TMPGENC DVD Author--- rendering quality?

[toomanyhandles]

Hi all;

Someone recommended TMPGENC DVD Author in another thread, when I was asking about making DVDs and including the closed captioning information (USA).

I've been making DVDs from VHS tapes, a good friend has a lot of 1950's movies on VHS that are at risk of aging.

What softwares are generally considered to have the "best" authoring quality; you notice it especially in B/W since the greyscale quality is important.

I've been using ULEAD DVD Moviefactory 3 SE that came with my Hauppauge 350 and it's OK; and it's easier to set up than the Nero 7 authoring program, and I don't notice a difference between the output of those.

There are a few commercial offerings in the $80 range that TMPGENC is in; any comments on which is known to be the best renderer?

I have to say I'm liking the fact that if I get TMPGENC and burn DVDs of shows with that, the cc will be there if I want to share the disk with my father. But rendering quality comes first...

Thanks for comments--

[Deusxmachina]

Careful. I *think* TMPGenc Author "suite" or whatever it's called (Xpress?) is not highly recommended. It's ok, of course, but not tops. I recall people on videohelp.com etc saying the encoder/authoring program had a newer and not as good encoder as the old-but-great TMPGenc Plus encoder.

I use TMPGenc Plus encoder all the time. I use TMPG Author all the time. I don't think the program you are referring to is the same as either of those.

There are plenty of free encoders out now that for the most part rival any non-free encoders. The main problem with many of them is they are scriptline based and don't have GUIs. There are some good free DVD authoring programs, but I have yet to see one as easy to use yet looks good like TMPG Author. Try the free trial and see. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a professional's program, but for slapping files onto a disc and having nice touches like moving video clips on the menu, it's nice.

About the only thing I hate about it is it won't accept PAL and NTSC on the same disc. It can do it, but you have to take an extra minute to change a couple lines with a different program. Not a big deal, just annoying.

I will now mention my newest favorite program. FAVC. About the only thing it lacks is not being able to easily lower the bitrate on encoding. It's a GUI for a bunch of free programs. Accepts MKV files, can pass-through 5.1 audio (TMPG can't do that without a plugin), can make (boring but works) DVD menus... and it's far more stable and can do more than other all-in-one programs I've tried that aren't free. Those other programs should be embarrassed, really. When files I have are of similar resolution and bitrate, I just slap them into that overnight. Although I still tend to use TMPG Author for authoring.

When I want to tweak non-common settings, or generally for mpeg1 at low resolution and bitrates, I go with TMPGenc Plus. Some people say it's slow, but it seems as fast as pretty much anything else.

I mentioned encoders and authorers separately, while your post seemed to lump the two together. If you want real quality encoding, I don't think it will generally be found in an all-in-one solution. They tend to be more for quantity over quality. Something like FAVC is the exception to this because it's just a GUI for multiple powerful (and free) programs. Kind of like the transcoder plugin for Mencoder in GBPVR. It's a strong program, but without that plugin most people would never use Mencoder.

[toomanyhandles]

Careful. I *think* TMPGenc Author "suite" or whatever it's called (Xpress?) is not highly recommended. It's ok, of course, but not tops. I recall people on videohelp.com etc saying the encoder/authoring program had a newer and not as good encoder as the old-but-great TMPGenc Plus encoder.

I use TMPGenc Plus encoder all the time. I use TMPG Author all the time. I don't think the program you are referring to is the same as either of those.

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda3.html
TMPGENC DVD Author 3, is what I interpreted as recommended earlier.

there is an "TMPGENC Express 4.0" but as a rule I expect things called "express" to be limited.

I assume you are using the former (Author 3?). Can you get the TMPGenc Plus encoder codec you mention as a freebie (legally) or did you buy it?

I'll look at the FAVC frontend, thanks. Links to what you are using for encoding and authoring would be great, if they aren't what I link to above.

EDIT: Oh, I see the free "plus" encoder-only now:
http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tp.html


thanks for the reply-

[Deusxmachina]

Yeah, when I use it, mainly just when trying to get as low of a filesize as possible for whatever reason, I use TMPGenc Plus 2.5. It used to be $50. If that's not just a trial version they now have, that's great.

I can't tell if the authoring program you linked uses 2.5 or if it uses the later encoder that is considered adequate but not as good. When narrowing down your search, I'd just be sure to read a lot on videohelp.com forums and check the reviews in the Tools listings, and to a lesser extent check Doom9. Doom9 people know a lot, but they tend towards opinions of "professional quality or bust," and there is a certain bias for some products there that I could take a couple paragraphs to explain.

Other than FAVC, I tend to use separate programs for what I'm doing, so I'm not too up on some of the all-in-one programs. I have tried things like ConvertXtoDVD and DIKO and TheFilmMachine and things like that, and I found them lacking in one way or another.

I'm not sure exactly how much effort or expense and quality and all that you want to put into this, so I'm just tossing stuff out and maybe something will stick. For the easiest, maybe or maybe not the best quality, just using a DVD recorder might be the way to go, and then if you don't need it after the VHS tapes, toss it on ebay.

And I think my authoring is TMPG DVD Author 2.0. It's just the old basic one that authors from mpegs and vobs and doesn't encode. Easy to use, fairly quick, and looks good.