when selecting video CD Pal template, it clearly states 352x288 however the resulting output is 312x288 and it displays black bars in media player. I have nos such problem with Tmpeg 2.5 Plus

the mpeg2 section works fine, no problems at all

I solved that myself

On the video tab I can mpgeg2 set Encode Mode to non-interlace. If this de-interlaces during encoding, how is it different from the Deinterlace option on the Advanced tab?

Non-Interlace simply means encode to progressive frames.
De-interlace means blend 2 seperate fields into one frame or remove one of the 2 fields.

Encoding to Non-Interlace will NOT de-interlace a movie. It will simply encode both fields into one progressive frame.
This is fine with PAL sources, however if this is done with NTSC sources it can cause interlacing artifacts such as combing on moving verticals unless the source is de-interlaced first.

Thanks - that's made it clear to me. If I encode an interlaced file to progressive I should choose a de-interlace filter, and equally I shouldn't use the de-interlace filter without choosing to encode to progressive.

I am curious about why PAL would be different though - I asked about de-interlacing because I am backing-up NTSC camcorder DV to disk, I also have I some old PAL tapes that I was planning to copy too. Won't the interlacing for PAL work the same as NTSC (apart from having more scan-lines and lower frame rate)?

Your right in your first assumptions.

Why the difference with PAL? Well it all depends on the source really.
I'll start with DVD.

NTSC DVD's use something called 3:2 pull down or Telecine. This is a method of turning a progressive 23.976 fps source into an interlaced 29.97 fps source to comply with NTSC standards. This process can also be reversed by using inverse telecine.
Basically what happens is flags are added to the encoded material which tells a player to repeat certain fields in a frame. What this acheives is an extra 6 frames a second.

However due to how the process works the fields become displaced, by that I mean that field 1 and field 2 are not in the same frame. They may be adjacent.
If you were to attempt to encode this type of material as progressive, you would see interlacing artifacts due to the fact that the fields are displaced.
You can see examples of this if you search for 3:2 pulldown on Google.

The difference with PAL DVD is that a process called 2:2 pulldown is used, basically all this is, is a frame split into 2 fields, however this time the fields belong to the same frame, so in reality you could treat each frame as progressive.
The frame rate is then speeded up 4% to 25fps and the audio is adjusted to compensate.

Now things change when we deal with PAL footage from an interlaced camera.
These cameras also displace the fields, so you cannot treat the frames as progressive, you need to deinterlace. The same goes for NTSC cameras.

You should find that if your source is interlaced from a camera and you encode it to interlaced then you shouldn't experience any artifacts on your TV.
If you attempt to watch this type of footage on a progressive display such as your monitor you will see the artifacts unless you use a de-interlace filter such as a BOB filter.

These things are hard to explain without examples, so I have linked to a few below.
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/interlace.htm

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't considered the effects of pulldown. I've also bookmarked the link so I can refer to it - it looks very useful.

Okay I have a slight problem. I've been trying to put an avi onto a VCD with no success for most of the day. My problem is, no matter what I try, I cannot get ANY sound to come up. Kicker is that I can listen to the sound just fine in Winamp, but when I try to encode to MPEG1, I get nothing.

The AVI requires XviD and AC-3, which I have both installed. Any ideas?

I did find a work around, but took longer than I planned.

First I just opened the Video in Winamp, and went into the preferences then to Output. I chose Nullsoft Disk Writer. I hit play and let it go.

Since TMPGEnc has where you can choose a separate audio source, I went under C: (where I told Disk Writer to make the wav) and chose it. Worked like a charm. I definately don't want to do this again, but I know that it works.

In the future, it would be nice if someone could find a better way to make TMPGEnc properly do this.

If anyone knows of a fix, please feel free to reply.

You need the filter below for AVI with AC3 in TMPG.
http://fcchandler.home.comcast.net/AC3ACM/

i have the exact same problem. i installed the ac3 codec from the link but still nothing.
Do i have to select it at the environmental settings or something?

Is there a max file size that can be edited ? I have a 19 GB MPG2 file that's about 9 hours. DVD Author will only recognize the first 6 hours and 37 minutes.

JSN

The Limit is 8.68 GByte. The Maximum you can store on a Dual-Layer DVD.

Thanks. However, I routinely edit files as large as 15 GB. I'm not talking about how large a file can be burned, but rather, how large a file can be edited.

JSN

Use the Freeware MPEG2Schnitt or Cuttermaran for a propper MPEG2-Cutting/Editing.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

JSN

Hi,
Running W2000, P4 CPU 2.4, Intel 865 Mboard, 1G ram. Xpress will load new files and edit great for a couple of hours. Then it will sort of lock itself out from accessing the hard disk drive for maybe 3 or more minutes. The W2000 task manager says Xpress "Not Responding". The hard drive activity light is on solid and other program accesses to the hard drive are slowed down. PC monitor window is also affected. Finally when the drive activity light is out/cleared, Xpress is back. But the next command causes it to go locked again. This behavior continues with Xpress until I re-boot the PC. System resources RAM available and CPU activity are good, not impacted. As I finish typing this Xpress has locked itself for 12 minutes. I hope it clears so I do not have to reboot. All help appreciated, thanks. regards - tom

I've search the posts and I think I'm doing this correctly but can't get "play only first track" to work.
Have 2 clips. First one is an "intro" video and the second is main video divided into chapters.
I've got "Firstplay action" set to "Play only first track".
I've got "Action to take after each track....." set to "display track menu".
"Display menu settings" set to "only track menu" (get the same problem with Main menu selected).
Even though the "intro" track appears in the track menu as chapter 1 (which you can stop from displaying), I assumed it would play the "intro" track and then put up the title menu. It doesn't.When dvd file is played (in PowerDVD)it plays "intro" (chap. 1) but continues with the rest of the video and only at the end does it put up the title menu.
Tried all variations but can't get it to work.
Got any ideas?

Firstplay action - "Play only first track".
Action to take after each track - "Display Main Menu"

This works for me. It plays intro movie, then immediately goes to Main Menu. From Main Menu, you can hide the first "intro" track button, and only have the "second" track displayed. So it looks like one track on main menu.

How do you hide a track on the main menu?

Why is there no sound after encoding? How can I fix this?
someone please help.

When I try to join two mpeg files, the final file is in the required format, except that there is strange loud beep noise where the two files are joined.
I have tried working with various files and am having the same problem in all the files.

Make sure you click the 'correct' button before joining otherwise the GOPs will not join properly.

OK, total noobie here. Forgive my complete and total ignorance.

I have two MPG files that I want to Cut & Paste. I need the last 4 minutes of one file connected to the first 1 minute of the second file. Then I want to save the resultant work as a new .mpg file. Sounds simple.

If I use TMPGEnc | File | MPEG Tools | Merge and Cut, I can figure out how to edit the files and select the pieces of the files that I want -- using the well-designed braces {}. However, when I Run the program at this point, only the video stream is produced. The .mpg file is created, but there is no sound. If I examine or demux the new file, clearly only the video stream was encorporated in the .mpg file.

What am I doing wrong??
____________________________________

The original MPG files have the audio encoded as "CPM-Audio" Packs. The video attributes are 720x480, 4:3 ratio, 29.97 fps, bitrate 240,000 -- if any of that matters.

Thanks.

Cut and paste is not really a term used in video editing, but I understand what you mean.
You have incompatible audio. You would need to encode the audio to MP2 first then remux with your video and then perform the cut.

Thank you and sorry for the terminology error.

How can I easily convert the audio? I can extract it to a .wav file, but none of the converters that I own do anything but convert that to mp3!

OK, I found this program called "Audio Converter" and I downloaded it for a free 10-day trial. Eh, I don't recommend it. It converted my 18 minute WAV file to a 15 second MP2 file. No good. There are several converters out there, but which one is decent? The one I picked is a dog!

Easy TMPG will do it.
Simply load the MPEG into TMPG as normal then select 'audio only' next click the setting button and select the bitrate you want to encode to. If you want it to be very high quality then select the highest bitrate.
When done just hit start. After TMPG has finished you should have an MP2 file which you can then remux with your video.

DUH! Thanks. Got it to work. I appreciate the assistance.

I downloaded wmp 10 and when trying to load file into tmp 3 i would normally in video area when the length of files are different in video and audio change the cut-edit and key frame list which would then enable me to change the audio to fit the video length.
I can no longer do this. I have deleted wmp 10,redownloaded tmp3,changed the restore point and am so frustrated that i am considering a restore of my whole operating system which is not really what i want to do.
Can anyone offer any help?

Does anyone know why i get this error when i try to edit aan mpeg file??

The DLL is missing or in the wrong directory.

how do i do?

The main problem is that it is in wrong directory, so go to start and search for files and type p3package.dll,then u will get the file, copy it to your desktop and then cut it and paste it to system32 folder in windows directory for windows Xp users and for other windows users copy the file where u will see many files or dll's, which is in system or system32 folder. Then do the same with p4package.dll which u will see error later when u have paste p3package.dll

The main problem is that it is in wrong directory, so go to start and search for files and type p3package.dll,then u will get the file, copy it to your desktop and then cut it and paste it to system32 folder in windows directory for windows Xp users and for other windows users copy the file where u will see many files or dll's, which is in system or system32 folder. Then do the same with p4package.dll which u will see error later when u have pasted p3package.dll

I wanna include chinese subtitle while importing DVD-Video as source. But there's no such setting.

TMPGEnc seems do not like to support the DVD copy concern option?!