In Video Mastering Works, I see 23.976, 24 and 29.97 fps for
1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template) but I only see 23.976, 24 and
59.94 fps for 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template). There is no 29.97 fps for 1280x720 Blu-ray standard template.

I assume the templates are Blu-ray compliant so not sure if I should change the framerates in them manually.


1. If my source video is 720p and 29.97 progressive, what setting template should I use: 29.97 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?
Would the output also be progressive or interlaced?

2. If my source video is 720p and 23.976 progressive, what setting template should I use: 23.976 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?
Would the output also be progressive or interlaced?

3. If my source video is 480p and 29.97 progressive, what setting template should I use: 29.97 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?
Would the output also be progressive or interlaced?

Thank you for your help

>In Video Mastering Works, I see 23.976, 24 and 29.97 fps for
>1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template) but I only see 23.976, 24 and
>59.94 fps for 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template). There is no 29.97 fps for 1280x720 Blu-ray standard template.
>
>I assume the templates are Blu-ray compliant so not sure if I should change the framerates in them manually.

You are correct, those are BD compliant so you shouldn't change the framerates. 29.97 fps is not compliant for 1280x720 resolution for the BD format.

>1. If my source video is 720p and 29.97 progressive, what setting template should I use: 29.97 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?

Technically, you can use any template you want. However, I would use something close to the source characteristics such as 1280x720 59.94fps. Using that template will simply double the framerate.

>Would the output also be progressive or interlaced?

Depends on what resolution and framerate you choose. All 1280x720 resolutions are going to be progressive. The other BD resolutions can be interlaced depending on your framerate. DVD-Video resolutions (which are also BD compliant) will always be interlaced.

>
>2. If my source video is 720p and 23.976 progressive, what setting template should I use: 23.976 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?

Again, I would just stick with the source resolution, which in this case is already BD compliant. Save disc space and let your player do the upscaling.

>
>3. If my source video is 480p and 29.97 progressive, what setting template should I use: 29.97 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?

In this situation, you can stick with an SD resolution of 720x480 with 29.97fps, but it will have to be interlaced. Or, you can upscale to 1280x720 59.94fps. If you do go with a higher resolution, you can try applying filters such as Contour to help make details sharper.

These are all just suggestions. As mentioned, you can choose whatever resolution and framerate you like as long as it's compliant. I tend to like to keep the source resolution and framerate if I can, but if I have to change it, I like to go higher, rather than lower. If you go from a 29.97fps to a 24 fps, frames will have to be dropped. Going to a higher framerate will allow you to preserve all frames.

Wow thank you tkrave!

1. "If my source video is 720p and 29.97 progressive, what setting template should I use: 29.97 fps 1920x1080 (standard Blu-ray template), 23.976 fps 1280x720 (standard Blu-ray template) or something else?"

'Technically, you can use any template you want. However, I would use something close to the source characteristics such as 1280x720 59.94fps. Using that template will simply double the framerate.'


Sorry for the really dumb question but I have to ask to make sure I get it right the first time. Are you saying that if my source is 720p and 29.97 progressive, I should choose the 1280x720 59.94fps Blu-ray template ? Doubling the framerate in this situation would benefit me the most by using 59.94 instead of 23.976 fps or 24 fps ?

I am just a bit confused. You say choose as close to source characteristics as possible but there is no 29.97 fps for 1280x720 so I should choose 59.94 fps instead for best video picture?






2. "Save disc space and let your player do the upscaling."

So am I right in assuming my blu-ray player will ALWAYS do a better job of upscaling video than Video Mastering Works encoding to 1080p? Is it really that much better or just a small difference between upscaling with blu-ray player vs Video Mastering Works ?

The space saved is not really that big a deal to me. Best video quality output to screen would be what I want.






3. "If you do go with a higher resolution, you can try applying filters such as Contour to help make details sharper."
Should I choose just one instance of Contour filter or do you recommend more of 1 filter at same time.




Thanks for the GREAT advice!

>Sorry for the really dumb question but I have to ask to make sure I get it right the first time. Are you saying that if my source is 720p and 29.97 progressive, I should choose the 1280x720 59.94fps Blu-ray template ? Doubling the framerate in this situation would benefit me the most by using 59.94 instead of 23.976 fps or 24 fps ?
>
>I am just a bit confused. You say choose as close to source characteristics as possible but there is no 29.97 fps for 1280x720 so I should choose 59.94 fps instead for best video picture?
>
Sorry, I guess that is a bit confusing since 59.94 does not seem closer to 29.97 when compared to 24 or 23.976.
Basically, yes, since you can't choose 29.97, I would choose 59.94. Even though it's not "closer" in terms of the number of frames, it will preserve all frame data since it is simply doubling the framerate. As I said towards the end of my reply, if you choose to go with a lower framerate such as 23.976 or 24, frames will have to be dropped and you won't be able to reconstruct them if you decide you need to go back to 29.97fps in the future (unless you hang on to the source file).

In the big scheme of things, those dropped frames will hardly be noticeable, but it's my preference to keep as much detail/frames as possible and stay as true to the source as possible. Doubling the framerate in this case will allow that.

>2. "Save disc space and let your player do the upscaling."
>
>So am I right in assuming my blu-ray player will ALWAYS do a better job of upscaling video than Video Mastering Works encoding to 1080p? Is it really that much better or just a small difference between upscaling with blu-ray player vs Video Mastering Works ?
>
>The space saved is not really that big a deal to me. Best video quality output to screen would be what I want.
>
I wouldn't say a player is ALWAYS going to be better than TVMW5, I'm just saying players do a good enough job and 720p is a high enough resolution that upscaling it manually might not be noticeably beneficial.

Going from 720p to 1080p is not that big of a difference to my eyes, so it's my preference to let the player do the upscaling in that case.
Going from 480 to 1080p is a different matter though, and there's a much wider margin to add in more detail or remove noise with filters.

In the end, it's really up to you. You can try to apply filters to your 720p video and output it as 1080p if you think it'll help.

>
>3. "If you do go with a higher resolution, you can try applying filters such as Contour to help make details sharper."
>Should I choose just one instance of Contour filter or do you recommend more of 1 filter at same time.

It depends on the quality of the source video. I would start with contour as it helps define edges. Smart Sharpen is another filter you can try. You can also try the regular Sharpen filter, but I never really use it. While it is possible to create multiple instances of 1 filter, I've never had to do that. If you think it makes your video look better, then go for it. Play around with the settings until it looks good to you.

Thanks tkrave!


I do understand what you said about keeping it as close to original source characteristics as possible.

But I do have one more question regarding doubling the framerate.

Suppose I don't care about saving space or encoding time but having the BEST video quality is the most important to me.

If my source video is 720p and 23.976 progressive, wouldn't it it be better to choose then 1280x720 59.94 fps progressive instead of 23.976 fps?

Here is my line of thinking so let me know if it is right or wrong. I know that the blu-ray player will upscale the resoultion from 720p to 1080p but I don't think the blu-ray player will double the framerate as well. Since having a 59.94 framerate is much better in term of video quality than 23.976 fps (since there are more frames per second thus producing smoother picture), wouldn't it be best to encode to 59.94 fps for source video that is 23.976 fps as well - to achieve BEST video quality ?

Let me know if I err in my thinking regarding this and thank you

If your source is 720p 23.976fps, your BD player wouldn't need to do anything to it since it is already compliant. In that case, I would output with the same 23.976 fps. Using 59.94 is more than double the framerate and I believe it will do a 3-2-3-2 pattern with the frames (3 identical frames, then 2 identical frames, repeat). I may be wrong about that though. These types of framerate conversions can be confusing.

Doubling the framerate will not product a smoother picture for a 29.97 progressive source because perceptually it will be identical; there is simply two identical frames spanning the time of what used to be one frame.

Yes I thought doubling the framerate would double your pleasure as well but was wrong about it. Thanks for setting me straight about it.

I know all 1280x720 resolutions are progressive but have question whether to set 1920x1080 to progressive or interlaced at output.

At 1920x1080 blu-ray template, I think all 23.976 fps are also progressive (or at least set by default).



But if the output framerate is set to 29.97, I think I can choose progressive or interlaced.

1. Isn't progressive suppose to be better than interlaced so you suppose to choose progressive whenever possible?

2. If my source is 720p and 23.976fps progressive and upscaling, I would choose 1920x1080 23.976 progressive. Is this correct?

2. If my source is 720p and 29.97fps progressive and upscaling, I would choose 1920x1080 29.97 progressive. Is this correct or should it be interlaced? Interstingly, Video mastering Works always sets it to interlaced by default and I have to change it.


Thanks tkrave

>I know all 1280x720 resolutions are progressive but have question whether to set 1920x1080 to progressive or interlaced at output.
>
>At 1920x1080 blu-ray template, I think all 23.976 fps are also progressive (or at least set by default).

Yes, at 1080, 23.976 should be progressive.

>But if the output framerate is set to 29.97, I think I can choose progressive or interlaced.

This should always be interlaced at 1080.

>1. Isn't progressive suppose to be better than interlaced so you suppose to choose progressive whenever possible?

Yes, but be aware of the format limitations; setting to progressive manually may make it non-compliant.

>2. If my source is 720p and 23.976fps progressive and upscaling, I would choose 1920x1080 23.976 progressive. Is this correct?

Yes

>2. If my source is 720p and 29.97fps progressive and upscaling, I would choose 1920x1080 29.97 progressive. Is this correct or should it be interlaced? Interstingly, Video mastering Works always sets it to interlaced by default and I have to change it.
>
At 1920x1080, 29.97 fps is supposed to be interlaced, which is why TVWM5 sets it as that. Setting it to progressive will make it non-compliant.

Take a look at this chart to see what is compliant for a BD video stream:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-ray#Video

Just wanted to clarify that converting interlaced to progressive is not ALWAYS better. It all depends on how you're doing the conversion. For instance, going from 25 fps interlaced to 25 fps progressive is not a good conversion because you'll actually be losing detail. In that case you would have to double the framerate in order to preserve all of the fields.

If choosing, upon disc insertion, to 'play header track only' (and then proceed to top menu)... is it possible to NOT have that header track then show up in the top menu?

I am creating a DVD with a top menu showing 3 tracks per page (no track menus). However going though the 'source' and 'menu' options I cannot see any way of not having the header track show up as a clickable track in the top menu - I just want it to play once upon disc insertion and then not be accessible.

I can make it 'invisible' on the menu screen with opacity, but it is still 'there' and accessible by the DVD remote.

Thanks for any advice.

Found 'firstplay' track function.

Glad you found the First Play. AW4 has lots of nooks and crannies with stuff in them.

I have not tried it, and it may not make much sense to do so, but one might be able to do manual button routing to skip certain buttons on a menu.

Using TMPGenc Authoring Works 4 I have created a DVD with several imported MPEG2 files as 'tracks'.

The DVD is structured with no 'title page'. The menu screen - or 'top page' - features three tracks or 'play all', with several other similar pages containing the rest of the tracks. There are no chapters created within any of the tracks.

Global Menu Settings are instructed to display the top page upon disc insertion. This happens accordingly when testing on my old DVD player.

However when I try the same disc in my LG BD550 Blu-ray player, the first track begins to play automatically instead of the viewer being presented with the 'top page' menu screen. 'Disc Menu' must be selected on the player remote to access the menu screen.

This is against how I have instructed TAW4 to encode my disc. I will try other DVD and Blu-ray players when I have access to them. In the meantime... any thoughts, or anything else to check?

Thanks in advance.

I have tried all the settings, and despite instructing TAW4 to 'display top page menu' upon disc insertion, my LG BD550 Blu-ray player ignores this completely and launches straight into playing track 1 instead.

This even happens when I create a 'firstplay' header track, and the TAW4 playback simulator correctly plays this first followed by the top menu. When I come to insert the created DVD into the LG player however, it completely ignores the firstplay header track, and the top menu, and instead launches straight into track 1.

I can only assume that since TAW4 was released, certain newer DVD/Blu-ray players like my LG have the technology to override these instructions on the discs and decide themselves how they will react upon disc insertion. The DVD plays just as it should with firstplay track then top menu on my older DVD player.

The only way at the moment I can seem to successfully have the LG player actually display the top menu on insertion is by creating a title page (which I do not really want) - the LG player seems to take notice of this as first thing to display, unlike the top menu without s title page.

The other way is to have a short, blank first track (thumbnail hidden and unlinked on first top menu page) and instruct TAW4 to play this first upon insertion, and then go to the top menu.

Neither of these solutions is ideal. Any ideas...?

I'm guessing it has to do with your LG player and not anything in TAW4. As you said, it works properly in your old DVD player. Try looking at the settings for your LG player.

Also worth checking for possible firmware update to the LG Blu-ray player.

Hello,

I am using T5 to encode Blu-ray and DVD from the same .avi source file. The DVD encoding is taking a really long time on my W7, i7-920 machine with plenty of ram & hard drives...

A one hour file will take 4-5 hours to encode with using the contour & color correction filter. Without the filters it is quicker, but not that much.

When I look at CPU usage I am only getting about 25%. Is there a way to use more cores so I do not have to render my long projects overnight?

Thanks for your help.

It seems like the "Standard encoder" used for MPEG-2 encoding is not as optimized as the x264 encoder, so not all cores are being used. My CPU shows about 30% usage when encoding to DVD-Video. For me, output time is about 1hr 25min for a 1hr show without filters. With color correction and contour, the time was about 3hr 30min. Source file was an MPEG-2 WTV file at 1080i. That was with using CUDA for filtering. Using an i7 2600 3.4GHz, 8GB RAM and GeForce GTX 460.

At first I thought that maybe there just wasn't enough data processing for the CPU to use 100% of its cores, but I tried outputting a 1920x1080 MPEG-2 with a high bitrate and still only get 30-38% CPU usage. However, using x264 for full 1080p output will get 100% CPU usage, so I definitely think there is an optimization issue with the standard encoder.

Thanks for your reply. I agree. mpeg-2 does not seem optimized. Seems like it would be easy to fill up the CPUs!

Does the company read this board? I have sent some e-mails via tech support in the past and really did not hear back. What is the best way to bring this to the attention of the company? 70% of the CPU is a lot to be left on the table.

Although I just learned you can open two instances of T5 at the same time so at least I can encode two files (Blu-ray & DVD of the same project) at the same time. The CPU only hits 60% during this setup.

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.