Interesting problem. Installed early version. Now when I try to upgrade with later version, cannot locate TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.5.msi to remove older version, leaving no option but to abort install. Is this a registry edit. Operating system is XP Home.

Hi,
I have my system set up with a box to the internet running win2k server with terminal services (well firewalled) I leave this box on mostly whilst my other XP machine just goes on when I need to line something up to download.. anyhow ...
I'd really like to use my win2k machine to tmpgenc some avi files, but one of the restrictions of terminal services is that the audio device is disabled, so when I start a TS session and try and encode all I can get is the Video.

I was really just wondering why TMPGenc relies on an audio card being present when all it is really doing reading a file and writing a file and not using sound (well not in the encoding).

Is it possible that I could modify tmpgenc so it doesnt rely on my disabled sound card ? All the audio codecs I need are installed its just the TS's thats disabling the soundcard..


Any help would be much appreciated.

Best wishes.

Barrie

This has nothing to do with the audio being disabled by the server or even TMPG relying on the sound card.

Your problem is that you do NOT have the correct codec installed to decode the audio in the AVI. Find out what the audio is in the AVI. If it's ac3 you will need the Ac3ACM decompresser installed or extract the Audio to a wav with Virtualdub _ac3 or virtualdubmod. If it is VBR mp3 then extract it to a wav with Virtualdub.

hmm, I thought I had already stated that I had all the codecs installed ... how do I know this ? .. well I guess I have to be very specific since you dont believe me..... If I log on locally on my terminal server machine and play the video I get sound ok.
Barrie.

>hmm, I thought I had already stated that I had all the codecs installed ... how do I know this ?

Yes and you seem to misunderstand me also and the way TMPG works, so lets not get sarcy.

Don't expect TMPG to be able to use the same codecs that media players can use. TMPG will only work with certain ones especially Ac3 codecs.
TMPG doesn't like certain Directshow codecs. This one is VFW compatible codec which TMPG prefers.

Just because you can play it in your media player it doesn't mean TMPG can decode it.

So lets start again shall we?
Find out what type of audio you have in your AVI by using a program such as Virtualdubmod or Virtualdub_ac3 or something like Gspot then if it Ac3, download the afore mentioned codec and install it.
You should then have audio.

If you don't want to take the advice of someone who has given the same sound advice to many others and solved their problem then don't bother asking again.

I can assure you Iam no idiot and am well versed enough with TMPG to know what I'm talking about

Oooops, sorry for my sarcastic tone, but you sounded very condescending.. anyhow It appears that you were right: I've tried a few other videos and found that some audio will show and some not regardless of Terminal services my the problem video for me had Windows Media Audio V2 codec and maybe that hasnt been installed .. anyhow thanks for your help in making me look again.. Barrie.

It would be nice to have the ability to either fade to black or simply add a certain number of seconds of black to the beginning and end of edited clips to give a more professional look to compilations of clips....when authoring discs with many clips there is often a delay between clips, this would make that less apparent.

Hope to see this in a future version of my favorite encoder!
Thanks for the great work and the time involved to bring it to us.

Justin

yes that would be excellent..................... dave

Hello,
I was wondering if there are any plans for supporting VOBs with more than 1 audio track. I tried importing a VOB off my HDD that contained 3 audio tracks (1 main English track, and 2 commentary tracks) and your software only supports 1.
I don't think any other product has this feature. You could be the first!
I think it would make TMPGEnc DVD Authoring an even more valuable product.

Dave.

Any professional (and expensive!) Auhtoring-Tool is able to do that. An ohter Tool ist DVDLab, but only 2 Audio-Tracks and only be using IFOEdit and some Tricks in assistance.

Hi,

Created 2 Video_ts files with DVD-Shrink (ver 3.0) -about 1.9 GB each-
When I burn one of them with Nero everything is o.k(also the orther)
When I use TMPGenc author and add the two files (with import DVD video ),the files are imported, but the audio is missing.

What I am doing rong??

Thanks

Does it show the audio settings information in the "Add Clip" window after you add the DVD Video? Perhaps the audio isn't being recognized by DVD Author for one reason or another?

Maybe this is the solution of audio missing!

http://forum.digital-digest.com/archive/topic/30640-1.html

how do i use source range to split a movie in half. my video mpeg is too big and needs to be burned on to two disks, how do i do that?

This is so easy I"m surprised anyone would Post such a Question..You go into the Source Range settings and you moove the Slider to the Beginning of were you want to start encodeing and Press the "Set Start Frame" Button, then Moove the slider to the end of were you want to encode and click the "Set End Frame" Button, and that is it, when it has finnished encode the First Part to do the same but for the second part...But if you allready have a Mpeg file and you Just want to Cut in Half Then you DONT use the Source Range, you use the "Merge & Cut" which you will Find if you go to "File" to "Mpeg Tools" to "Merge & Cut" and here is were you can cut your File in Pieces useing the same Basic Steps you would use in the Source Range.....

I had this problem where I load an avi that was captured in dv-avi format and then would go to edit source range and clip frame. When I was done editing in either one and I click on okay tmpg would close. I found out that tmpg doesn't like dv-avi type one files. A little research got me a dv converter to convert dv-avi type 1 to type 2 and tmpg excepts these files.

Where can I find older versions of tmpgenc, for
example 2.512.52.161. I have a problem with read
error near the end of a DVD encoding and I want
to use the older version to check if the same
error appears there.

google

if made an image with a HighLight layer in Photoshop. I add this picture to my DVD-Menu. and after creating the menu and i don't select the button it is normal, but when i select the button it is not the Exactly the highlight that i have created.
[img]http://members.tripodnet.nl/FutureCow/wrong.JPG[/img]
the above image is the image i have created (the stripe is the Highlight, and is not vissible on the normal image) and the other image is the image on my DVD-Menu. How can i fix this?

hi!

highlights dont work that way in TDA.
and they dont work that way in any authoring app i know.

what you can do in TDA is, make a Photoshop file with a layer called "highlight".
every pixel in this "highlight" layer that is not 100% transparent will get highlighted by TDA - unfortunately with its standard unchangeable highlight-color -- which is yello (as you might have guessed :-)

the think yellow line comes from pixels which are probably some 98 or 99% transparent, but not 100% - so TDA counts them as highlight.

to make a nice straight line for your highlight:
-> load the psd up in photoshop
-> select the highlight layer
-> select the area above the line using the rectangular selection tool
-> hit "DEL" on your keyboard
-> repeat for the areas below, at the left and at the right of your image
-> save the PSD file again

re-open TDA, edit menu, reload the PST -> done.
however i have not found a way to change the annerving yellow to some other color :(

if you find a way, please let me know...

You can do so quite simple with a hexeditor. (You may also use vobedit where a hexeditor is included). A very interesting text on topics like this can be found here: http://home.mn.rr.com/dvdmaster/AdvancedDVD.pdf

To change the annerving yellow lets say to blue just load the file containing the menu (i.e. Vts_XX_0.vob) into a hexeditor and change the bytes 0xA3 and 0xA4 from 44 44 to another value like 33 33 for blue, 22 22 for green or 11 11 for orange.
Example:
1. "Normal" HighLight color yellow
[img]http://www.boraxsoft.de/other/TDA_Menu1.png[/img]
2. HighLight color set to blue:
[img]http://www.boraxsoft.de/other/TDA_Menu2.png[/img]
results in
[img]http://www.boraxsoft.de/other/DATA2-0.jpg[/img]
("Chapter #1" is selected)
The change applies to all buttons in this menu. If you want to change the HighLight color for different buttons to diffenent colors, some more bytes have to be changed. Have a look the the above mentioned article.

There are three features missing that would prevent me from purchasing this product:

1. First Play Video
The ability to have a track play before the first menu, but NOT show up in the Title or Track menu's

2. Ability to remove the Play all button.
I don't need a play all button on any of my menus, just the abiliy to select tracks

3. Ability to add arbitrary images or text in the menu editor.
I would lkike to be able to add images (with alpha) and extra text anywhere on the menu.


Are any of these features planned for future releases?

1. That's no Problem, TMPGEnc DVD Author can handle this.

2. Hm, no Chance (by now)

3. Create a Picture with the Text by using PhotoShop or any other Picture Editor and use it as a Background.

4. Don't ask me..., i'm just a Guy who helps other people ;)

Can you tell how Number 1 can be accomplished? With everything I've tried, the first track still gets its own track menu.

2. Ability to remove the Play all button.

All I do is shrink it as small as possibel and oout it down in the bottom LHS in the overscan area, not a solution but a rough workaround, you shoudl be able to delete that button !. Like you I often have the first chapter set as a "Play Feature"

3. Ability to add arbitrary images or text in the menu editor.

I do this with Photoshop, if I want music as well, I drag the resultant image into Adobe Premier, tell it change the duration to 30 secs, add a music background and crate an M2P from there. Using Preimer also allows me to use motion settings on logos etc and fly or scroll images or text onto the screen background. I would prefer to do it this way then try and have DVD Author do it,

Hiding the button really instal a solution. It is still selected (just can't be seen) when the menu is displayed, and the used has to press the correct direction (up or down depending on where you hid it) to get to the entries on the menu.

The ability to delete this button should be an easy feature for the programmers of TDA to add.

This is for the moderator or admin or whoever happens to drop by this site every now and then to maintain it.

I would like to request that some sort of reference time is placed somewhere in this BBS.

All posts seem to be referenced by the time where the TMPG BBS server is located not local time. It is therefore difficult to establish what time a post has actually been placed from your local timezone.
It would help if there was a reference time at the top of this page thus allowing users from other timezones to establish the actual time of the post in local time.

Adding this sort of function to a webpage is quite easy and I would be grateful for co-operation in this matter.

In all the time I have used this BBS I have never seen this site reviewed for improvments except when Pegasys took over distribution of TMPG and made certain aspects of this site worse.

I use a SONY Digital8 camcorder to record NTSC video off my DirecTV TIVO system. I capture and edit the material in Adobe Premiere. I than use TMPGEnc to encode the material to DVD format.

It seems that whether I use field order A or B, I get what look like interlacing effects. I than tried IVTC which seemed to take care of the problem. I than imported the IVTC MPEG-2 in DVD-Lab, only to be prompted that it needed 2:3 pulldown. I than re-encoded the material in TMPGEnc with IVTC selected (this defaults the frame rate field to 23.976)and selected 3:2 pulldown when playback (this added the information "internally 29.97fps" to the frame rate field description. The result is accepted in DVD-Lab.

Is this an OK way to go? Is IVTC really the right way to go if I'm not sure the material was FILM to begin with? Why did IVTC seem to take care of the problem? What does the 3:2 pulldown really do?

I don't know how the Tivo acheives NTSC frame rates, but it does look like it uses 2:3 pulldown if you don't see any jerkyness in the output file TMPG creates.

Once you have used IVTC the file is no longer NTSC DVD compliant. You are dealing with a file which has progressive frames at 23.976. As you have correctly discovered you need to re-apply the pulldown when encoding.
You have several options of doing this.
1. Let TMPG do it when encoding.
2. Use pulldown.exe
3. Let DVDlab do it.

Either way it should result in a 29.97 fps MPEG.

If you need to know more about pulldown then I suggest you look it up on google.
It's a complicated subject and would take too long for me explain here, however if you search this BBS you will find some of my explanations of pulldown in earlier posts.

Thank you for the reply. It does lead me to another question/observation.

For another project using DVD2AVI, I have the option of choosing Forced Film if the VOB is in progressive format. This results in a frame rate of 23.976fps. When encoding this data to DVD format in TMPGEnc, the frame rate is set at 23.976fps(internally 29.97fps).

So what I am doing in my Tivo project is essentially the same, except that I'm performing an additional IVTC step necessary to get rid of my interlacing troubles? It seems I'm taking the 29.97 fps video, making it 23.976fps, and converting it back to 29.97 again? Is the encoded DVD compliant video really 23.976fps or 29.97fps?

Your TIVO is adding pulldown to the files it creates. This is the correct way to create a compliant NTSC DVD and also saves space because of the reduced anount of frames.

When trying to encode this file in TMPG you will experience artifacts as you will see the effect of the pulldown where the extra fields have been added resulting in interlacing artifacts.

Generally you could just encode this file to 29.97 fps without IVTC as long as you encode it as interlaced. The artifacts are only visible on a progressive display while on an interlaced display such as your TV you won't see the field displacment that pulldown causes and hence no interlacing artifacts.

Having said this though it is always adviisable to IVTC a file with pulldown to return it to it's original progressive format to maintain quality and save on file size.
You have 2 options for this. Either use IVTC in TMPG or use the ForcedFILM option in DVD2AVI.
The DVD2AVI option is much prefered as it generally produces better results.

You can then re-apply the pulldown as previously stated in my last post.