I'm looking for a DVD video editing progam that will let me create a DVD that will loop back on itself, so it can play continuously at trade shows. Does anyone know if DVD Author 3 has this ability.

Thanks in advance

Yes, this is possible as long as you don't need to see the menus between tracks.

You can set it so that when one track finishes playing, it will automatically start playing the next track. You can also set it to loop so that when the last track finishes playing, it will loop back to the first track and continuously play.

You can try downloading the trial to test it out yourself. These settings can be set when you set up the menu through the Menu Wizard, or via the Global DVD Menu Settings. Just look for the "Track playback end action setting".

Thanks for your help. It's been surprising that this isn't a standard feature on many video editing software packages. I'll give it a try.

Hello,

I just downloaded TMPGE-XP4 and imported my first video file (a .TS file captured from DVB-C). The import is quite long (11 minutes for a 2h30' movie) but this is not the problem. The problem is that the display does not give the right video frames. It displays a queer abstract colored picture. If I call for the cut editor, it is the same.
I searched in the help manual for an action to be taken, but I did not find any. Is the preview and cutting not possible for all formats ?

:) Gabier

Can you play it in Windows Media Player?
Maybe it's a codec problem.

I can play it with VLC.
I made another test with a short clip. In fact I suspect TMPG4XP does not import TS files from DVB-T/C/S source. If the input is the raw TS file, I have the problem described above. If I convert this TS file to m2p file with ProjectX, then I can input this file in TM4XP and the frame previews is correct.
The content is not quite the same because when converting from TS to m2p, ProjectX strips off all stuff but video and audio (for instance subtitles). But I suspect that this is not the problem. Rather, TM4XP does not understand the TS structure (188 bytes packets, etc...). It is advertised that TS files inputs are OK, but in the help the TS files are not in the list of input files. It is said that only TS files from HDTV camcorders are possible.

If this is confirmed, I have wasted my money because I bought TM4XP in order to convert TS files from DVB-C to compliant MPEG2.

Gabier

Hm looks like you're right. 4.0 Xpress can only import the MPEG-2 transport streams .mpg, .m2t, m2ts, and .mts.
Sorry, I haven't worked with .ts files but I thought it was possible too.

Hi,
I'm trying to convert my newly bought course from Lynda.com. so I can play them on my Ipod. The file is a .mov file and I can add the file to the source window in TMPGEnc, but can't preview (prelisten) to the sound of the file. When I go and do the encoding itself I get an error... does any one have an idea on this? Is it a bug in TMPGEnc? I asking if it is a bug simply beacuse when I tried a software called Mediacoder it will convert the .mov file just fine... but TMPGEnc will not...

Best Regards
Jerry

To answer my own question, hehe, is an answer I read from other answer on other topics, but to resolve my problem only do this:
If I turn off the Quicktime plugin and let DirectX handle the files things are OK.
And that's all!

/JJ

Not an issue but more of a complaint/comment: I had TMPGEnc setup and working on my old computer but when I installed on my new computer, audio wasn't present in any of the converted clips. It took me a little while to realize that I needed AC3Filter in order to make it work.

I'm not very knowledgeable about video encoding/decoding/editing but I consider myself very proficient with technical issues with computers. I'm wondering how the general population buying an HD camcorder would realize what the problem was and fix it?? Maybe the answer is that the average HD camcorder buyer wouldn't be buying TMPGEnc XPress. I could've missed it, but is there any concise documentation detailing the additional components needed in order to perform general tasks? I'm not saying to call out specific products, just to say what types of plugins/utilities will be required. In my case, it's a simple task converting the very large .mts files to Divx (I archive the .mts files).

TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress uses the codecs installed on your computer. If you can play your movie files outside of 4.0 XPress, then in most cases you shouldn't have a problem using them in 4.0 XPress. It was even possible to import AVCHD files before they were officially supported because of this flexibility.

It's possible that AC3Filter installed some codecs that you needed.

Can anyone advise how to have a smooth or fade in transition between chapters using DVD Author 3

Transition effects aren't possible in DVD Author 3. You'd have to add the transition effects in TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress or some other program.

I use TMPG for encoding DVD movies but for 'home video' where I have shortish clips that would benefit from fades to avoid frequent scene jumps, I use Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD. www.womble.com Don't let the silly name fool you. It's very competent. Tony.

Wouldn't TMPGEnc MPEG Editor 3 be the way to go for these clip transitions like fades, etc? Or even the 4.0 XPress product?

That's true. MPEG Editor 3 has much better and more varied transition effects than 4.0 XPress.
With 4.0 XPress, you'd only be able to do fade-in/fade-out, but with MPEG Editor 3, there's a ton of different types of fade and wipe effects.

I'm gonna have to check out this Womble thing too. Sounds interesting.

I am burning a collection disk of music videos that I recorded off the air, and transferred from vhs. Unfortunately, the sound level for each of the videos varies, so I need to make the sound levels consistent, without "squashing" the sound with over-compression. In addition to a simple volume adjustment for each file, TMPGenc Author 3 offers 2 options for adjusting the sound level for multiple files on the same track [in the Source - Clip Editor - Cut-edit - Audio filters - Volume Adjustment tab]: These options are Normalization and Uniformization. Unfortunately, the manual does not describe clearly what the difference between them is, and how to adjust the parameters. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Doesn't anyone have any idea or specs about this?

I am having problems getting my mpeg-2 files (converted to mpeg-4) using the latest version of Xpress and play correctly on my Apple iTouch.

I use the ISO MPEG-4 template and select the output container ipod video (assuming that means itouch video will play or accept that format).

I used iTunes (latest version) to transfer files from my harddrive to the iTouch.

Symptoms range from audio loss (good video and audio for the first 28 minutes of a 30 minute video, but no audio the remaining 2 minutes, only silent video).

This looks like an XPress encoding problem as I can play the mpeg-4 file correctly from my desktop.

I run Windows Vista/64 with 8GB of RAM, and twin 500GB SATA drives. All updates to software and drivers are current.

Wait, so you can play the MPEG-4 file from your desktop with no problems, but playing it through your iTouch, it loses audio in the last 2 minutes?

Or do you mean that the MPEG-2 files are fine, but after you convert them to MPEG-4 with XPress, the problems arise?

Does this happen to all of your MPEG-2 files? Is audio loss the only problem?

I tried converting a DVD compliant MPEG-2 file to MPEG-4 with the ipod video container and my results were fine. What are the specifications of the MPEG-2 file?

TPMG DVD Author 2

When I choose my own background image (a jpg 100% for exemple, size 768x576), the quality is really poor, worse than the background given with the software. It seems to be very compressed.

How to make a clean background image ?

Hi all,

I'm currently trying the 4.0 Express - especially to convert h.264 ts files from a satellite receiver. Everything goes fine, but audio AC3 5.1 source file is always converted to a DVD-compliant mpeg file with a 2 channels DD output.
Is it due to the "file processing", as written in the Help, or is there a "trick"?
The answer is capital to pay or not the licence.

Tnans to all!

Has anyone got any suggestions for settings to encode mpeg2 files to H.264 with very little visual loss. I would like to archive files using this format, but can't seem to work out all the settings... any ideas are greatly appreciated

hello there!

i have video source material recorded in transport .m2t files.
my video editing system is avid media composer. unfortunatly avid has no support these files to directly import in aplication. and im using xpress to convert m2t to quicktime mov files. using option without compression full frames. ouput files becomes very large. its more then 10 times increases file sizes. what option i should use to save video quality unchanged and decrease file ouput sizes?

thank you!

I am trying to recode 30 minutes of Full-HD .mts (Panasonic AVCHD - 3.3 GB) as WMV and it takes about 11 hours. :-( Surely this is a little over the top?
I note that .wmv is the only video I can work with on my Intel Core 2 machine with 4 GB of memory. Anything else just judders and jars.
I first used a bitrate of 8000 instead of the default of 1000, but am now trying 4000 deinterlaced. However I can leave my machine on for several weeks if I want to transcode everything. Is there a better way?
(Sorry if this is a dupe, but this forum interface is the least intuitive I have seen in years. I feel like I'm back in the Fidonet era! :-)
Martin

It could simply take that long.
I converted a 6 second full HD .m2ts file to WMV (default settings: bitrate of 1000, 1pass CBR) just to see how long it would take. It took 1 min 41 seconds. Doesn't sound long, but for a six second video, that's a long time.
Then again, I'm only on a Pentium4, so that's probably not helping.

Martin,

It is taking exactly as long as it is supposed to. I have a Quad Core for my setup and it takes me anywhere from 5 to 8 hours to convert a movie to VMWHD. The problem isnt their software, but the way Microsoft does their WMV encoding. It is by far the slowest convertor that I have seen these days. I don't know why, it is just like that. So don't feel bad, I have heard of other people needing over 24 hours to do a conversion.

Unfortunately, that's how long it takes. I'm in the process of ripping/converting/upscaling my DVD collection to 1280x720 (720p) using WMV9AP (it has the best output over all other WMV codecs, even WMV9) and it takes 24 hours or so on my Quad Core Q9300 w/ 2GB of RAM .... per DVD.

On my Dual Core E6750 it took just over 48 hours per DVD.

XViD and H.2764 just don't provide the same quality for streaming to my XBox 360 since they are limited to 4GB in size.