Tmpgenc Dvd Author

8/12/2019 Tmpgenc Dvd Author

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TMPGEnc DVD Author

TMPGEnc DVD Author is the DVD authoring program from the makers of the widely usedTMPGEnc MPEG-1/2 encoder. It is geared towards beginners in DVD authoring, or peoplewho only need a simple authoring solution. The program does not allow you to create yourown menus from scratch, link them as you like or create your own buttons. Rather, it offersyou facilities to automatically generate the appropriate menus for your content (evenanimated if you like). Being geared towards beginners, the program does not advancedfeatures like multiple audio tracks, subtitles, etc.

Step 1: Prepare your assets

That's the step I personally don't like much, but DVD Author makes my job rather easy.You'll need DVD compatible video and audio files for your movie(s), plus possible menubackgrounds as bitmap image or video. Unlike the actual movies, menu video backgroundcan be multiplexed (.mpg files rather than an .m2v and an .mp2/.ac3). Menu backgroundmusic is possible, but only in conjunction with video background - but you can easily createa video file having only one black frame and your desired menu background music as audio.

Step 2: Authoring

DVD Author works in 3 steps: First you set up your sources (movies), then you create /modify your menus and finally you author the disc. The program has an external applicationto burn the created VIDEO_TS folder (but you can obviously also use your favorite DVDburning software to do this). When you start up the program, you'll be on the main (Start)screen.

The first time you start up DVD Author, you should configure the options. To do this, clickthe Options button, then select Environmental settings .

Youwillwant tomakesurethat


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the Temporary folder points to a place that has plenty of room (you'll need at least 4.7 GB -more is better, especially when you're cutting).

Having configured DVD Author, press Create new project to get started. If you want tomodify an existing project, Open existing project file would be the way to go.

This will land you in the source setup step. You start out with one empty video track.

Double click the grayish - greenish rectangle shown above, and change the name of the

track to something appropriate (it allows you to identify the video later on). Then press Addfile to add your first movie.

Alternatively, you can use a source directly from a ripped DVD. Press Add DVD video to usesuch a source. You'll then have to select the VIDEO_TS folder of the DVD from which you

want to import content. The next step is the title selection:


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DVDAuthorwillshowyou allavailab

le titlesfromtheDVDyou'veselected.Selecta title,thenuse thedropdown list,toselectanaudiotrack

from the DVD. Note that DVD Author only supports one audio track, and DTS is notsupported.

Press Next to continue.

DVDAuthorcanimportthechapters fromtheDVD.To do

this, justkeepReadchapterinformationchecke


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d. That way you won't have to bother setting chapter points.

In case the content is still on a DVD (this is only possible if you're using an on-the-flydecryption driver like AnyDVD, DVD Region Free or DVD43), you should also select Copy theclip video data to the HDD, which will speed up the authoring process later on.

Then press OK to end the import.

After having selected the first video file, you'll be taken the following window:

As you can see, DVD Author automatically loads an audio file that has the same name asthe video file. If this isn't the case for you, press the 2nd Browse button and load theappropriate audio file.


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To set up chapters for this movie, press Chapter cut edit .

Thechaptercreationfacilitiesaredividedin acouple ofareas:

First wehave theplayer.As every

otherplayer, itallowsyou toplay the

movie. It'll also show you the cut configuration in case you're cutting out a part of the video(I presume you've done that before - it is generally a good idea). Note that cutting worksregardless of the source - even AC3 audio is properly supported.

The 4th and 5th line show you which frame is currently shown in the preview. Just belowthat, the type of the current frame is shown. Note that each chapter must start with an I-frame - but DVD Author will tell you at which positions it can insert a keyframe.

Then we have the video timeline just below the player. You'll see thumbnails of the videostream in the immediate vicinity of the currently shown frame. The frame shown in red(actually it's pink but that's not visible on this screenshot) is the one currently beingdisplayed in the preview window. Once you set chapters, you'll see small vertical lines belowthe slider (the slider represents the entire length of the video so the position of the verticalline represents the chapter position with respect to the entire movie).

To actually add a chapter, you'll need the chapters below the slider:


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You canusethe Set asstartframe and Set as end

frame buttons to define an area to be cut out. You can also use the Move to start frame and Move toend frame buttons to move to the currently defined start and end points. Then you'dpress Cut to make the cut. The content from the start frame up until the end frame wouldbe cut out that way (the end frame would remain in the video stream).

To create a chapter at the currently shown position, press Add current frame to chapter .

If you uncheck Show thumbnail , the thumbnail view is disabled. Finally we have the Editmenu button:

This allows you to cut either the currently selected range

(everything between the start and end frame) or do theinverse (cut everything but the content in between startand end frame). If you've moved start and / or end pointaway from the beginning and end of the movie, you canalso reset those using Reset start and end points andreset everything that you've cut before using Reset cutediting .

The chapters that you add as described above will be shown inthe Chapter list :

You can select any chapter and press the Delete button to get rid of itagain.

If you want to add chapters differently, press the Add button.


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The add chapters menuallows you to enter a singleor multiple chapter points atonce:

Add chapter at specifiedtimecode allows you toinsert a chapter at a givenpoint in the movie.

Automatically insert chapterswith the selectedinterval can be used toinsert chapters at a regularinterval in minutes, withoutany limit to the number ofchapters to be inserted.

Finally, Automatically inserta specified number ofchapters at a fixed interval ,will insert the definednumber of chapters in the

video, spacing them out evenly over the entire movie. Note that this method of addingchapters actually means chapters have different lengths in function of the movie length.

Once you have defined all the chapters for the current movie, press OK to get back to themain DVD Author window.

Youcouldadd a2ndvideofile tothesametrackpressing Addfile again. To

changechapterpoints,selectthe clipand

press Edit clip . Pressing Delete clip deletes the currently selected clip.


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Then you can add more movies if you like. Just press Add new track and a new track iscreated. Then add a video file to this new track as you've done before. Here's how myproject ended up looking:

While adding tracks and clips, keep an eye on the size bar at the bottom of the window.Make sure it doesn't go beyond the 4.7 GB marker (if the bar has a red part, your project istoo large and you'll have to remove files or cut them).

Once you've added all your video files, it's time to go create a menu. Press the Createmenu button.

As previously mentioned, DVD Author will automatically create menus for you. This is howmy main menu looked before I started making changes:


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As youcansee,DVDAuthorcreate

s amovieselectionmenubydefault, andadds abuttonto playbothtitlesaftereachother.

Selecting one of the movies (tracks), would actually not start playing the title but go to thechapter selection menus:

DVD Author automatically created a chapter selection menu for all your movies:

Theplaybuttonwouldstartplayingthemovieat thebeginning,Return

wouldreturnyou tothemainmenu,andthereare


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two buttons after the 4 listed chapters, those would take you to the next page in thechapter selection.

To the left of the menu preview, DVD Author will show you themenu structure:

As you can see, I have a main menu, and two chapter selectionmenus for each track.

Now you have two options: You can either generate a menu using another template,generate your own template, or edit the menus that are currently being shown. DVD Authorhas a few built-in types of menus, which you can select from the dropdown list on the menupage:

If you are using a built-in template, the Edit menu theme button would not allow you tochange anything. Press the Menudisplay settings to configure yourmenus:

Despite the template, you can stilldecide which menus you actuallywant to include into your project.Set the Display menu settings towhich option works best for you. Asyou can see, it's perfectly possibleto exclude either track or mainmenu.

Then we have the Firstplay action .This defines where your DVD playergoes while playing the disc. You caneither have it play the first track, alltracks, or go to the main menu.

Similarly, the Action to take aftereach track has been played , allows

you to configure what happens after a track has been played. By default, the player will goback to the track menu.


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Finally, you can define the length of the animation. By default, DVD Author will show 15seconds of video in each thumbnail, then loop the menu.

All these options apply to your menus on a global scale, so you can set them before youselect another theme, edit the current theme or change the menu pages. Let's handle thelast option first: Every item on a menu page is shown with a dotted rectangle around it.Click on one of those brings up a either a video player (if the item is a video thumbnail), afile loading dialogue (if it's a button, or if it's an unused area - in that case you can load anew background image or video), or a text editing dialogue:

Using this window, youcan edit the text shownon a menu page. As thecontrols are just like inany word processing toolI'm sure you'll be able to

handle these withoutany problem.

And here's the video player:

Open file.. Would allow you to loadanother video or bitmap file to be usedfor the thumbnail. Alternatively, youcan use the slider and player buttons

to go to another position in the videowhich would then be chosen as startposition for the thumbnail.

Press OK to get back to the mainscreen.

An addition to all this, you can press the Edit button for more options:


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Specify background image allows you to selectanother image or video for the background ofthe menu that is currently being shown. Or youcan use Specify background images for all pagesto select the same image / video for all menupages.

Similarly, you can set a font and color for allmenu pages.

If you're not happy with the current theme, you can either select another one from thedropdown list, or select the last option from the dropdown list: New theme...

This brings up the window shown on the left. You now have the option to chose betweendifferent layouts for the main menu and the track menu, select a set of menu buttons, aswell as size and shape of the frames around thumbnail images. Last but not least, you canalso select a different default background image.

It is currently not possible to add your own layouts and image material.

Make your choice, then press OK to proceed. This sets the new theme you've defined as thetheme for your project.


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Now, you can press the Edit menu theme button to edit the theme you've just created, andto save it.

The edit menu theme window contains 4 major parts: In the upper left you once again havethe list of menu pages that were created for your current project. In the lower left, you

have a dropdown list of all menu elements on the current menupage:

Selecting one, will activate it in the preview, and its propertieswill be shown. You can modify the item by dragging anddropping it around, change its size and position using eitheryour mouse, or entering new values using the keyboard.

Above the menu preview, we have 4 important buttons:

Create new theme would once again bring you back to the window where you can create anew theme. Save theme allows you to save your current theme under a name of yourchoosing. Menu display settings allows you to set menu defaults for this theme - you'vealready seen what options there are. Options finally allows you to active some helper

functions for menu design:

Show grid will show a fine grid, allowing you to better position yourmenu elements. Always adjust to grid will ensure that all elementsare aligned to the grid. Show the TV safe area will show a red-whitedotted rectangular area around the edge of the preview. You should

make sure that all your elements are placed within that are, notoutside of it, as elements that are outside might be cut off on aTV. Show frame will show a dotted line around each menu elementand Show the center lines will show a more coarse grid, helping

you to align elements.

If you right click in the preview area, depending on where you click you'll have a variety ofoptions:

The Edit option is only enabled when clicking on a text element,and allows you to edit the text element. In addition,the Text element would also be active, allowing you to align thetext horizontally and vertically.

The Adjust to grid functionality is always enabled.


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If you select multiple items (by dragging and dropping your mouse), the alignment optionsalso become accessible. They allow you to horizontally and vertically align differentelements at once.

The Options menu offers you the same choices as the Options button.

If the Image menu is active, it'll allow you to do thefollowing:

Specify image for thumbnail frame allows you to select aframe for the frame around the thumbnail. Clear thumbnailframe will remove the frame around the thumbnailaltogether.

The image display range options allow you to configure howmuch of the entire video frame is shown in the thumbnail.

By default, this value is set to 100%, meaning the entireframe is shown, but if you'd rather only have a part of thevideo frame shown, select another factor and DVD Author

will zoom in to only show the selected percentage of the original frame.

Once you've configured everything, press Save theme to save the theme, then OK to getback to the main window. Now perform any last minute changes to the menu you want,then press Output to proceed to the compilation phase.

First you have to enter an appropriate Output folder , where DVD Author will write yourproject to.

Then press Being output to start the compilation. While DVD Author is compiling, you canpress the Abort button to abort the process at any time.


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While DVD Author is compiling, you can see what the program is currently doing, theprogress in percent and an estimate of the remaining time:

Once completed, DVD Authorwill show you the followingwindow:

Press Open DVD Writing Toolto proceed directly withwriting the disc. It issuggested that you firstverify that the disc can beplayed using a software DVDplayer.

If you prefer to close DVD Author to test your disc, you can still access the DVD burning tool

by starting DVD Author again, and pressing the Write DVD folder to DVD-R/RW button.


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If this tool is launched after compilation, the DVD folder structure will already be set. If not,press the Browse button and select the path where your VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TSdirectories have been written to.

Then select a Write speed , your Recorder (if you have more than one), set a label for thedisc ( Disc label ), and press Write DVD to start the burning process.

If you're dealing with a DVDRW disc that still contains data, you can erase the discpressing Erase DVDRW .

Or, you could create an ISO image from the project pressing Create ISO image .

You can also burn ISO images, by selecting ISO -> DVD , upon which you'll be asked tospecify an ISO image to be burned.

Now all you can do is wait until DVD Author has finished burning, and then test the disc inyour standalone DVD player.

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Tmpgenc Dvd Author