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Hi
I've never been clear on the different versions, other than the MPEG 2 capability of PLUS... Shoud I upgrade to TMPG 2.58? Will it do anything for me that I can't do now?
If you Bought "Tmpgenc Plus 2.57" you are intitled to a free upgrade to 2.58, you are only intitled to an upgrade to the version that comes out right after the one you bought so if you don"t upgrade to it you won"t be able to upgrade to anything, so you might as well do it ,you can run both versions at the same time and if you like one more than the other you can delete one of them...
i was looking for an answer to the same question. i must say though, thats a bunch of crap. when a new version comes out every couple of months it annoys me to not get the new feature and mpg2 options. every other internet based program, (musicmatch,realplayer,ect.) allow upgrades once you've bought the product. i love this encoder and have used it for a long time now. i couldn't wait for a full version to keep the mpg2 option open, but that aspect of the marketing definetly needs rethinking to keep the customer happy.
What the hell are you talking about? Once you have purchased TMPG plus ALL future versions so far have been free upgrades including the continuation of the MPEG2 encoding ability.
Either you are using an illegal serial which has been blacklisted and this is why you are moaning that future upgrades aren't working or you aren't using the Plus version at all and haven't purchased it in the first place.
I've learned enough of the basics to understand that the process essentially involves
1- video capture onto PC
2- encoding (in my case VCD's)
3- VCD burning
I have a JVC MiniDV camcoder, a fast Athlon PC with firewire, and I'm playing with these apps: Ulead VideoStudio, Nero 5.5, and of course TMPGEnc 2.5. I've successfully burned two VCD's that work on my DVD player (yeah!!). But it's a long process, and I'm looking for some optimizations.
My basic question in there must be a way to combine steps 1 & 2 above. When I connect my DVCamcoder, it's a visible device (I'm running WinXP Pro). However, when I browse to the DV device from within TMPGEnc, I can go to the DV camera but it doesn't recognize the DV file (on tape) in the camcoder so I can't directly encode it to my harddrive. Can anybody show me the way (if it's even possible)?
You can not encode directly off your Cam-Corder with Tmpgenc..You can use Mpeg capture programs like "Power VCR" to capture directly to "Mpeg1/2" so you don"t have to encode the movie to mpeg, there are programs like "Ulead DVD Workshop" that will let you capture to mpeg and do menu"s and chapters and burn all in the same program..But this way will not give you the best Quality as doing it the long way that you are allready doing..If you were to use "Adobe Premier 6.5" you could do the editing and add transitions and titles then you can frame serve the File to Tmpgenc without haveing to render it to avi..So these are basicly the choises you have, and it is allways going to be a very time consumeing proscess if you want the best quality....
minion - thanks for the reply. From what I've read so far, others concur with the few one steps sacrifice some quality.
OK, so, I need to capture first. I have 2 apps that can do it - Ulead VideoStudio and WinXP's Movie Maker. Both have different options/file formats to encode the captured DV file. It's not clear to me if I should select the highest quality format (Ulead uses a 720x480 @ 30fps .avi format for DV sources), or select one of the MPEG1 formats closest to VCD's, like 352x240? There is a big difference in size - the highest leaves a 10G .avi file which quickly leads to hard drive exhaust. WinXP's is the easiest user interface.
Nero5.5 then lets me do their VCD encoding followed by burning - and that works. However, I have obviously heard good things about TMPGEnc, including XVCD which appears to work with my Panasonic RP82 DVD player, which would give me higher resolution I think. However, I want to give TMPGEnc the required encoded DV movie file in order to create the best looking VCD.
I'm not knowledgeable enough at this time to feel confident in the correct approach/options/process yet to make these VCD's.
If you are just going to make VCD"s you don"t need to capture to 720 by 480, just capture to 352 by 480, but if you want to do xvcd with higher resolutions try to capture to 704 by 480, then you can encode that with tmpgenc to a XVCD, but useing a high resolution like that means you have to use a Lot higher bitrate so you will only get a max of 45 minutes on a CD-R..And I wouldn"t use Nero for encodeing cuz it is terrorable for quality..But if you just want to start out makeing Standard VCD"s then Tmpgenc is easy to use..you just load in your avi file then click the "Load" button in the bottom Right, then look for the "NTSC VCD" template in the Templates folder and load it then ,click the "start" button and it will encode a standard VCD for you, if you want to make a XVCD you will have to load the "Unlock.mcf" template so you can manually adjust the settings, then you just change the resolution to one that your player will play, usually either "352 by 480/480 by 480/704 by 480" then change the Bitrate, you will need to at least Double the standatd bitrate to obtain the desired Quality...it is a lot of trial and error to get everything right.....
Just starting to get into the copy stuff, converting an avi, the file comes out into mpg without any video, just audio. Any suggestions? Wish I had a step by step to go through.
thanks, great program, I just have to learn how to use it.
Just starting to get into the copy stuff, converting an avi, the file comes out into mpg without any video, just audio. Any suggestions? Wish I had a step by step to go through.
thanks, great program, I just have to learn how to use it.
You probably just need to raise the priority of the "direct show file reader". you do this by going to "options" to "enviromental settings" to "vfapi plugins" and raise the "direct Show" to "2"..
i've had similar problem downloading avi movies off the net and converting them. most of the time the person who made the avi from they're digital camcorder used a codec that tmpg doesn't support. to fix it just run it through virtual dubb. i use the divx codec and uncompressed audio. it makes the file much bigger, but you get the result you want out of tmpg when its done that way.
What's the point in creating a DIVX out of an already AVI movie?
If it's an AVI TMPG will support it as long as the correct codec is installed. If media player will play it then TMPG should be able to open it.
The problem is not likely related to the type of AVI anyway, but is just a simple matter of raising the priority of the directshow reader as minion points out. This usually solves the problem as long as you have the correct codec installed.
As for converting AVI's to DIVX with Virtualdub, this is a pointless, time wasting and quality degrading step.
If you need to use Virtualdub to open a movie because you are having problems with TMPG then just simply frameserve the file to TMPG from Virtualdub rather than waste time and space creating another AVI.
I use TMPGenc 2.56. When convert a DivX 5.x encoded movie to MPEG-2 (VBR, CD, CBR, ... doesn't matter) I get a jerky MPEG-2. The MPEG-2 file itself plays jerky (checked with WinDVD and PowerDVD) as well as the SVCD itself (checked on a few DVD players).
The DivX plays smooth.
The jerks occur at #0.5 seconds and are only visible when there the scene moves violently.
You have most probabably changed the framerate of the MPEG from the original framerate of the DIVX. TMPG does not do a proper framerate conversion and will cause jerky playback such as you describe.
There are a number of ways to do a proper conversion depending on your requirments.
Post back with more detail and we will give info how to do it correctly.
Do you mean that I changed the framerate of the TMPGEnc encoded MPEG-2? - No!
VirtualDub says the framerate is 25.000, and I used the SVCD PAL Template of TMPGEnc to encode the DivX. No framerate conversion took place.
However, VirtualDub says that the file has 129543 frames, while the maximum adjustable in Source Range (TMPGEnc) is 155450.
How is that possible?
BTW ... I did already a framerate conversion with TMPGEnc (from 23.976 to 25.000). You are right saying that this produces jerks. However that's not what I did here. The framerate which VirtualDub detects (25.000) is used in TMPGEnc.
If it isn't a framerate problem then all I can suggest is it maybe you do not have the field order set correctly. Change the field order to the opposite of what you encoded with before and try again.
- If the field order relevant with progressive (non-interlace) source material?
- A DivX is generally progressive, isn't it?- What about my previous question with the different number of frames regarding VirtualDub and TMPGEnc?
BTW ... I tested your suggestion to change the field order, and it worked! The jerks disappeared. BUT I reverted back to the original setting of the field order and the jerks disappeared as well! I have absolutely no explanantion for that, especially that the final MPEG-2 file was slightly different in size, with EXACTLY the same project being used ?!?!
Either TMPGEnc has a bug or the project doesn't save all settings!?
The frame rate in the "Source range" window shows 30 fps (with my 25 fps source .avi) when the "DirectShow File Multimedia Reader" is selected in the "Enviromental settings" (VFAPI plug-in) with priority 1. WIsn't this a bug?
Hello people. I have spent the last couple of days playing with the ATI "All in Wonder"7500 video capture card... learning first hand what you guys have meant about uncompressed AVI devouring disk space and trying to come up with a comfortable - to me - middle ground. I really don't like the 352 x 240 size and prefer to capture at a slightly larger size. Now I am using an "mpeg 1" format, but I wonder just how good the ATI MPEG 1 really is.... Should I recode the ATI mpg with TMPG, or should I try to use a compressed AVI format and than use TMPG? My end goal is to use NERO to burn to CD-Rs.
You would probably get the best results if you capture un-compressed AVI and then encode to mpeg with Tmpgenc..Captureing to Mpeg then encodeing to mpeg won"t produce very good quality, but if you can Capture good Quality Mpeg to the same resolution that you want the finnished product to be, that would save a lot of time and disk space...
In my experience of capturing (and I have tried all sorts) the DIVX 5 codec still proves to beat any other codec including the so called lossless Huffyuv codec which frankly I think produces crap results.
If you have a fast PC then capturing with the DIVX 5 codec set at it's highest 1 pass quality based setting and fastest performance/quality setting will give very high quality results almost like uncompressed AVI (yes really) and certainly better than MPEG 1 capturing.
The file size is usually a few gigs for a regular movie. If you find you can't use the fastest performace/quality setting because of dropped frames then simply change the setting to a lower one until the dropped frames dissappear this won't affect the actual quality of the capture, but tends to produce a larger file size because of less compression in the file.
Also capturing to at least the framesize of the intended outcome will help too, but having said this I have always found that capturing to the highest resolution possible without dropping frames improves the quality of the final MPEG when the framesize is reduced when encoding.
If you need to know of an excellant capture program and one of the best I have used so far which will give some options other capture programs won't offer then try IUVCR.
I don't use Virtualdub for capturing as I have found it restricts the use of certain drivers and is an old VFW windows program anyway which are slow and offer less advantages than using an improved WDM program such as IUVCR.
Hi. I am having trouble converting an avi file to mpeg.
The movie converts fine but the finished mpeg is missin 10 mins of
the original avi.
This has happened with 2 seperate movies (both from SMR).
Does anybody know where i am going wrong?
thanks in advance for any help
Well Tmpgenc probably crashed or hit a Bad spot in your avi file, if you don"t want to encode the whole file over again you can use the "Source Range" in the "Advanced Settings" to start encodeing a new file were the other one left off and then use the "Merge & Cut" to join the 2 files together...
Dbpoweramp is the best allround encoder and gives excellant results. If you are specifically referring to the mp2 format then Dbpoweramp will handle this also. Toolame is another and can be used as a plug in with TMPG.
If you want good quality and very fast encoding then you can't beat MPEGDJencoder. This is the encoder I use and is ten times faster than other encoders including TMPG. What it takes TMPG 25-30 mins to encode only takes MPEGDJencoder 3 mins.
i was trying to convert an avi file into mpeg1 using TMPEG but the audio seem distort after the convertion. the audio avi is ok. i've tried to lower the audio at the setting but final mpeg still distort.
I have problem with TMPEGenc. When I try to start converting DivX from virtualdub vdr it gives me error message: ACM initialization failed or illegal floating decimal point calculation order. I can use TMPEGenc normally if I multiplex the audio into wav format and then serve only video with virtualdub vdr and give wav directly to TMPEGenc. I have tried many TMPEGenc versions so thats not the case. I may have bad coded etc...hopefully someone has a clue that might help. I also installed DivX codecs(3.11,4.12,5.02) again with no luck. It seems this problem is only that TMPEGenc can't handle audio which is coming from virtualdub frameclient ?!?
Ok I solved the problem!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!
I installed DVD2SVCD which had installed its own virtualdub script reader also into TMPEGencs VFAPI plugins...I just disabled the ReadAVS.dll from environmental settings-->VFAPI Plug-in and everything started to work again. Hopefully this information will help someone else someday :=)
i've had the same problem. i think when you d/l from ftps like winmx and things, everytime you resume from a partial file it screws up the index a little. i've fixed the problem in the past bye making a fresh file, audio and video, with virtual dub. don't just do a direct stream copy or it won't fix it, you have to make a new file out of the old one with fresh avi encoding.
Is there anyone who know how much better CCE is on encoding (not that it's faster) but the quality on the picture compared to Tmpgenc with the best settings (slow encoding). Is it possible to see that there is a difference. ?
I read below that it is possible to encode video in CCE and audio on Tmpgenc and have the best of two worlds, but I can't use CCE since im on a not supportede CPU, sucks.
I would like Tmpgenc to bee just as good as CCE on encoding video even if it's slow :)
You can actually use CCE with the settings of Tmpgenc so it"s like haveing tmpgenc as the front end and CCE is the encodeing engine, so you get to use the filters that Tmpgenc has with CCE..The mpeg2 quality is Better especially at low bitrates, but the mpeg1 isn"t very good at all and CCE has no filters or any way to re-size the resolution so you pretty much have to use it this way to get the best results or you can use AVISynth with the CCE 2.5 version..What kind of system do you have that doesn"t run CCE??On there site they say that have tested it with AThlons Intel Celeron Pentium Xeon Duron,Pretty much any computer optimized with MMX and SSE, but you need at least 600mhz and 256mb-ram...
You won't be able to match the MPEG2 encoding quality of CCE no matter what you do with TMPG, but you can come close.
CCE uses the 'Constant quality(CQ)' method so use this method with TMPG also and you will acheive superior results. Forget about 2 pass.
Bitrate= Min- 1800 Max- 4000 Quality- 65%
VBV buffer set at 0(automatic)
DC component precision- 10
Use 'High quality' as the motion search precision. No point in using highest as you probably wont notice a difference in quality except for the dramatic increase in encoding time.
If you use the MPEG standard encoding setting in the Quantize matrix this will also give slightly better results, but at the sacrifice of a slightly higher file size. Check soften block noise unless you are using ver high bitrates, but for SVCD I would recommend checking it to reduce blockiness.
Well im only on 500mhz K6-2+ and I have 256mb ram.. so the thing is that CCE ueses specific things in the CPU's.. seems lame, since I don't care if it would take 2weeks of encoding instead of 1week and so on. I have a server so I don't care about that, just that Im not going to buy a new computer just to be able to use CCE, not worth it. You can install CCE 2.50 but it craches when it runs, probably becaus my cpu is not supported and 2.64 you can't install, checks for some MMX or something.
I see, so the best way to encode SVCD is a combination of Tmpgenc and CCE as the video encoding engien :]
What do you mean it's not worth upgrading just to use CCE. The processor you are using is terribly slow and outdated compared to todays processors and if you are serious about quality which is why I presume you want to use CCE then why not upgrade.
Processors are dirt cheap nowadays and a 1.7 ghz AMD or Intel processor can be picked up quite cheap and the encoding speed increase you will gain will be huge compared to your current processor. Using your current CPU it must be taking you somewhere between 15-20 hours to encode a movie. Using a 1.7 P4 I can encode a movie in about 1-2 hrs using CCE.
Think of the savings you will making on your electricity supply due to the fact you don't have to run your computer for long hours and also the wear and tear on your PC components such as your hard drive.