I have media that is 16x9 and my client needs it to be 480x360 (4x3 letterbox).
He doesn't want it to look squished, which is why I need it to have the letterbox.
Is there a way to do this in TMPGEnc Xpress? In Sorenson Squeeze, there is a checkbox for "letterbox". When I do this is works fine, but I can't find anything like this in Xpress. There must be a way to do this and I hope someone can tell me how.
Thanks.

You shouldn't need to set is manually.

As long as you have your source imported as 16:9, just set the output size to what you want and it will letterbox automatically.

I do this all the time for pillarboxing 4:3 movies into a 16:9 frame.

4:3 source - 16:9 destination = auto letterbox/pillarbox.

This doesn't seem to work for me because of the size of my sources. They are 853x480, but the program sees them as 720x480. So the movie comes out 4x3 squeezed instead of 4x3 letterbox. Do you know a way around this?

Bug Error:
I'm transcoding training DVD videos to WMV. When I select 2 pass variable bit rate audio, and then start to encode the video, TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress 4.6.2.266 automatically switches to 1 pass CBR at 16kHz mono. What gives?

I have TMPGEnc 3.0 Xpress running on the same computer, and it runs ok.

I've tried several different DVD's and WMV/WMA formats and they all get switched back to 1 pass CBR (some even switch to 8kHz mono). Anyone else having this problem?

Yes, I also experience this bug!
It seems its new in the latest version. Can you guys please fix it?

It's very annoying, because I cant encode to WMV properly :(

Just use 1 pass CBR 128kbps 48000 stereo and it works everytime.

Thats because 1-pass CBR encoding works fine, the bug is only with the 2 pass encoding :)

Is someone from TMPGEng even watching this bug/thread??

Has this error been fixed or should I still encode audio in 1 pass CBR?

I think this was already fixed guys in the newest version 4.6.3.267,
check about it.

I am converting some DivX files to DVD. These were originally VHS (yeah, I know, but they're family videos so no, I can't just buy a remastered version--these are one of a kind).

I want to add some menues to let me jump to different locations on the DVD.

I have not yet purchased TMPGEnc nor the menuing software. I'm trying to find 2 that are compatible and meet my needs.

To that end, what are the output files TMPGEnc will leave on my disc after conversion? AC3, MP2, VOB, INF, BUP, ISO, MPA, WAV, etc?

Thanks!

(Any recommendations on menuing software? 2 levels, my own still background, text entries with highlighting on selection)

DVD-Lab Studio is the best menu software i've ever used. It will do what you want.

Hi, We've just downloaded the full version of TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress
4.6.2.266 when we entering the key we've got initializing and this takes for hours (application not responding).
System information: windows xp sp3, client is in an windows network with rediretion active.

w.k.r.

Bert

Have the same behavior with latest version 4.6.2.266 (with CUDA).

Screen flickers once and then TMPGEnc initializing screen stays forever.

Hi guys. I've been trying to put together a menu for a DVD and am having just a little problem.

Basically my plan was to have 2 menu pages: the very top menu that has the Play All and Select Track button, and (via the Track button) another page where I can choose which video I want to play.

At the same time, I also wanted to be able to use the previous/next scene buttons on my DVD remote to skip forward/back through the different clips at will.

I've tried this two ways:

1) Put each video clip under a separate track. I can get the menu structure right (Top Menu ---> Track Menu), and each link in the Track Menu goes straight to playing the desired clip, but the prev/next scene buttons on the program's Simulation Mode won't work.

2) Put all clips under the same track. The prev/next scene buttons on Simulation Mode will work, but now I have an extra menu page (Top Menu ---> Track Menu ---> Chapter Menu). With just one track, the Track Menu really serves no purpose at all - I want to cut out the middleman, if you see what I mean, ideally going directly from Top Menu to Chapter Menu - but I can't get rid of the Track Menu.

Is there any way I can achieve both goals here?

I hope all of that made sense! lol. If you need me to clarify anything, just ask. Thank you in advance for any help anyone can provide. :-)

For your second scenario, how about getting rid of the Top menu? Then you'd have just the Track and chapter menus. Since you'd only have one track, there shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the reply, tkrave, I'm grateful for the assistance. I had a bit of a further fiddle around, and managed to get the menus laid out as you had said.

In the end though I stuck with Option 1. When I tried Option 2 with putting all clips under the same track, Simulation Mode took longer to load everything up and play something (there were 75 clips, so this may have had something to do with it! lol). I don't know whether this delay would've happened on the actual DVD itself as well, and didn't want to run the risk.

Turns out Option 1 works out great though - because the prev/next buttons on the remote ARE working and allowing me to skip between tracks at will. Simulation Mode only had the buttons working for chapters and not tracks (which is why I was worried in the first place) but the actual DVD does do it. Colour me surprised!

So I guess all is well with the world again, just a little white lie the program was telling me. But again, a sincere thank you for your help, tkrave. I appreicate you taking the time to lend a hand. :-)

No problem, darkforge! I'm glad the first option worked out for you.

Yeah, the simulation isn't a perfect simulation of a real DVD player, so sometimes you just gotta go for it and write the disc.
It probably took long to load because of the 75 clips you had. I think it has to cache the videos so that's probably what the delay was.

hello!
I want to use TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to convert a MKV file to divx.
the file,for example,it's name is example.mkv and a subtitle file example.srt is located in same dir.
I have install right codec(I can play/edit in TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress),and I have embed the subtitle into output divx with subtitle filter enable.but too few parameter and effect i can set in subtitle filter(I want make subtitle more lower,but no place to change).I want TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to load VobSub to do the samething and failed.how can i do that?the DirectShow file reader enabled in preference,need i set the priority of DirectShow file reader?

please give me some advice,thanks!

Personally, I use FFDShow filter (with subtitles support --> you have many subtitles options in it, included subtitles size) + Haali Media Splitter (mkv support).

For FFDShow, see:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm

If you're using FFDShow, one advice: activate additional decoder treatments (like deinterlacing, postprocessing and swscaler sharpen) for playback but deactivate everything (except subtitles support) before starting decoding mkv to encode it using Divx HD with TMPGEnc ;)

Hi, what is the maximum no. of clips/files that can be imported for each project ?

Regards
jusko

When I have 2 or more tracks, it gets to the output and displays Building Authoring Information... and then does nothing. It wasn't frozen, I could move the screen around but no hard drive activity or CPU usage. I left it there for over 24 hours and it was still on there. If I did both tracks individually, it worked fine. Very frustrating. Any help would be appreciated.

I purchased the DVD Author 3, but it won´t work... The output gets stuck and quits.

I saw that I had some codec problems with Premiere (I investigated the computer with a codec-searching program called Sherlock), so just to make sure I got rid of the problem I uninstalled Premiere temporarily. To see if I could get DVD Author to work without Premiere, and if the re-installing of Premiere would cause new problems.

But now with no visible codec-problems (with Sherlock anyway), DVD Author has the same problems. I re-installed DVD Author, and it made no difference.

Does anyone know what this error code means?

I think that your source files are a DV-AVI type 1, when you encode
this kind of file ''No Stream Available (Error Code 0x80048001)''
message appears.
Have you installed a DV-AVI codec?, you must install a
DV-AVI codec, for be able to read this files.
Please try by installing a DV-AVI codec.
Here is the link that you can install then try.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Panasonic_DV_Codec.htm

Also try to convert the DV-AVI file to type-2 stream
with DV converter.
You can try with this freeware converter, here is the link:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Canopus_DV_File_Converter
After the conversion:
-Try again in the DVD Author 3 with the output file from DV converter.

I've successfully imported DV video from my camcorder into DVD Author 3 using the source wizard. I continually get "playback does not catch-up" when playing the video in the editor.

I *don't* have a problem when playing video in the editor imported from a DVD.

I think this happens with DV and HDV video. It just means that it can't play the video at normal speed for whatever reason. You can still edit and do anything else like normal, it just might take longer to navigate through your footage.

From my experience, 2 situations may cause the 'playback does not catchup' issue. One is when the partition when your program or data resides is severely fragmented. Use the Disk Defrag tool to confirm. Another is when the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller drivers are corrupted. This can be solved simply by reinstalling the drivers. In both situations, your harddisk will slow down tremendously. I use Nero's DVD Copy module to test the drive speed whenever such situation is encountered.

I purchased TMPGEnc Plus a few years ago, however, it fell into disuse for some time as I was doing other things. I dug up my serial number in a three year old text file last night and tried to register with it, but it is not working. The last time I used TMPGEnc, it required activation and the entering of the serial number was different (it was broken up in segments in separate fields). Do I have any recourse in getting it to work as I did purchase the software before. Thanks.

This would be similar to how TMPGEnc Express can read from a DVD file structure to obtain a source video. Ideally the MPEG Editor 3, which can output BDAV format, could also read source video from a BDAV format. Just trying to see if this is actually the case. Thanks.

I think you can import mpeg (.m2ts ,m2t) files created into a BD, but from BD H264/VC-1 and AVCHD is not possible.
I suppose because this software is only for deep edition and output of mpeg files.