What is correct Letterbox/pan and scan setting when authoring a 16:9 format DVD. I have been using the letterbox/pan and scan setting and at playback on some tv's there are bars on either side. It works fine on my sets with the DVD's set to 16:9. My sister called and said it did now work on her 16:9 set. It was corrected by setting the dvd player to 4:3. I am confused

The letterbox/pan & scan setting allows your 16:9 footage to be either letterboxed or full-screen (with the sides chopped off) when displayed on a 4:3 tv/monitor. How they display on a 4:3 tv is dependent on your DVD player settings (most DVD players let you choose 4:3 letterbox, 4:3 pan & scan, and 16:9). This setting in DVD Author 3 simply tags the video so your player will know how to display it depending on its settings.

If have 16:9 footage, a 16:9 tv, and your DVD player's video settings are set to 16:9, then everything should look normal.

It sounds like you have 4:3 footage since you say that bars appear on either side on certain tv's. Do you have 4:3 footage and 16:9 footage on your DVD?
It's best to separate your footage so that all of your 4:3 footage is in one track, and all of your 16:9 footage is in another. You can then set the 4:3 track to display at 4:3, and the 16:9 track to display at 16:9 letterbox/pan&scan.

If you can give me more info about your footage aspect ratios, and what type of tv's you plan on viewing this DVD on (16:9, 4:3, both?) then I can give you a better answer on what's going on and what you should do.

The original footage is TS (transport stream) files in 16:9 format pal to be played on both 4:3 and 16:9 in both PAL and NTSC versions.

this is what message I received regarding the dvd I created with the setting at letterbox/pan and scan. there are a couple users who made coments

-Can't seem to produce a pan-'n-scan image. When I tried, I just got a distorted 16:9.

-Plays perfectly on my upconverting 1080i dvd player

-My DVD player normally reads the ratio of the content by default but it didn't in this case. plus If I set it to 16:9 I just get stretched 4:3. I could only set as letterbox 4:3 for the complete image.

something weird - widecreen on PC but only comes out 4:3 on TV, even if I set the TV to 16:9!

>The original footage is TS (transport stream) files in 16:9 format pal to be played on both 4:3 and 16:9 in both PAL and NTSC versions.
>

I see. If all of your footage is in 16:9, then setting it to letterbox/pan&scan should work.

>this is what message I received regarding the dvd I created with the setting at letterbox/pan and scan. there are a couple users who made coments
>
>-Can't seem to produce a pan-'n-scan image. When I tried, I just got a distorted 16:9.

Sounds like this guy has a 4:3 tv but his DVD player is set to 16:9. If he sets his DVD player to 4:3 pan&scan mode, then it should produce the pan & scan image.

>
>-Plays perfectly on my upconverting 1080i dvd player

This player might simply be "smarter" and be able to detect what aspect ratio it should use. It could also just be set to 16:9 by default since it's a 1080i upconverting DVD player.

>
>-My DVD player normally reads the ratio of the content by default but it didn't in this case. plus If I set it to 16:9 I just get stretched 4:3. I could only set as letterbox 4:3 for the complete image.

This person must have 4:3 tv, which is why setting his DVD player to 4:3 letterbox worked. If you have a 4:3 tv and set your DVD player to 16:9, then the DVD player automatically thinks you have a 16:9 tv and fills the entire screen. Thus, it would look normal on a 16:9 screen, but on a 4:3 screen the image would appear stretched (vertically).

>
>something weird - widecreen on PC but only comes out 4:3 on TV, even if I set the TV to 16:9!

I use PowerDVD on my comp and I've found that it just doesn't work the same way a physical DVD player does. It's much smarter and will not pan & scan even if that's what you set in DVD Author 3.
It's strange that it would appear 4:3 on a 16:9 tv. If you have a 16:9 tv, then you should keep the TV's settings at 16:9. The only thing I can think of is that the DVD player is set to 4:3 letterbox mode. This would produce normal 16:9 video but shrunk down with black bars on all sides. I don't have a 16:9 TV where I am right now, so I can't do full tests at the moment.

Your sister's situation is the most puzzling though. If the footage is 16:9 and her tv is 16:9 then it should display correctly when the DVD player is set to 16:9. It's possible that she switched the DVD player to 4:3 pan&scan mode and since her tv is 16:9, it is simply showing what would normally be cut off on a 4:3 tv.
It's also possible that she set the DVD player to 4:3 letterbox mode, and her tv can automatically crop the black bars and stretch the image for a full screen 16:9 effect.

In any case, there are three things we need to pay attention to:
1) The aspect ratio of the DVD footage
2) The aspect ratio setting of the DVD Player (this is probably the most important thing)
3) The aspect ratio of the TV and any pan&scan or fitting settings it may have.

The DVD player should simply be set to whatever aspect ratio your TV is. As long as you set the track settings to "letterbox/pan & scan" in DVD Author 3, the DVD should display correctly depending on what setting is chosen in your DVD player in terms of 4:3 tv's.
If there is any distortion, then the DVD player is probably not set to the right aspect ratio.

I'll see if I can test this out more when I get home.

Can I create a standalone DivX menu for a data DVD that calls DivX files from the disc? I would like to play the movies from the menu on my DivX ULTRA Philips DVD player, but then be able to copy individual titles back off the DVD to my computer, and not have multiple titles tied up in a single ".divx" container file.

Unfortunately this isn't possible due to the way the DivX Ultra format works. Your best bet is to just create a data dvd with all of your separate DivX files. You won't have the fancy menus but you should still be able to play the videos on your DivX DVD player.

hi! im just wondering about importing subtitle, it does not all appear. i mean, i checked it to subtitle creator and it has up to 626 number ( up to 51 mins) but when i import it it only appears to 130 number (it ended in 11 min).
thanks

DVD Author 3 is quite strict with .srt files. Make sure they're in ASCII or UTF-8 encoding.

You may also want to get rid of any html that might be in the srt file.

Lastly, DVD Author 3 will stop importing when it encounters an error, so since you only got to number 130, you should check your srt file and see if there is something wrong at that point.

thanks!
is there a possibility that i convert .srt file to ASCII?
and how to work with UTF-8 encoding?

You can change the encoding with a text editor. A nice one I like using is called EmEditor. You can download a free trial of it here: http://www.emeditor.com/

Once it's installed, you can open the .srt file with EmEditor, then select "Save As..." in the File menu. In the Save As window, there is a drop-down menu where you can select UTF-8 encoding.

How change audio stream mode multiple clips Or All project?

I want import karaoke to project and setting audio stream mode=bilinqual.
Karaoke have about70 clip.
Can you change audio stream mode=bilinqual all clip quickly?
Help Me Please.

I'm afraid you'll have to go through them one by one. At least, I haven't been able to change settings to multiple clips and I don't know if it's possible.

Hi,

I just purchased TMPGEnc Express 4,

It installed fine, but it always hangs when I select a source file, being it AVI or MKV, I can do nothing else than FORCING the application to close using Task Manager. I only see some DirectVobSub icon appear in the Notification area, but then nothing happens at all ?!?

Windows XP SP3. TMPGEnc XPress 4.5.1.254.

Please, what is wrong here ?

Well, it loads when I rename the .SRT file.

BUT....

I have a bigger problem, while editing (for example alligning subs) the audio & video go out of sync !


Please, every mediaplayer on my system plays them perfectly fine, but editing in TMPGEnc XPress 4.0 it goes out of sync, and I thus I cannot correctly allign the subtitles.

PLEASE ! Can someone help me ?

I have the same problem now... y just keep watching the FFDshow icon on the bar and nothing else happens... the program practically freezes... it only happens with AVI files...
what can i do?

the ordinal 3001 could not be located in the dynamic link library PX.dll

this error ocurred, help me!

Is it possible to import an .SRT file completely into DVD Author 3? If so how?
TIA
Paul

In the Source Stage, click on "edit" for the clip you want to add subtitles to.

In the Clip Editing window, select the "Subtitles" tab at the top of the window.

Activate a subtitle stream in the left-hand column (Subtitles List). This should activate the options on the lower half of the window.

Click on "Edit menu" and select "Import Subtitles". You should be able to select your .srt file from there.

great one mate !
i was looking for that one aswell and was so simple ...
in the "edit menu" button at the bottom
in plain sight and missed it totally

didnt wanna add each sub manually ... this one saves humongous time for me
tx !

I have also been trying to import a srt file in a project using the same method. But it doesn't seem to work. When I click the import subtitles button and choose a file to import, nothing happens.
Can you please help?

Hi guys, I have a question.

When creating a DVD, I only want to burn it to a disc, not output the entire file to my hard drive. Is there any way to do this?

Thanks,
Mike

Sorry, this isn't possible. It needs to render and build the DVD files before it can burn them.

I've never seen a program that can render and burn DVD-Video simultaneously.

Just a general question...is there any consensus on the most space-efficient codec? Playback compatibility is not an issue, I'm just wondering about the highest quality for lowest bitrate....at the moment I'm using h.264...which is the most efficient of which I know, but would anyone suggest anything else? Thanks!

I'd say that h.264 is the best at the moment in terms of quality/bitrate.
DivX is probably the next best choice, but I think you'd get slightly better quality with h.264 at the same bitrate.

Hey, i've got an 16:10 .avi video. How can I transcode it with TMPGEnc? there is no "16:10" in source aspect ratio-settings.

Can anyone please tel me why this new version of MPEG Editor will not work on x64 systems? I work using x64 systems and now had to install a XP license just for the purpose of using MPEG Editor 3.

MPEG Editor 2 PREMIUM worked like a charm on x64, so what changed? I hope this is not a software-protection issue, I can't stand it when copy-protections prevent a software that would otherwise run fine from running on certain systems!!!!

Thanks,
Jay

Hmmm, no x64 support? Did you install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&displaylang=en)?

Yep, .NET FW 3.5 SP1 is installed, but no go...

Got an e-mail earlier from tmpgenc enews concerning 4.0 express.
Said 4.0 express was updated to 4.5.2.255
However when I go to web site and pull the latest build it is TE4XP_Retail_4.5.1.254_setup_en.exe.
Has anyone been able to pull the version 4.5.2.255?

Only the foreign language versions carry the 4.5.2.255 version, feature-wise it's identical to the english 4.5.1.254 version.