Let me start out by saying I like this Authoring program a lot, but just like others out there, there is no "perfect" one program out there for everybody.
Simple things like copying and pasting an object would be a huge benefit to have as well as copying and pasting buttons and relinking them.
When converting a bluray project to a dvd project all the highlights for the thumbnails are missing on the DVD project !!! The bluray works fine.I tried burning to a new disc of different manufacture, didn't work. I tried a different highlight color, nope. I tried deleting the output folder and re-encoding to a new folder, which takes a year and a day every time, nada. I tried open with conversion a second time, a third time, negative.

Checked global menu highlight settings, which always reverts back to highlight tab 1 by the way.
Checked opacity of highlight, set at 100%. It does remember the opacity and highlight style just not the tab.
It will not show up on a Samsung Bluray player so I tried a different Standard JVC DVD player and BINGO, it does show up. Obviously I need it to be compatible with as many players as possible. This has always been my crutch of the projects no matter which program I use, and I have used a lot. Anyone else have this problem? Any thoughts? Happy Holidays !!

I will like to know how can I load all my AVCHD files on a SSD, or external drive, and play on my SONY Blu-Ray. All files has the same name "Private".
I tried to rename, the system doesn't work.
Thank you
Hrayr

I'm creating a Blu-ray Top Menu and would like to add an additional button to link to the Track Menu. It doesn't let me copy or add another button. Is it possible? Thanks.

That's one limitation that hurts. You can't add/change buttons. Sometimes, I have a headache thinking of a way to build a Blu-ray the way I want. :-\

Hi,

I would like to know if do you have a plan to support next blu-ray format, Ultra HD, for 4k videos.

Thanks in advance

Some time perhaps, when the market is over flowing with Blu-ray players, who actually supports Ultra HD.
Current status of Ultra HD disc supporting players on the market: Zero
Current status of actual Ultra HD released Blu-ray disc movies on the market: Zero

Pegasys has plenty of time to develop a UHD version of TAW, because the market most likely will not be over flowing with UHD players before mid 2018. Not judged by the current development speed of the UHD supporting players, which is actually rather slow.

Using the disk burning portion of TAW5 I can burn a list of .MKV files to a 25 GB disk. However I would like to have a home page menu that would allow selecting one of the files, play the file, then return to the main menu for another selection. As it is now, the disk shows the list of .MKV files but once a file has started playing it will continue through the rest of all the remaining consecutive files without returning to the home page menu after each file.

Help anyone.

What did you select for "Track playback end action" in "Blu-ray global menu settings"? I believe it is defaulted to "Play the next track" but you should select "Display the track menu (or the top menu if none)" to automatically return to the menu.

Thanks for your reply. I already have the menu set to play one track then return to the top menu. I'm not describing the problem properly: I'm converting files to .MKV because there is very little loss in quality and our Blu-Ray players can play .MKV files. More specifically, when I select "Blu-Ray" in trying to use the 25 GB of the disk, TAW5 converts the files to .m2ts format (Blu-Ray) blowing the files back up to the much, much larger Blu-Ray file size. Same if I select DVD; the files are pumped back up to a greater size (standard DVD). When I use only the "Disk Burning tool" I can drag the files to the tool window and burn all the .MKV files, and that does provide a menu like structure - but there is no returning to the top menu at the end of each track. TAW5 does an excellent job in making a Blu-Ray formatted disks, but I need a much simpler method of being able to return to Menu top after each file and still use the 25 GB disk size. It just not seem possible in TAW5 to do so it seems.

Then, TAW5 is not exactly the tool you are looking for. Maybe something like this will be more helpful.

http://www.videohelp.com/software/multiAVCHD

I have never used the utility above, and am unsure if the top menu will properly play on your blu-ray player, tho'.

Thank you very much..I'll give it a try..

Hello-

I am using Authoring Works ver. 5.2.4.63 and I am seeing the following:
* Creating a DVD with a static menu (png image)
* I add a 7 min music clip (have tried MP3, wma and wav)
* In both simulation mode & the actual DVD, the audio clip only plays for 10 sec and...
* Then the audio clip loops over and over - even though I did not select looping in the Background Music menu

When I select the background music (in the menu screen), the entire music clip is selected and the full 7 mins plays.

Any ideas of what I can check? Thanks!

Looks in the global menu settings under motion menu. There is a box where you control the length of the motion menu loop. Just because you add a 7 minute video, it doesn't automatically change this setting to use the full video. (which personally I wish it would)

I recently purchased a few 100B bdXL discs. Is there a way to use them within Authoring works 5? I noticed it only goes up to 50GB.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

You can't use those discs any way in your Blu-ray player.
The first players to hit the market, who will have BDXL support, won't arrive before 2016, which are UHD Blu-ray players from Samsung and Panasonic.
Not a single one of the current Blu-ray players supports these discs.

Also, did you check the specs for your Blu-ray writer, if it actually has BDXL support?

I want to create an extremely simple menu for Blu-Ray disks. When the disk is inserted it should show 4 selections (tracks) on a main menu. The selected track should play immediately when chosen without any other pages shown. Upon finishing the selected track it should return to the original simple menu. No chapters, no subtitles, nothing except simply open a main menu when the disk is inserted, go to the track selected, finish the track and go back to the main menu. No other selections involved at all.

Is this possible in TAW5?

I have tried at least a dozen different combinations on the custom menu choices with no real success. I keep getting intermediate (one example: chapter pages are shown) and can't get an opening insertion page that shows for track selections only.

Any assistance will be GREATLY appreciated..

After months of frustration trying to import Hauppauge PVR 1920x1080 30p video files into TAW5 without full rendering their output, I’ve ‘stumbled’ on a solution. I’ve read a number of comments on various forums that have echoed my frustrations, so I wanted to share how I’m able to import ‘BDMV – Smart Render compliant’ 1920x1080/30p Hauppauge PVR-2 recorded video, into TAW5 … with NO encoding required.

This solution requires the use of NERO VIDEO, since this program doesn’t have issues importing Hauppauge 1920x1080 HD files and treats them as BDMV compatible video, right from the start. However, if you do any editing whatsoever of the captured video while in NERO VIDEO, the program will tag the original progressive files -- as ‘interlaced’ – and that will produce video files that are no longer Smart Render-compliant when imported into TAW5. Therefore, they need to be imported into NERO through the program’s “CREATE AND EXPORT” utility (not the “EDIT AND IMPORT” utility.)

I’ve tested this solution with NERO VIDEO 12 and NERO VIDEO 2014, so I imagine NERO 2015/2016 would work as well. I also used the original Arcsoft Capture Utility to capture the video; it has setting options not found in the Hauppauge Capture utility.

ARCSOFT CAPTURE 1920x1080 (30p) HD RECORDING SETTINGS:

- VIDEO ENCODER: Set bitrate to maximum (14000 kbps), Constant Mode. I haven’t found any differences in using either the M2TS, TS, or MP4 containers. Nor do any AC3 or AAC settings interfere with TAW5’s Smart Render requirements.

- VIDEO PROPERTIES: Set GOP ‘B Frames’ to “1”, ‘Size’ to “3”, and ‘Muxed Data Rate’ to “3”.

- HAUPPAUGE H264 ENCODER: Select “Defaults” in the Video Encoder section, or make certain that the Profile and Level are set to “HIGH 4.0”.


As long as there’s no corrupt video data present, NERO VIDEO (v.12 or higher) should import Hauppauge recorded video without the need for any encoding.

(The following assumes you know how to use Nero Video.)

Using NERO VIDEO, select “Create A Blu-ray Disc”. Import your recording(s) into the CONTENT menu. Continue to the MENU CREATION options and select NOT to create menus. Continue to the final, PROJECT SUMMARY screen. Your imported video should show “Video SmartEncoding as 100%”. The audio is irrelevant. Write the project to a directory on your hard drive. When complete, open the BDMV/STREAM directory and find your .m2ts videos …. which are now ready to import into TAW5 as “Smart Render” compliant video files.

You can double-check with MediaInfo to make sure the file(s) are still read as Progressive. Also, that ReFrames is at “3” (not, “2”), Format Profile is “High@L4” (not, “4.1”).


ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : D:\The Office\EPISODES 2\BDMV\STREAM\00000.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 2.33 GiB
Duration : 21mn 58s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 15.2 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 48.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames: 3 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 21mn 58s
Bit rate : 14.1 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : Component
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.228
Stream size : 2.17 GiB (93%)
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 21mn 58s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 70.4 MiB (3%)

>
>After months of frustration trying to import Hauppauge PVR 1920x1080 30p video files into TAW5 without full rendering their output, I’ve ‘stumbled’ on a solution. I’ve read a number of comments on various forums that have echoed my frustrations, so I wanted to share how I’m able to import ‘BDMV – Smart Render compliant’ 1920x1080/30p Hauppauge PVR-2 recorded video, into TAW5 … with NO encoding required.
>
I brought this issue to the attention of the programmers at Hauppauge a few years ago, they refused to fix it, and I gave up trying. The problem is a simple one. The hardware programing did not strictly follow the blu ray standard for setting a certain video flag for 1920x1080. It will work ok for 720P format because the flag is correct for 720p. I am out of town and need to look up the flag in my notes when I get home.

I have some video scans of 8mm home movies.
I can make transitions at the split points, but all transitions
modify the source, on both chapters at the split point.

In a future version of TAW I would like to be able to insert a gap
(with default value of 2 seconds) at the end of the
chapter before the split point.
The default color should be black.
This gap would not modify any source frames.

Yes, I could insert a picture or a pattern,
but then that makes a new chapter and so the chapter numbers
are all messed up.

So maybe another possibility is to have a clip property
that does *not* increment the chapter number.
The property would be similar to this one:
"Do not display this chapter in the menu"
In this case, the clip would simply be merged with the previous one
into the same chapter.

Thanks for the consideration,
GlennD

I had the same issue. What I did was create a black image with the same resolution as the track, and add it between the tracks, setting its duration to 1sec. Takes a little bit of time, but while there isn't such feature, it helps creating a gap. Problem is you'll have to turn off the image chapter (as it will be taken as a chapter alone) when building menus. Like said, it takes more time. :)

Almost all of my HD 1920x1080 30p read as fully SMART RENDERING compliant upon loading them into TAW5. In fact, I've even created a few HD videos by taking compliant clips, and re-rerendering them in TAW5 -- then reloading them into a new project. There are no flags, no indications that any clip is not SR compliant, and all the settings indicate the final product is prioritized to utilize Smart Rendering.

However, every time I start outputting the BDMV structure, TAW5 goes through an "ANALYZING" process for each video clip, except the menus (which also contain SR-compliant video backgrounds.) This "analyzing" process is soooo slow that I've given up waiting for it (over 24 hours for 4, 40-minute videos.)

If I simply re-render the videos by disabling Smart Rendering, the same project renders in a couple of hours. So, what's the deal with this extremely slow 'ANALYZING' process, and how do I get rid of it? I don't see any mention of settings for it in PREFERENCES, and the HELP in TAW5 doesn't really mention it.

I use the IBM HARDWARE SDK for encoding, though I've tried using TAW5's X264 encoder as well. I have all encoder settings set to NORMAL, 1-pass VBR, Smart Rendering Prioritized, MPEG-4 AVC (but have tried MPEG-2 SR-compliant files, too), all files in the track are SR compliant (not a mixture of FR and SR files). Even if there's only one file with no menus, and the file is 100% SR-compliant, the damn 'analyzing' begins as soon as I try to output the BDMV structure -- and it takes hours to analyze.

I've given up trying to use TAW5 with Smart Rendering enabled, and just end up re-encoding projects to a slightly higher bitrate, using the SDK Hardware Encoder; it's so much faster. Even when using a software encoder, re-encoding the project is so much faster than waiting for TAW5 to "analyze" each file.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In my case, "ANALYZING" completes in the matter of seconds (or maybe minutes).

If I were you, I would uninstall the "the IBM HARDWARE SDK for encoding" to see if (1) the uninstall would eliminate the problem you refer to, and (2) TAW's own encoder is better or worse than the IBM SDK.

Well, I've disabled the SDK Hardware Encoder, selected TAW5's x264 Encoder, and it's no different. I tried this with a 30-minute HD (full smart render compliant), and "ANALYZING" appears. I let it run to see how long it would take, but gave up after just about three hours of v-e-r-y slow progress. I'm not sure how to access IBM's SDK encoder settings (there's nothing in Windows' Control Panel or Device Manager that I've been able to locate, but I'll check again. I'm hoping you're right and disabling IBM's SDK hardware encoder will resolve this issue. I'll let you know.

I do not know what your system looks like (mobo, CPU, memory, GPU etc) or how important the IBM SDK is to you but, if reinstallation of Windows is not an option for you, installtion of a virtual machine, e.g. VMWare Workstation Player (free), might be worthwhile to see if the clean and simple setup of Windows environment (without the IBM SDK etc) plus TAW only cures the problem. I have been using TAW for several years by now but have never had a case where ANALYSING took such a long time.

I'm running TAW5 on an Intel Core i5 processor, under Win7 Professional, 8GB's RAM, on a Acer Aspire laptop - Intel HD 3000 integrated graphic card. The SDK Hardware encoder isn't used by any other authoring software I'm using; just TAW5, so I might as well bite the bullet and uninstall the SDK support files. Think maybe I'll first try booting up in Safe Mode, and disabling everything I can that will still allow TAW5 to function. If all else fails, maybe do a clean Win7 install. I really would like to be able to use TAW5 without re-encoding.

I was hesitating on doing anything drastic only because I was hoping, Pegasys would release either an update, or upgrade that would include "end of clip" play options, and integrate some basic "copy and paste" or full "duplicate" menu and menu item features -- something that would seem to be a pretty basic BDMV authoring feature. But alas, they don't seem to be addressing these limitations.

I was able to disable the Hardware SDK encoder, limiting my choice of encoding using the x264 software encoder. Didn't help. I'm using a one-video BDMV format with no menus, and still, when I begin the BDMV creation, the "ANALYZING" message pops up and creeps along very slowly.

I also uninstalled the current version of TAW5, and installed an earlier version, and disabled all other installed multimedia software from loading (via CCleaner's Start-up editor). Still, no change.

At one point (during the past year) after one of the program updates, I actually did have a very short HD video, Smart Render, but it hasn't done so since.

Almost all of my HD video files are recorded with a Hauppauge PVR 2 HD recorder, at 1920x1080 30p. These HD recordings load perfectly into NERO VIDEO and require no re-encoding; audio is AC3 5.1, recorded using an optical (toslink) connection. NERO reads both VIDEO and AUDIO as 100% SmartEncode compliant. I then export them from NERO VIDEO as m2ts BD files, where they will then read as Full Smart Render compliant by TAW5. Nothing is flagged as non-BDMV compliant.

Very frustrating....

Would you be able to upload (a part of) the video file somewhere so that I can check to see if the problem reproduces on my system as well?

Thanks! I'll upload one or two 5-minute segments of SR videos to my server, when I get home today....

Here's two, 2-minute 1920x1080 (30i) .m2ts AVC/AC3 video files, both which load as Smart Render compliant in TAW5 ... and both first go through a slow 'analyzing' process when outputting them to BDMV format.

http://QuestStudios.com/files/TEST_00000.m2ts

http://QuestStudios.com/files/TEST_00002.m2ts

Please let me know when you've downloaded the files so that I can remove the files from my serever. And thanks a lot for the help!

Hi. Thanks for the upload. I just downloaded the two test files. I then loaded them onto TAW5 (5.2.4.63) and attempted to make a Blu-Ray disk out of them (using the default setting in TAW). The "ANALYZING" part took about 4 minutes, and the Smart Render process (yes, my TAW recognized the files as Smart Renderable) also took another 4 minutes resulting in a proper Blu-Ray disc image (am viewing it with Power DVD). Thus, contrary to my earlier suspicion, the files produced by your capture device seem OK as I do not see oddity when I check the files with MediaInfo. One thing I would like you to test is the field order of the interlace setting in TAW: What happens if you change the field order to "Bottom field first" in Track setting (you have to change Output setting to "Re-encode all videos as blow" (instead of Automatic (Smart rendering prioritized) first to choose the field order option)? Does TAW still take a long time in the analyzing part?

Thanks for checking the files. It appears you duplicated the same results I get -- so when Smart Rendering a BDMV with four, 40-minute videos, the "analyzing time" becomes ridiculously long....and re-encoding (via Hardware SDK) takes only a couple of hours.

Reversing the field order doesn't appear to be any different, since TAW5 re-encodes at the same speed on my system, no matter how the field order is set; there's no "analyzing" screen that appears when I use either Hardware or Software encoders. I'm currently trying a 42-minute video Smart Render, and the "analyzing" screen is present: It states the remaining time as, 12 hours, 17 mins, though the time keeps increasing as the video progresses.


I've found that Smart Render works for me with TAW's definition of compliant "PROGRESSIVE" (instead of INTERLACED) video files! My PVR is capturing in Progressive format (1920x1080 30p ~16Mbps AVC.) When I load the captured file into NERO VIDEO, it reads it as 100% Video and Audio Smart Render compliant, and doesn't re-encode it. However, the resulting .m2ts file reads as interlaced, after NERO creates it. Since it's not re-encoding the file, I don't know why this is happening. MediaInfo, TAW5, and even Windows 'File Properties' all recognize the original file as progressive, until NERO creates a BDMV structure.

TAW5 flags several parameters or these original recordings as non-BDMV compliant. I think I need to play around with some PVR recording settings to see if I can find one that TAW likes. I'm not sure how much I'm able to change, but I still can't figure out why NERO is tagging these files as INTERLACED...there would be no problem if it would leave the file data intact.

I do not use the capture device or the video editor you refer to so cannot give you much advice there. Meanwhile, I came across a message that might be relevant to you. I hope this helps.

http://bbs.pegasys-inc.com/bbs/delete/lang/en/board/kheaton@cox.net/messid/66709

Tom

I explained above. The manufacturer used an incorrect flag in the HARDWARE for capturing 1080. It does not stricly follow the DVD/Blu ray standard when you capture 1080. 720P works fine and will smart rendor because the plag is correct for 720P.

It was a simple correction. I brought up the issue with the programmers at the company, they were subborn, and they refused to fix it. Therefore 1080 files will not smart rendor in software that is strict to the DVD/Blu Ray standards. TMPgenc strictly follows the standards other software may not.

Long story short...Give up trying to make it work. Waste of time. I tried for about a year to get the issued at Hauppauge corrected. it would have worked fine if the file was outputted from the pvr as interlaced instead of progressive.

A simple question that seems hard for me to find an answer to. I have sub pages in my dvd for different short films I am compiling onto it. The issue is that the back button seems hard coded as a back to top menu button when I actually want it to go back to the film selection page. So how do I control what buttons do?