When you click on TRACK settings and then VIDEO tab there is a list of fields that provide information about and setting pertaining to the video. Couple of questions.

1) I see the max bitrate (non edit field) and underneath it Bitrate which I can edit. Is this the Average bitrate (for VBR)? or is it the bitrate that will be used if the video is rendered?

2) Underneath is a horizontal slide bar for Video Quality. Whenever I bring in a new clip and view this tab the video qualitity is always about 90% and I move it to 100%. Is there a way to configure it to always be 100% and why would I want a less that 100% quality picture, especially since I don't see that changing this value to 100% causes my file size to increase?

Thanks

1) Default is VBR 1pass and the bitrate that you can change is the avg, which should be automatically set based on the first clip you import if you have Smart Rendering prioritized. Even if you change this number it will not affect your first clip if it qualifies for Smart rendering, TDA3 uses this number to re-encode the rest of your track to match this bitrate.

You can change the Max bitrate if you select re-encode as below, but this will re-encode everything even your MPEG-2 compliant files.

2) This is similar to the JPEG quality slider, since its 10% difference, your file size won't change much nor quality but they keep it at 90% because it makes a bigger difference in speed. Probably best to keep it at 90 you won't notice any degrade in quality and it will be faster.

Thanks for the explanation. Sorry, I'm full of questions. Another question regarding the settings on the Video tab.

I understand that VBR 1 pass is the default but I generally select 2 pass since I keep reading that it gives better quality. I've been editing out some scenes in some clips by splitting and removing the sections I don't want. This means that I end up with 2 or more clips in my track. If I select to link the clips, I only have VBR 1 pass as an option. Why is that?

Thanks

I'm not sure the technical reason for this, but they placed a little message under the clip linking that some rate control mode will be limited. You could get 2 pass if you set it to re-encode all as below.

Thanks. I keep forgetting that I can click to re-encode it with other options.

What is the difference between the begin of chapter (Flag icon) and the "["? If I create a new chapter the "[" follows anyway. Seems like you should only need one but have to guess that there is a reason or purpose of having both. Can someone explain how they would be used separately? The online help gives a definition of what each are but seems to be lacking (at least for a beginner like me) how you would use them.

Thanks

There is a difference, more or less unimportant but good way to organize. The flag tells you that the current frame is a key chapter which can be used in your Menu as a chapter. The bracket '[' is the start frame selection bracket ']' is the end frame, these two can appear depending on where you have the frame selected. They can appear independently of the chapter so you can have it selected in mid chapter or anywhere really. Play around with it to see what it does but really isn't that important.

Hello!
I have installed a trial version.
When I try to edit a MPEG file and to visualize the video, I have no sound.
To obtain the sound I have to click twice on the "Mute" botton.
However, when I make the conversion, I obtain a MPEG file without sound, even if in the status bar the audio conversion is indicated.
Any solution???

Thats a bit weird, can you tell me what audio codec your source file uses? TMPGEnc 2.5 only supports Linear PCM, MP2, and maybe AC3 if you buy their AC3 plug-in. You're probably missing a codec.

i have downloaded the application and extracted it too any old place (maybe my first mistake) and then i get the templates and extract them too where is specified in the guide i am using.
but upon opening the application i dont see the option other and when i went ahead anyway and tried using just a ntsc format it said that the avi file i wanted to convert i got an error message,,,
can someoone run me through how to get the application and the templates to work together please...
thanks dan

all i want too do is convert avi files into kvcd to be able to burn onto cd-r,s and watch on my dvd player...

I'm assuming you are referring to the settings template .mcf files. These you will want to extract it to ~\TMPGEnc 2.5\Template\Extra\ directory then click on the Load button on the lower right corner between setting and save button. You can also manually locate the .mcf file anywhere you extract it to on your HDD.

But it seems like this might not be your main problem. If you get an error message like that then there might be something wrong with your AVI file. Could be that you don't have the codec to decode it.

I am trying to create MP4 playable on my PSP with TMPEG 4.0 (Trial)
The source is MJPEG, 15fps, 320x240.
I tried using ISO MPEG4, Portable Game console as container and several different settings (level 2 and 3, 15 and 29,97 fps, different bit-rates) but always the PSP tells me the format is unsupported.
Am I doing something wrong or TMPEG is unable to output this format?
I've looked everywhere (this and other forums, FAQs) but haven't find an answer yet, and my purchase decision relies heavily on being able to create PSP video.
Can someone help me?

The PS3 is somewhat related to the PSP, so I'll share what I've learned. For me the PS3 will only accept MP4's that use AVC, not the ISO setting. Try the AVC MPEG4 with the portable game console container, main profile, at level 2 or 3, and your original 15 frames per second. If the main profile encode doesn't work then you could try changing to the baseline profile.

If you want some somewhat convoluted but helpful reading on what the PSP can handle for MP4 then go here: http://www.pspvideo9.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4

Fuzz54 is probably right about the format. AVC also gives you a better quality and bitrate higher than 768kbps. Of course AVC format will also make your file size larger than ISO encodes. If you stick with ISO, then try changing the bitrate to CBR or VBR and setting the Quantization mode to MPEG instead of H.263. That might work.

I have one .m2v file plus one .wav file, and want to make now one mpg2 file.

I go to FILE-->MPGE TOOLS-->SIMPLE MULTIPLEX

I choose my .m2v file - ok
I choose my .wav file - error message pop ups

Multiplexing Linear PCM stram to system strem is not supported

So, what do I wrong ?

thx a lot,
bernhard

I'm guessing your using TMPGEnc 2.5, which doesn't support WAV files for multiplexing. You need AC3 or MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio for it to work, so try converting your wave file to AC3 or MP2 then multiplex shouldn't give you an error.

Hey, i would love the the posibility to add logos (watermarking) to the movies i encode with tmpgenc this is the only let down with the program.

Best Regards
Morten

I second this, this is the only let down of the software

Al intentar registrarme como usuario Support, User Registration ,User Registration step2, dejando de lado que únicamente está en inglés, el producto TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 with DivX Authoring VERSION EN ESPAÑOL no se encuentra en el desplegable.

¿Deben actualizar la lista de productos para incluir la versión en español, o debo escoger la de inglés?

Por cierto podrán crear en el foro el apartado para consultas del TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 with DivX Authoring VERSION EN ESPAÑOL

Gracias.

I suggest you try using the Espanol forum in the Espanol language site. Seems like they have a TMPG Es tech there under TXP4 that can probably help you even if its wrong software section.

http://bbs.tmpg-inc.com/bbs.php?board=es_tmpgenc

But from basic Google translation, you might just have to wait a little bit for TMPG to update their website and system to include the newly released ES version. Hope you can understand what I wrote, if not then try using Google.

http://www.google.com/language_tools

This is an important project. I'm trying to author a DVD and it got 92% of the way through (Elapsed: 01:43:23 Remaining: 00:08:08) destined for a dual layer DVD (8008/8025 MB as it stands at this point, the target size was lower, however)

I got this error message:

An error occurred during the process. (Error code: 0x80040218)

What does this pertain to?

Thanks,

JG

It would help if you can tell us more about your source file. TMPG is pretty solid, so any error it gives is usually a result of either a corrupt source file or other process interferring such as FFDShow or codec packs. Sometimes, but rarely do those help more than they hurt.

Hello, I start new project and import from DVD source. I want to be able to select many certain parts of the DVD to add to the project as one file. Whenever I select a part to cut out it does not cut it in the right place. It leaves a part of the frame...a very brief blip of the frame. I move the cut exactly over the head but it always cuts just a bit before or after the head leaving a bit of the frame in the final movie.

The only way I've been able to work around this is to make the selection I want and click OK, then I have to import the DVD source all over again to select another scene from the DVD. I have to do this with every scene I want to include in the final movie. This tool is suppose to be easy to use, but in reality it is not easy.

Questions:

Why won't it cut properly?

Why do I have to import the DVD source each time I want to select a scene to add to my movie?

It might be normal that there seems to be a frame left behind, it's probably just the way TME2 displays the frame. If you right click on the preview area and select thumbnail display settings > I Pictures only then you won't see that 1 remaining frame. TDA3 does a better job at displaying the frames, it can display 1 frame at a time so you don't get that remnant frame, but this doesn't affect your video.

If you want to split your chapters up then try using the Split tool next to the chapter flag on the lower left corner. It will split the video into however you want into separate clips so you don't have to re-import every time you do a cut.

Thanks for your help. Ok I see what you mean now. It doesn't include those little blips in the final encoded file. It is a bit deceiving. Why does it do that? I've not seen any other editors do that. Is there a reason?

I can only assume its the way the developer wanted to display the frames as I-picture so its easier to re-encode or they placed it that way as a flag to let the program know what is going on.

Hello,

I tried using DVD Author 3 to make a DVD. I took a bunch of anime clips that originally aired in 4:3, but someone converted to 16:9 on a dvd for me and it all looked stretched... so i pulled all the clips off of the dvd, set the ration to full screen, and created the menus.

Everything looked AWESOME, except that when i went to view it on an SDtv, the video wasnt encoded to fit within the safe zones. The menu creation screen has guidelines to work with to make sure you keep everything viewable, but i didnt see any kind of an option on the videos properties page. I tried choosing both full screen options and also the square pixel option but nothing works.

On my HDTV it looks perfect, but on the older sets the subtitles on the bottom are totally cut off and its cropped all over the place it seems like.

Is there a way to fix this? These subs are hard coded and originally fit fine on all the tvs until the clips get encoded.

Sorry if this was long winded... and thanks!

Its a bit confusing because theres no setting inside TDA3 for ratio "Full screen" that I can think of for the video. On the menu, the TV grid line just affects the menu, it shouldn't change your video...TDA3 might not be the problem, try checking your SD TV or DVD player for any zoom option, i think it might have been turned on, so you are seeing it zoomed in or "cropped".

TDA3 either stretches or shrinks your video to fit NTSC 720x480 but will not crop any part of your video, from what I can tell anyway.

I have a couple of avi videos, with 5 or 6-channel AC3.
When I encode with TMPGenc XPress, the audio is always extremely low, even if I use the volume adjustment.
It doesn't seem to be reading the center track, which normally has the main dialog.

If I demux the AC3 audio from the avi file, and try to merge it to the converted mpv stream, it's always out of sync.
The picture quality is great, so I'm wondering what to do... and what tools to use? How can I merge the original AC3 audio, with the newly encoded mpeg-2 stream, so I can author it, with it being in sync?

Any help appreciated... thanks!!!!!!!!!

Do you have AC3filter installed? TXP4 uses directshow for avi with ac3, so that means it will use external codec to decode. If you are missing the codec or if the setting for ac3filter is set to stereo then it might not decode the other channels correctly.

If you plan on muxing the AC3 to video then I suggest you tell TXP4 to output video in ES (Video only) it will create .m2v file that you can mux your audio with TXP4 MPEG Tool. Its an elementary stream so chances are you get better sync assuming you didn't modify the fps.

Thanks for replying.
Yes, I have the AC3 filter installed.
I did a test with a 6-channel AC3 source, and put the AC3 filter's output as 3/2+SW 5.1. What I got was a loud buzz. If I changed back to stereo, it encoded very low. I played around with different settings, but anything more than 2-channel got a loud buzz.

Too bad there's no way for TXP4 to mux the original audio, as it encodes the MPEG-2, rather than having to encode it again, or mux it separately.

If you have any other ideas... thanks!

Try going into Options > Preferences > File Input > and disable the AVI file reader. This will boost directshow priority and hopefully decodes your AC3 correctly. Once it does, you might want to tweak your AC3filter to boost the audio level, sometimes DD playback level is a little low.