can configure the FFDSHOW Video Decoder/Encoder component to process VC1 and H.264 with Windows Media Encoder 9. When you install the K-Lite codecs package, select the "Lots of Stuff" profile and then select all of the components to configure after installation is complete. Find the VC1 and H.264 video types and select wmv9 in the drop down box. Before I try to run an m2ts file in Xpress, I strip down the blu-ray movie to only the the video and audio tracks I want using tsmuxer - another free program. Then I can open the M2TS file in Xpress or Works.