Newb here.

Whats the difference between "Track" and "Clip" ?

I am trying to make a dvd for my grandaughter and it's basically Sesame Street episodes.

Would I make a single track with episodes as clips, or should each episode be it's own track?

Clips are basically another name for your video file. The track is one movie in your DVD/Blu-ray. So if you have a couple of clips in a track, those clips will play one after the other as if they were one long movie. In other words, when you put clips in a track they are treated like chapters.

For tv episodes, I would put each episode in its own track. That way, you will be able to play each episode individually.

Can someone help me please? I keep getting the same message every time I try to import a file: Says something to the effect: COULD NOT OPEN THE VIDEO PART OF THE FILE C:----- ONLY THE AUDIO PART CAN BE OPENED??? UUGGGHHH! What the heck? I never had this problem b4!! Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong or what I did to make this start happening?

What kind of file is it? Usually that means you don't have the right codec, so it can't decode the video part of the file. Use a program like GSpot or MediaInfo to find out what codec it requires then do a search on the web for that codec.

Thank You Sooooo Much!! PROBLEM SOLVED! I did some cleaning up & I guess I accidentally deleted my Codec package! Man, who would think 1 little file could screw so much up! Thanks A TON!

By the way - If anyone needs the web address for the package that fixed this 4me it's:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=06FCAAB7-DCC9-466B-B0C4-04DB144BB601&displaylang=en

I have a project that I have split into several clips. On two of the clips I would like to change the volume level. It always ends up changing the level on all clips in the project. How is this done?

Thanks for any help.

Problem solved. I needed to enter each clip from the main page, not just go to it from within the edit mode.

Becuase I store numerous clips on DVD's in VCD format, and sometimes need to create DVD's of samples of them, it is better to encode them CBR, so that I get Smart Rendering. Is there anyway of making CBR the default, so that I won't forget to do it for EVERY track? I have a nasty suspicion the answer is no!!

As far as I can tell, no :(
There's nothing in the preferences to set rate control defaults.

I have not purchased AW4 yet but I have a question can I import a 2vuy(HD) or an M2v HD file into AW4 and down convert output to SD?

Thanks Mike

m2v should be importable. 2vuy might be importable if you have a codec for it. Anything you import can be output as an SD DVD/BD/DivX.

Download the trial to make sure your files work before you buy it though:
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/taw4.html

I have a large number of DVD's burned with VCD content. I cometimes need to burn a DVD with samples of these. They all need Full Rendering, which is very time consuming. Is there some way I can get around this so that it will use Smart Rendering?

TAW4 might not be getting the correct aspect ratio for the VCD video. A VCD I have is should be set to Pixel 10:11 (NTSC 4:3), but TAW4 set it as Pixel 12:11 (PAL 4:3). Once I set it to the NTSC aspect ratio, smart rendering kicked in.
Likewise, if your VCD files actually are PAL 4:3, then you'll need to make a PAL DVD for smart rendering to be activated.

You can change the aspect ratio setting for your clip in the clip properties tab of the clip editing window.

Using PAL. I have a clip encoded as VCD. Using GSpot, I see the pixel aspect ratio is 12:11. Load it into TAW4 and check with clip properties - par is 12:11. It is using smart rendering.

Burn a DVD. Load the clip into TAW4 ripping from the DVD. Clip properties show par 12:11. Rename the ripped dvddata file to mpg and check with GSpot - par is 12:11. Using full rendering.

With the original VCD clip and the ripped clip loaded into TAW4, I cannot see any difference in clip properties, apart from the tags MPEG file reader and DVD reader. Also, the original clip shows bit rate (1150 kb/s), but the ripped clip doesn't show bit rate. Maybe I should set the track settings to CBR when I burn VCD files? (I'm going to have no end of problems remebering to do this each time!)

Did a quick test with track setting at CBR and now if I rip it, it gives smart rendering. Pity about all my currently archived material being VBR!!!

Thanks for the help.

Looks like you're right. I ran a few tests of this myself and it looks like TAW4 is changing the file type to MPEG-2 if you select VBR. Unfortunately, a MPEG-2 VBR at VCD resolutions is not compliant with the DVD-Video format, which is why it will then be full rendered if you try to import the DVD.

So there's two options from there:

1) Change the resolution to a regular DVD-Video resolution (720x480, 720x576, etc.), making it like typical DVD-Video footage. However, increasing the size of the image will also increase the file size, so you wouldn't be able to fit as much on one disc

or, (probably the better option)

2) Selecting CBR will keep the file as an MPEG-1 and retain its ability to be Smart Rendered for future projects.

Hi, here is the situation, lets say I compile a dvd video, but I want to burn it at later time (not right after the convertion to dvd), I can't find a way in Authoring Works 4 that would allow to burn the dvd, is it possible? Will it work if I just burn the audio_ts video_ts folders using the built in disc burner, or do I have to use some other software for this. I think this is a fairly simple operation that should be built in the software.

Just output the project and not burn it. You can always burn the video_ts folder later with the disc writing tool. The disc writing tool can be accessed in the Start stage.
Once in the disc writing tool, use the "Add folder" button to select the folder on your hard drive that contains the Video_ts and Audio_ts folders, then you should be ready to burn.

The file has 2 language italian and english italian is audio 1 and english is audio 2 but I can only get the italian and not the english what am I doing wrong? I've tried 4 or 5 times only get the same result.

What kind of file is it?

I need to reduce the file size of some avi's and reducing the frame rate or the picture size would seem the answer, but I can't see how to do this ?

To change your output settings:

http://i28.tinypic.com/2z51veg.png
1. go to the Source stage
2. click on the "Settings" button for your track(s).
3. in the track settings window, click on the video tab

Then edit the settings you want to change. You may need to change the Encoder Mode to "Re-encode all videos as below" in order to change some settings.
Lowering the bitrate might be a better way of lowering the file size though, but it's up to you.

Thanks for that. The logic of going to "source/settings" for the "output requirements" had passed me by completely. Anyway, in business now.

Foe some reason, all of a sudden, after my project gets through trans coding, the disc writing tool starts up but does not start the burn process. I have to do that manually and yes I do have it checked in the output before I start to write to the media automatically. I get the problem more with re-writable discs than R's and I also tried changing blank brands. I'm using Verbatim now. Also the problem does not happen every time.

Hi. I just used the TAW4 trial. My 157-minute film is 7.7GB, so I clicked the DVD+R DL choice when setting preferences. But when I tried to create an ISO, I got this error message:

"One layer DVD media capacity exceeded. It is not possible to create a valid ISO image file for a dual layer DVD media. Your ISO image file will not be transferable on a media. Do you want to create an ISO image file anyway? Y/N"

Not possible to create an ISO for double layer? Is this message accurate? Is it only for the TAW4 Trial, for TAW4, or is that true for all DL discs--cannot burn ISO on them?
Thank you.

You are probably better off outputting your project to audio ts and video ts at 8.5GB size, and then using imgburn to either burn folders straight o disc or to create iso and then burn to disc. This way you can set write speed to it's minimum to make the burn quality more likely to succeed. Recently I did the same but didn't set the lower write speed which left a slightly dodgy frame playback toward the end of the clip.

Thanks for that answer.

I just received another answer from Olivier Graves in TMPG Pre-Sales Customer Service:
"I am afraid it is not possible. The ISO image format is quite old now and has never been updated to the multi-layer type of physical media. For this reason, ISO images can only be created when the output fits on a single layer."

What he wrote is compatible with an ImgBurn Error that I got: "Optimal L1 Data Zone Start LBA: None Found! (VTS_01). This image has not been correctly mastered for burning onto a double layer (OTP Track Path) disc. None of the cells meet the 'DVD-Video specification' criteria for a potential layer-break position."

In a related matter, I found that when burning to DL, slower is not always better. I got numerous burn failures using Verbatim DVD+R DL when trying to burn folders at 2.4x which is recommended on the disc pack. I finally checked my NEC ND3520A burner's specs, and it requires 4x and only 4x for burning DL.

Can anyoone tell me if i import a dvd which has 8 subtitles stream can authoring works preserve them ?Because i have heard that 2 is the maximum subtracks in authoring works.
Thanks

Unfortunately, 2 is the max.