I have not been able to figure out what bit rate AW4 uses to write an MPEG-2 to a Blu-Ray disk, or how to control this rate. Is it fixed?

Bitrate settings can be changed per track. Go to the Edit stage and click on the "Settings" button for the track(s). You can then adjust or see the bitrate settings.

Does TMPGEnc 4.0 express convert trp files?

Might be possible, but I'm not sure since I don't have a trp file to test with.

There is an option under Format to check or uncheck:
Soften Block Noise
Intra-block 35 (default)
Non Intrablock 35 (default)

Should this option need to ever be checked when encoding to DVD or Blu-ray MPEG-2 ?

My emphasis is video image quality. How does checking affect this?

If so, what should be the correct setting for Intra-block and Non intrablock as well?

Thank you

The first thing you need to ask is do you have blocknoise?

If not, then you don't need to use it.
If you do notice large blocks or rectangles (typically in fast moving scenes) then you can try to use it. Low-bitrate videos tend to have a lot of block noise.

If you're outputting to a low bitrate video then it probably will not help much.
The correct setting depends on the serverity of the block noise and your own personal preference. In other words, try it at the default settings and see if you like the results and adjust from there.

Hello everyone. Norton 2012 finds a Trojan(W5trofan.H) in the latest download of Masterworks 5. It won't even let the program finish downloading sometimes. When it does, I find I can install it, but then Norton finds this virus and keeps deleting tmpgencvmw5.exe. This keeps happening even if I set it to exclude.
Any ideas what's going on here?
Thanks

Thanks to another user's suggestion in a related thread, Norton has been notified of this issue and report that it will be fixed in their next update (a week at most).
Good work, everybody

Some time when I import some videos while in cut/edit mode I notice there are large gaps between frames thumbnail window. When video is played in this window it plays almost perfectly except when there is panning and this causes some jerky motion.

Does anyone know the reason for this missing frames?

Thanks

What type of file is this? What is the source? I typically see this in my imported WTV files, and the gaps appear when there is corruption or a weak signal in the video stream.

It could also just be the file type. Certain file types seem to display differently in the thumbnail strip. You can right-click on the preview and change the viewing options for the thumbnails.

I input video in MPEG-2. The audio are two WAV files. One is the right channel and one is the left channel.No matter how I input the audio, I do not get stereo sound in my Blu-ray. In fact, it does not appear that the clip editor or simulator play more than one track. How can I fix this? Each WAV file is Linear PCM, 48,000 Hz, 16 bits, monaural.

Can you combine the two mono audio files into a stereo file? Any decent audio editing program can do this.

Thanks. Turns out you need to put a stereo audio file into audio1. I did as you suggested.....make one audio stereo file, and it worked. Thanks.

I am planning to move from Liquid to Edius and although both NLEs offer authorting I still wish to author my DVDs and BDs in AW4. What is the ideal file format I should output from Edius so as to get the best quality from AW4? I'm originating 1920x1080i on EX1Rs at 35Mb/s.

Any Blu-ray compliant MPEG-2 stream should work well and smart render in TAW4. Audio should be AC-3 or LPCM.

I use Edius print to file in Canopus HQ format, and let AW4 do encoding for DVD and BD. I find the results meet my needs nicely

Some folks say using TVMW5 to convert the Canopus HQ to DVD and BD elemental streams can give a slightly better final result.

Check the Edius forums at GrassValley.com for more discussions on this topic.

tkrave,

I read numerous posts in this forum and many others about this that TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 can only accept MPEG-4/.h264 input files but has to fully encode to MPEG-2 for Blu-ray (thus no Smart Rendering).

I read one user saying TMPEGEnc TAW 5 "sucks" and "should go back to the 1980s because they cannot output to MPEG-4 Blu-ray which almost every other software can do this easily."

While I wholeheartedly disagree with this user, I think that user does have a point and many other users are wondering the same thing.

Why can't TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 output to MPEG-4 Blu-ray while other software including Sonic Scenarist can?

I also want to note I think TMPEGEnc TAW 4 is the best software in the world but with this glaring weakness.

What are your thoughts about this tkrave?

It would also be great if TMPEGEnc TAW 4 can author 3D Blu-ray like Scenarist can now too.

I'm a bit dumbfounded as well as to why they left out h.264 BD output. I'm pretty sure this was a highly requested feature before TAW4 came out, so why they decided not to put it in is beyond me. Not very forward-thinking on their part.

Their decision not to support DTS is a similar issue. If other consumer-level software supports it, they damn better support it too.

I was hoping they'd release an update with h.264 output, but I don't think that's going to happen now that they've switched from using Main Concept to x264 for their h.264 encoding (in TVMW5). I'm guessing they're reworking TAW to use x264 which will then become TAW5. This is all speculation on my part, but I think it makes sense.

tkrave,

I always thought you worked for them behind the scenes! So can't you put in some words to them?

I agree with with you. It is almost really DUMB on TMPGEnc part that they don't have h.264 BD output and DTS support while almost every other software has it.

How much better is the x264 vs the standard TMPGEnc encoder in terms of video image quality?
So is it just better compression for x264 and at the same bitrate, both encoders produce the same video image quality?

Do you think TAW4 will ever do 3D Blu-rays also?

There is, of course, a "slight" difference in price between AW4 and Scenarist.

No, I don't work for them, I just post here a lot. I set this page up as a default tab on my browser, so when I see a question I know the answer to, I typically answer it.
I have emailed them quite a bit over the years as well, so the info gleaned from those exchanges may also make it seem like I have some sort of connection.

It's safe to say that x264 is one of the best, if not the best, h.264 encoder. This is mostly based on what many people are saying about x264 and also independent studies like this one:
http://compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/h264_2011/

They rank x264 as the number 1 choice, with Main Concept's at number 4. So Pegasys' decision to switch was a good one in the big scheme of things since quality encoding is a big deal to them (and most people, I'd assume).

That report also shows some nice average bitrate/quality comparisons. If I'm reading it right, Main Concept would require about 31-55% more bitrate than x264 to obtain the equivalent quality level.

As for BD3D, I'm not sure. I have a feeling they won't be doing it for the next version, but I could be wrong. That's just my gut reaction though; I have not heard anything about it.

I have TAW4 and TVMW5 and would like to author some VCD Karaoke Discs containing approximately 15 videos each. Can I use TAW 4 to author a VCD Disk with a menu, or is TAW4 only for authoring DVD disks? If TAW4 won't work, then I will probably use Nero 11.

I frequently get the following message when transcoding a DVD or Blue Ray: "The selected disk contains titles with audio that cannot be decoded". Yet other transcoding products I own can handle the source content without complaint. Why is the more expensive Mastering Works program not able to handle what cheaper programs can't?

That's strange. Besides DTS, all of the audio formats for the DVD and Blu-ray standards are supported. Do you know what the actual audio format is?

>That's strange. Besides DTS, all of the audio formats for the DVD and Blu-ray standards are supported. Do you know what the actual audio format is?

DTS it is and its very common on BRs I've seen and it is handled by less sophisticated transcoding programs. Given what I paid for TPMGEnc products I expect better. Is there any option for plugions for DTS in TPMGEnc?

I'm not aware of any way to get DTS imported into TVMW5 and I don't know if support will be added, but I'm hoping it will be.

> I'm not aware of any way to get DTS imported into TVMW5 and I don't know if support will be added, but I'm hoping it will be.

tkrave: Why can TVMW5 not use the same techniques as TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to pull audio tracks from stream files? I can pull DTS (HD Master Audio) tracks from an m2ts file using the DirectShow file reader.

I guess my point is this: I started playing with TVMW5 today to see if I wanted to upgrade. I'll grant you this much - the interface is much nicer than TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress, with wizards to process Blu-ray directory structures in place that replace my manual methods with 4.0. But, like a lot of your users, I'm a guy whose used to using command line utilities like eac3to - I'm more interested in functionality than fancy gui screens and wizards.

I'll wait to upgrade until all of the 4.0 functionality is there at least.

I never said there was absolutely no way to do it; I, personally, don't know of a way to do it. If you found a way in 4.0 XPress, then try it in TVMW5.

BTW, I hope you don't think I work for them; I'm just another user like you.

TMPGEnc 4XPress automatically sets a job's status to "Output Completed" once completed so it will not run again when the Encode button is pressed.

But I find there are often times when having completed a job, I want to alter some setting, perhaps alter an output file name or path slightly. Ultimately this resets the job status so it will run again, but there are times when I do not want this to happen.

All I can do is move such a job to the end of the queue, press "Encode" then abort the job.

Is there anyway to manually set job status to "Output Completed"?

So you want it in the queue, but you don't want to output it?

I would just not add it to the batch or remove it if you have no intention of encoding it.
Maybe I don't understand what the point is.

In any case, there isn't a way to set a job as completed. If you really have to have it in your queue and you want to output all the other files in the queue except that one, I would put it at the beginning of the list, start the encode and then click the Abort button for that file. The batch will continue to encode the following files in the list.

Hi,
We have videos that are 720p and want to encode to Blu-ray compatible MPEG for TAW4. I read below it is better to use bicubic in Picture Resize filter.

In Output format, we chose Blu-ray standard MPEG file.

1. But in the template configuration, do we choose 1280x720, 16:9, 23.976 fps (and not upscale the videos at all) or do we choose 1920x1080, 16:9, 29.97 fps (and upscale the videos to 1080p from original 720p) ?

Which would be the best setting the highest video quality?

2. Does upscaling video to 1080p from lower resolution help with image quality? Or do we also need to add filters or do something else to achieve the highest image quality? If so, can you let me know what else we need to do in Video Mastering Works 5?

Thank you

your better off just to leave it at 720p and let your Blu-ray player do the upscaling