I can't figure out how to create a menu that doesn't include the intro video. I simply want to insert a DVD, auto play a short introduction clip then at it's end display the remaining clips.

Can this be done with a template or at all?

Are there any menues that are animated?

Thanks

In the Source Stage, you'll have to create a Firstplay track. Do this by clicking on the downward arrow next to the "Add a track" button and selecting "Add a firstplay track". Any clips in the firstplay track will play once you put the DVD into the player and will not show up in them menus.

None of the pre-installed menu templates animate, but you can create your own motion menus with any video by going to the Global Settings in the Menu Stage and activating the motion menu options in the Motion menu tab.

Hi

I just got TMPG Authoring Works 4.0.2.14 and am trying to edit a wedding DV clip. Having that chipmunk pitch issue which I beleve is due to framerate. How do I fix this as it is PAL but set to 25 which I thought was NTSC.

I tried droping back to 23.976fps but that didn't seem to work.

ntsc is 29.97 fps and its also 23.97 aswell.

pal is 25 and 24fps

I would say that your recording had gone wrong , becuase the frame rate only adds or takes away frames.

what you are basically saying is that it sounds like your footage has speed up which would cuase the higher voices.

try locate what fps your footage is at.

my footage is at 25fps PAL and plays fine its only when i go to edit in tmpg it chipmunks on me

ok, try creating an image of the disc, ensure that your system is completely defraged and not by shitting windows defrag system.

then load the image onto a virtual drive and do it that way

tmpg reads isos?

i would have to read up again on virual drives. i should explain the sitation more clearly too.i taped the footage on DV camera then saved the avi file on PC possibly using a TMPG product ages ago. this may have been where the probem arose from.

i still have the original DV so will try extracting again. thank for your help.

get me via my mail address, if you need help

(Sorry, posted this question in the DVD Author 3 forum, it was intended for here)

Hello,

Just wondering if it is possible with your DVD Authoring software to use an image's EXIF or IPTC data to automatically add subtitles or text to each picture while generating a slideshow?

Or if you can't use the EXIF data, is there any way to manually add subtitles or text to each image in a slideshow? This would be a pain for what I am trying to do (add image author info for each image to the slideshow, info which is currently stored in the EXIF data), but it would be workable, I suppose.

Thanks,
cc

You can't add subtitles based on EXIF data but you can manually add subtitles to your slideshow.

Hello,

Just wondering if it is possible with your DVD Authoring software to use an image's EXIF or IPTC data to automatically add subtitles to each picture while generating a slideshow?

Or if you can't use the EXIF data, is there any way to manually add subtitles to each image in a slideshow? This would be a pain for what I am trying to do (add image author info for each image to the slideshow, info which is currently stored in the EXIF data), but it would be workable, I suppose.

Thanks,
cc

We've recently moved from Encore (too expensive to upgrade because of 'package' deal) but are completely flummoxed by Menu creating & linking.
We are creating a showreel, so we have about 60 short clips, linking animations, and some compilations (all currently as HD avi's no problems using them).We want to create menus & sub-menus from scratch (with looped movie and sound backgrounds), and put buttons we create where we want them, link them to sub menus or tracks, specify 'end' actions for the plays etc.etc.
Is there any clear source of information on how to do this.
The menu creation wizard/ custom menus stuff just seeme to offer lots of preset pretty patterns all tound with no actual derict control of what actions a button initiates.
We were used to encore's 'timelines' - each of which could contain one or more video clips, and where video clips could be used in more than one timeline. Is there any equivalent structuring?
Like I said, we're baffled, and any help would be appreciated.

There is no timeline display mode in this software.

Menu creation is automated, even for custom menus. In other words, it will create the menu pages automatically depending on your page layout settings, whether or not you have subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc.
You basically have two levels: top menu (for selecting tracks), and track menus (for selecting chapters). So you can't make another track menu within a track menu.

Buttons are created automatically depending on your content, but with custom menus, you can replace the buttons with your own images or simply use text.
You cannot create a button after the fact and set what it does.
You can however, move the buttons around to where you want them and change how the remote control navigates from one selectable object to the next.

You can specify what happens after a track is finished playing so that it goes back to the track/top menu, continues to the next track, or continues to the next track and loops all tracks indefinitely. This can be set in the Menu Wizard or in the Global Menu Settings.

You can create motion backgrounds with audio by activating the motion menu options in the Global Menu Settings in the Menu Stage. Once activated, you can insert video/audio as your background and set looping settings.

I suggest creating a custom menu using the Menu Wizard and using layouts similar to what you need and then editing the positions, size, graphics, etc. after the Wizard creates it.

Authoring Works 4 is still very much consumer software, hence its simplicity and relatively lower price point. That said, its menu creation is definitely not on the same level as Encore. I think you'll have to unlearn a lot of what you learned with Encore and think on simpler terms with Authoring Works.

If you need specific instructions on how to do something, just post it on this forum and I'll try to help you.

we are encoding m2t files (with avs scripting to overlay a logo into the movie, approx 30 / 45 minutes each - 6 tot 10 gigs per file) with tmpgenc xpress with all updates installed.
encoding is to wmv VC-1.

It goes ok until the third file. (always the third file).
the first 2 files are perfect and everything but a soon as the encoder is into the first 2 minutes of the third file it gives the 8007000e error and the memory the program consumes is approx 1 gig then (growing from 150 mb at the start)

i have set the program so it removes the done conversions from the batch when done, but it does not do that.

anybody has any idea why the memory keeps piling up? looks to me that that is the problem here..

Just installed Tmpgenc AW 4 and am unable to open the Disc Writing tool. Keep getting the message the "writing drive is stopped". Everything else works. Tried removing things but still no luck. My two drives works with Nero just fine. Using XP64 SP1.

yeah ive been stumped by this myself as ive had many friends and clients sayin there is an issue.

i believe its a bug which should have been seen before the verison as released.

shame really as i hear that this tool was rather good.

Just to appease my curiosity I just installed it on my Laptop running on Xp32 SP2. Works perfectly! Wonder if it has an issue with Xp64 or SP1?

you say this, my system is also a xp x64

Writing tool does not work with XP64 system. I found out through trial and error on both my system XP64 and XP32

Right click My computer -> Manage->Services and Applications-> services there you can see B'S Recorder Gold Liberary General Serives...(you can see it must be stopped) you have not make automatic and start -> click ok..

Re-start tmpeg dvd authoring works.. lol....

I was encoding a VOB to mp4 with a 2 pass setting and everything was going fine but the encoder got stuck at 78%. From the preview window, it appears the encoder got stuck trying to encode "Snow". (The interference type like an untuned TV channel.) This is part of the program so it's not something I want to edit out and I don't believe it appears on screen for very long either. The strange thing is that it never locked up the program as I could still adjust encoding setting in the R-Click flyout menu and had access to the options menu, but it will not quit the program when I try to hit exit.

I let it run over night with a priority of foreground +2 and nothing changed. Also the is no CPU activity. I would hate to to wait another couple hours to find it's going to get stuck again so I would really appreciate any input on what happened and what I might try to remedy it. Please let me know if you need any more information.

Many Thanks,
Eidolen

hi,
There are times when DVD-video files have
special build structure or has weird data or broken, in case of import
directly from a DVD-video there are broken sectors or problems in files
specially in the .IFO files.
Check if it happens the same with other DVD-videos.
Recorded DVD's sometimes there are troubles,
try the following:
At Windows, My computer, please try to copy the DVD (VIDEO_TS)
folder to your HDD, if it becomes a reading error it means that the
recording(copying to disc) is bad, or your DVD media is corrupted, weird,
has some kind of protection, or was wrong created.
- If your DVD-video was recorded
( we think DVD recorders have few DVD burn modes such as
HDD > DVD Auto, LP,SP)

also try to import like this:
-At Source stage click "Add file" button.
-From the file browser choose the folder where your .VOB files are
and select "All files (*.*)" option.
-Choose a > .VOB file for ex. VTS_01_1.VOB file and click "Open".
-There will come out a warning message, please click "No".

- Or... you could try to use an "IFO repair software", search or it
with this keywords in Google or other portal.

Also try the following:
- Start MPEG tool > Multiplexer.
- Choose your .VOB file and click "Start" output it. (You must change
the name or path of the Output file).
- Import the output MPEG file from Multiplexer in a new XPress 4
project and check about it.

good luck

Hi guys

Last week I filmed a concert production. I have it all on a single mpeg file and have set chapters (each song) with tmpgenc authoring works 4. I also have another track of a photo slideshow. My menu currently has 2 buttons doing the following:

Button 1: Track 1 (THE CONCERT) ---> chapter select
Button 2: Track 2 (THE SLIDESHOW) ---> plays the slideshow


I would like to have a layout as follows:

Button 1: Track 1 (THE CONCERT) ---> plays the whole show
Button 2: Track 1 (THE CONCERT CHAPTER SELECT) ---> chapter select
Button 3: Track 2 (THE SLIDESHOW) ---> plays the slideshow

Basically I would like to have a menu where someone can immediately watch the whole show or go to another menu where they could choose an individual song. Is this possible?


CHeers
Lambie

I think the only way would be to use a custom menu design.

In your top menu, you'll have to make the Play All button into "The Concert" button.
You can do this by either making your own button image and importing it into the program, or you can simply make it a text button by selecting the text button layouts in the Menu Wizard.

Then you can rename Track 1 to "The Concert Chapter Select" and that will link to your track menu where you can select the chapters/songs.

Can the disc writing tool write to multiple DVDs at the same time?

No. Just one DVD at a time.

Hi, I have a problem here. Whenever I try to open this file to encode, I kept getting this message:

"Could not open the video part of the file H:\12.avi
Only the audio part can be opened."

There is no problem with the video file; it plays perfectly on any mediaplayer but the file size is just too big and I wanna make it smaller. Is there a patch for it? Been using this program for alot of files with no problems and this is the 1st time I encounter this. Of course, as someone requested earlier, it would be good to have a 'join clips' function as well.

Thank you for reading and looking forward to your reply.

What is the codec used? There may be a codec conflict.

Hi, I am fairly new to TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 and I have a question on figuring out which source files go with which projects. I have a number of projects on my system, some of which have been burned to DVD and some of which have not been, and I'm starting to run out of hard disk space. I would like to be able to delete the source files for the projects already burned but I don't want to risk deleting the ones for projects I'm still working on. How do you identify which .DVDDATA files go with which project? I can't seem to find a way to do this in the program.

Thanks very much in advance.


Skip

easy, load the project and see what it is lol

Yeah, that was a real helpful answer. Thanks alot. :-(

I did a little more looking and found the Project File Check Tool under Advanced Project Tools.