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TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 BBS [ Sorted by thread creation date ]
This was already asked by me with DVD Authoring 3, but you ignored it.
Now you have this brand new "thing" called Authoring Works and still there's no sign of it here. What gives? This is so simple and minor tweak that it's unbelievable you can't include it in.
So, once again:
Would it be possible to implement a black (or any other colored ) box background to subtitles as a new layout? It would a great help to hide burned-in subtitles or just subtitles that are scrolling up or down.
These forums are not officially moderated, so if you are expecting an official response, you'll be waiting for a long time. To make sure they hear your request, you should contact user support.
I am trying to combine some avi files, but can't figure out how to do it. I have numerous AVI files from an older digital camcorder. Some of the avi files I want to combine into one whole sequence and others I want to make into individual chapters. Can't seem to figure out how to combine the set into one scene. Anyone else ever do this with tmpgenc authoring 4 software? It seems like an obvious thing to do.
I'm still on version 3 but I gather from some screen captures that the process is the same in version 4.
In your SOURCE window:
To make an AVI a separate track, click Add A Track. Then, making sure you've highlighted the new track (you might want to name it), click on Add File. Find your AVI in the Windows selection dialog and click OK.
To combine AVIs, just click Add File twice (or 3 times, or 4). Each time you'll add a new file to the same track. You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to get them in the order you want. Pile on all the files you want in a track. In the Source/Track editor, they are treated as any other chapter. In the output process, they are all joined together as 1 single file per track and output that way.
Richard, thanks for the response. I do understand how to add more files to a track. My issue is trying to add files together with no chapters. Basically to add multiple avi files but take away the chapters from some (or combine them so they show as one file). For example if you had 5 avi files and you wanted to make the first 3 avi files to run seamlessly together and to show on the menu as 1 chapter, but then show the next 2 avi's each as a seperate chapter. For a total of 3 chapters (5 avi files, but 3 chapters in the final outpu dvd). Does the software have the capabilty to do this?
I don't think you can actually join movie files together, but what you can do is select which chapters will be displayed in the menu.
To do this, click on the Global Menu Settings button in the Menu Stage. It will be just under the "Launch the Menu Wizard" button.
This opens the menu settings window. In the window, click on the tab named "Chapter display." From here, you can select which chapters will appear in your track menus. Simply uncheck the chapters that you don't want displayed.
Sorry, I didn't grasp your query at first reading. No, you can't actually "join" files but you can get them to play as though they had been (and that's the goal, isn't it?)
Add the files to a track.
Make sure in the Track properties that you select to Link Clips. In V3 this is found by highlighting the track then clicking the SETTINGS button for it. The pop-up dialog has a tab labeled General. You'll find the Link Clips option on that tab.
Next, use the Track editor. In V3 there are several ways to flag a chapter to NOT appear in the menu. One way is to click the little green "light" on each chapter icon. Another is to right click the chapter icon and select "do not include in the menu"
So, in essence, link all your clips together, and for the clips that you don't want a menu item for, mark them as "do not include in the menu."
You'll still have separate clips in TMPGEnc, but when the DVD files are built, they'll play as 1 clip. Make sense?
Thank you thank you, thank you. I have been racking my brain trying to figure this out and like I thought it was right there in front of me. Sure am glad this software can do this! :)
When creating a Slideshow Chapter, cannot multi-select the files as the documentation states. Have to select individually and set properties for each. Very time consuming with many photos. A working Multi-Select would be very useful if it worked. Anyone else notice this Defect?
I don't see this mentioned in the Help file. It does talk about selecting multiple files when you are importing the images (which does work), but I don't see where it says this in regards to the actual slides.
I've read enough here to know not to actually install an update from version 3.1.2.176 to version 4.anything. At least not since I don't wish to be a "beta testor in production mode."
Nevertheless, I'd like to get some thoughts/advice from those who have the products and/or have dealt with Pagasys in the past.
1. There is currently a good upgrade discount of 40.00 USD. Does anyone see a *total* waste of money by buying the update and just leaving the installation file(s) sitting on my disc for about 6 months? That is, I'm not going to actually apply the upgrade, just buy the files, and do the upgrade at some later date when the product is stable and reliable. I'd hate to miss out on a 40% discount six months from now.
2. Has anyone actually run the 4.x Trial side-by-side with the 3.1.2.176 production version? Does installing the Trial foul up the production version (e.g., does it overlay DLL files so the production version will no longer run?)
3. Can a version 3 Project File be imported into version 4? At any one moment I might have 2 to 4 projects going. As I close down one, I start another. Most of the time I'm waiting on feedback from the person who's hired me, so I leave their project alone while I go work on another. When I eventually do upgrade, I'm likely to have active project files that need to be readable by version 4. That is, I don't think I'll ever be at a point without even one Project File being "live."
4. Templates. OK, let's get real. Downloadable templates are absolute compromises for my clients. Clients have their own images and font preferences, they want this blurring effect or that outer shadow, etc., all on their own image backgrounds.
I've never found a way to fully build an entire menuing template in version 3. I know I can download more, but as I said, those are a total compromise and not of any interest to me. Can I build an entire menu template in version 4? By this, I mean I might like to place thumbnails in a diagonal from top/left to bottom/right, or arrange them in an oval on the screen. Apply my own button graphics. Apply my own default template background image. Apply my own font choices for various pieces (1 font for the title, another for the track list entries, etc.) Then save it all as a menu template, choose the wizard, apply my template and I'm mostly done.
I have 3 clients so far that routinely have me put their vacation videos onto DVD and apply a menu. They always want the menus to look and act the same. The theme more or less creates a suit of DVDs, all of them looking the same with the same colors, fonts, etc. Right now I have to build each one by hand. I'd like to create templates and name them for my clients.
Can I do this extensive work in version 4, or are templates still a deep, dark secret held by Pegasys who for some reason feels they can't put that power into the hands of their customers?
1. I don't think it's a total waste, but I also don't think you need to rush to make a decision since the upgrade price will probably be around for a while.
2. Installing the trial for Authoring Works 4 shouldn't affect your DVD Author 3 production version.
3. You can import version 2 and 3 files into version 4, provided that the source files are still in the same place. If you used templates that don't exist in version 4, then they'll probably be replaced with a different template.
4. You can save custom menus as templates in version 3 and 4. Once you've built your custom menu to your liking, click on the "Edit menu" button in the Menu stage and select "Save current menu as a new template". Once you do so, it will show up as a template in the template list. It'll save effects, backgrounds, fonts, etc.
Version 4 also lets you create your own button sets for custom menus.
I suggest you download the trial and try it out and see for yourself whether it will be worth the upgrade or not.
Thanks. I never knew about the template "save as" option. Looked at the help text (pretty much useless) and searched the forums but never found anything. A request for help from Pegasys several months ago only yielded advice that I could download the templates they made, but they circumvented my question about creating my own.
I'll download the demo and install it side-by-side with version 3, per your advice.
One thing about upgrading: I think that once you purchase the upgrade, your DVD Author 3 license becomes invalid, so you wouldn't be able to use version 3 and wait for version 4 to become better.
However, you should be able to use both versions 3 and 4 if you purchase version 4 with the user discount which is a $20 savings.
I need a little help with authoring my first family movies with TMPGEnc Autoring Works 4. I created some mpg-files and wanted to bring them on DVD. Everything works just fine, the only problem is, that only 40-50 minutes fit on one DVD which seems much too little for me. The files are standard resolution 720x576 PAL, so it should be possible to bring 2 hours of film onto one single DVD or not? It is possible to make it fit on one 4,7 disc, but I think it implicates quality loss this way. Do you have any ideas?
It would be great if you had any suggestion, thank you in advance!
StarFishes
I'll take a stab at some suggestions for you, bearing in mind I have version 3, not 4.
In version 3, you can assign defaults for all new projects and override those settings on a case-by-case basis. The defaults are found under Options.Preferences.
Take a look at your audio settings. Did you record the Berlin Philharmonic, or did you record your children playing soccer? Do you need super, high quality sound? Now, I'm an audiophile and I can hear the difference if I'm listening on good headphones, but for everyday stuff over external speakers, I find a sampling rate of 48000Hz, 16 bits and 192 Kb/s bitrate is just fine for spoken sound, and 96000Hz for music. My point here is, the higher quality you use, the more space on the disc it takes to record it. Back off on the audio settings if you don't have movies that demand impeccable sound.
Are your menus animated? That is, do you have thumbnails to select scenes and those thumbnails themselves are small, short, movie clips? Try making single-frame thumbnails.
Besides the excellent suggestions by Richard, your only other choices are lowering the video bitrate (which it sounds like you don't want to do) or use a dual layer DVD.
thank you for your suggestions! I did some experiments in changing the video and audio bitrate which has been very high set by my video capture card. I found out that a constant video bitrate of 4000 seems to be acceptable, the audio I set to 168 and now everything works just fine.
The only question I have now is what the application does with the setting Fit on DVD 4.7. It doesn't ask me anything about compression.
I have just finished my first dvd and used some pans with the videocamera, but they appear pretty bad on the dvd. They are uneven and that don´t look good. What can I do to solve the problem?
You can also use the DivX HDTV profile which lets you go up to 1280 x 720 resolution. However, I'm not sure if DivX Ultra DVD players will be able to play this at full resolution. Should play fine with DivX Player software on a computer though.
To change profile (or use no profile), in the Source stage, click on the Settings button in the track list. A track settings window should appear.
Click on the Video tab and select "Re-encode all videos as below" for the Encoder mode.
You can then change the Profile & level option to "HDTV profile" or "None" which will allow you to increase the output resolution.
If you do as suggested and change to Re-encode all videos as below and select the HDTV profile the program still only allows a maximum resolution of 1280x720 which is not the full Divx potential of 1920x1080. TmpGenc Express is the only program of theirs I have found which will let you select 1920x1080 divx. I am disappointed that TMPGEnc doesn't allow full resolution Divx to be encoded in this software.
As "myself" said, you can choose "None" for profile which WILL allow you to encode at a full 1920x1080 resolution. If I recall correctly, 4.0 XPress operates in the same manner.
TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 has been updated to version 4.0.2.14. Here's the revision list (it's long!). Hopefully they've addresses some of the issues you guys are seeing:
New: Intel Core i7 (Nehalem core) official support.
Fixed: The preview would sometimes partially display improperly and an error would arise when moving to stages containing a preview in the Cut-edit or Slideshow editor.
Fixed: Extended the character limit on an input QuickTime file name when using QuickTime 7.1 or later versions.
Fixed: An error would arise when outputting in BDMV/DVD target mode with a PAL track containing an MPEG file in the NTSC DVD-Video standard.
Fixed: An error would arise when returning to the Menu stage after deleting a track in the Source stage while the same track menu page was displayed in the Menu stage.
Fixed: A small audio defect would occur in a clip connection or cut-edit point when the audio output was set to the Dolby Digital format, resulting in an audio gap.
Fixed: Setting a track output format to BDMV 1920x1080i 25 fps would cause a verifier error.
Fixed: An error would occur when cut-editing/authoring an AVCHD source.
Fixed: An error would occur when using the chaptering tool on certain AVCHD data.
Fixed: Importation of a MPEG-2 TS file containing garbled data in the header would fail, or a long still picture would appear.
Fixed: Modifying the aspect ratio in the Clip properties would not be taken into account at the output stage when using the PV3 file reader.
Fixed: An error would occur and the preview would be black when importing an AviSynth's AVS file.
Fixed: Part of the picture would not display properly (it would become green) when moving the window in a multi-display configuration when in high-speed rendering mode under Windows Vista.
Fixed: An error would arise when maximizing a window shared in a multi-display configuration when in high-speed rendering mode under Windows Vista.
Fixed: An error would arise in the Clip properties stage of the Clip editing window when setting the audio configuration to bilingual then changing the video settings.
Fixed: Error messages would still arise after the "Necessary files for the application..." message appears when launching the Batch authoring tool.
Fixed: An error would still arise when importing a valid TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 with DivX Authoring project file after the importation of such a project file failed on a "File not found" error.
Fixed: Disabling the "Output the original pictures used for the slideshow" option in the Preferences no longer deletes the "PICTURE" folder during the output.
Fixed: The seek bar would behave randomly when clicked if the "Move the playhead to the clicked location in the seek bar" option was disabled in the preferences.
Fixed: The audio bitrate would become invalid and the verifier error would occur at output when smart rendering was applied to an LPCM 20 bit or 3 channel audio source in BDMV output target mode.
Improved: Performance optimization and reduction of the memory usage.
There are so many revisions, it wouldn't fit in a single post...
Menu Related Revisions
Fixed: The application would lock-up due to an internal error occurring while outputting a pop-up menu.
Fixed: A deadlock would occur under specific conditions when displaying the Global menu settings and changing the Item display tab settings in a sequence.
Fixed: An unexpected error would arise and the processing would become invalid when editing a background picture with the background audio set to a file that cannot be found.
Fixed: Pressing the PageUp key in the menu editor video/audio selector window would have the same effect than pressing the PageUp key.
Fixed: Video settings would not be reflected in the audio settings when using the video and audio from the same source in the menu background editor window.
Fixed: The Item display tab of the Track menu setting window now displays only the necessary items.
Fixed: Effects would not be applied to all the selected items of a menu.
Other Revisions
Updated: Writing driver updated.
Improved: The Writing tool now writes even when the addition of data is normaly not permitted on the media. This should solve playback problems encoutered in BD players with BD-R media.
Improved: Slideshow animation behavior slightly changed so the animation range is wider when resizing is in "Avoid border appearance" mode.
Fixed: Other various corrections.
Yes, it looks like there are still a lot of bugs in the program. I would suggest that people wait another 6 months before buying it and not becoming a paying beta tester.
BTW, I've also noticed they haven't addressed the H.264 issue, which is one of the most significant failures in my book.
Is the incorrect duration the only problem you're having with H.264 files? How much is it off by?
Again, H.264 file durations show up correctly on my machine. Point me to a H.264 file that I can download (a video podcast for instance) that shows up incorrectly on your machine so I can download it.
Sorry, seen your reply too late and my trial version has now expired so I can't give you more info. The only thing I can say is that I was using a file that was encoded with Nero Recode using H.264 codec and it was read by Corel DVD MovieFactory just fine (with the correct length of the clip). It looks to me that AW4 doesn't like the H.264 codec very much, because other people reported similar problems.
Personally as i have stated in the support emails ive sent, this software just like xpress should have stronger support for avs ie avisynth.
But yes you are correct there are loads of issues still not sorted, 1 of which being that if the encode has an issue without warning or leaving a error message the software will simply crash. Plus you are unable to do 2pass dvd encode with avs, but can only do cbr.
also about dvd navigation links which i will do a topic about.
Which is another thing the dvd links, i had a project which allowed to add a audio page, yet would allow any links and when you did the simlualtion, of course you couldnt even get to the audio page.
when i try to create menus and i want to edit the top menu and put in a picture file it gives me error code 0x8007000e and freezes the screen. what should i do
i have the same problem i think. I start TMPGEnc and i get an error message like the one you got. This was happening with version3 and then i installed version 4 and rebooted and got the same problem
"At address 6795515C, read error occurred against address 6795515C"
I have also run a checkdsk and a defrag with no results.
Have the same problem like hello said program does not work i can't even start a new project now i hope they refund or fix this never had a problem with their software before :(