Anyone here used/using TMPGEnc Authoring Works 5?

[Big Vern]

TMPGEnc Authoring Works 5 now has "x264 encoding engine for H.264/AVC encoded Blu-ray and AVCHD output". Version 4 only had MPEG-II encoding to BR, so at least they have listerned to people who have been telling them that the x264 encoding engine is way superior to MPEG-II.

Seems like a very easy tool to author BR discs, and the price is ok as well, $99 [approx £62!].

Was just wondering if their BR authored discs work ok, or have there been any compatibility issues with stand alone BR players?

Regards.....

[LowDead]

Nice catch :) Time for an upgrade...

I have TAW4 and haven't noticed any compability issues with any of my software and standalone players.

//LD

[Ulf]

I have upgraded to TAW5. The encoding (using x264) is painfully slow in TAW5. It's way faster to encode the video separately with x264 and then importing to TAW5.

As far as I have tested, "AVCHD for DVD" plays fine on Panasonic BD30.

What is missing, and was missing in TAW4, is the ability to import SUP Blu-ray subtitles as well as DVD-SUP (SUP/IFO) and VobSub (SUB/IDX) subtitles directly. TAW5 can only import SRT subtitles, with the exception of importing Blu-ray, AVCHD or DVD where the existing subtitles are imported.

When importing Blu-ray or AVCHD file structures with subtitles, TAW5 doesn't keep the transparency in the subtitles as expected. I have subtitles with a transparent plate behing the text. They become fully transparent once imported in TAW5.

I have sent a request to TMPGEnc technical support to include subtitle import in TAW5 and also pointed out the way TAW5 handles imported subtitles. It's questionable if it ever reaches the developers based on my previous experience with TMPGEnc technical support.

[RanmaCanada]

It also appears to have some issues with mkv with dual audio tracks. I am trying to move my anime over to bluray, as I want to have full series on 1 disc instead of the 5-7 they normally take. If you import the dvd's directly, it has no issues at all, but if you convert the tracks to mkv manually, as the conversion is horribly slow in tmpeg and does not allow anywhere near the options of x264 even though it is included in the program, it will not select the first audio track as the first audio track. What I have had happen, is track 2, the japanese track usually, is in track 1 and track 2. I had to go through every file individually and select the first audio track, it being english, which oddly it was seen as unknown though media info told me it was english and so does mkvmerge etc. Once it was selected I then had to tell the main track property that it was english as well, otherwise it would be an unknown track. It will understand vobsub, but you have to click on the import subtitles option and select it from the drop down. This is tedious when you have to do it for 24+ episodes!

I bought the software because it is promising, but I just wish they supported more subtitle formats. It boasts 8 subtitle tracks, but makes it hard when it really only understand srt or their custom subtitles natively. I just with they had an option for all tracks to have certain sub parts of mkvs take certain tracks in the files. And to make things even easier, I dunno if this is bluray standard or not, allow track in a track. Eg if I want to have 2-3 seasons of a show on the bluray, I want to be able to select season 2, and have all the episodes listed and be able to select what episode I want etc. But if you have chapter breaks, then it includes them in the actual files, because it only sees the episodes as chapters of that initial track. Sp you will have your track listed, then all the chapters in that track as chapters 2-6 and then the next ep start at chapter 7 with its chapters as 8-11 and so on. Because of this, you can easily hit the 99 chapter limitation that they have. Is that part of the standard as well??

All I want to do is move my bought dvd's to bluray for easier watching, and continue to keep my originals in their rubbermaid coffin. The blurays will not scratch as easy as my dvd's will, and since a lot of stuff I have is older 80's, they are out of print now, and I do not want to have to scour ebay for them at horrific prices haha.

[maxrnb]

. . . It's way faster to encode the video separately with x264 and then
importing to TAW5. . . .


I 've been using the TMPGEnc stuff for several years and went along with TMPGEnc
Xpress4/TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 and now TMPGEnc Mastering Works 5/TAW5.
I mostly archive my video stuff to DVD-R and I've found the results as acceptable.
My work flow normally includes pre-processing with AviSynth as it seems to improve
video quality a bit but it doesn't help with improving processing time.

It takes a long time for TMPGEnc to do anything with AVCHD source and I haven't found any
x264 settings that TAW5 doesn't want to fully re-encode. It might have something to do with
reference frames. Or maybe not. I can't figure it out. Mediainfo reports the clips coming out
of TAW5 as having either ReFrames: 3 frames or ReFRames: 6 frames.

On my machine TMW5 takes about 4X real time clip length to process AVC while x264 takes about 1.5X
real time clip length to process the same clip.

When I use the default 3 ref frames in x264, MediaInfo reports ReFrames: 4 frames and
TAW5 fully re-encodes it to ReFrames: 3 frames. I've spent hours trying out preset profiles
that I've found here in theses forums and on x264 forums and also tried to tweak settings
to match the TAW5 x264 encoding but I've had no joy.

Has anyone found x264 settings that encourage TAW5 to do "smart rendering" and not full
re-encoding?

I'm not an expert at this and eager to learn more about working with x264.

Help is good -

[Ulf]

It takes a long time for TMPGEnc to do anything with AVCHD source and I haven't found any
x264 settings that TAW5 doesn't want to fully re-encode.

I've had no such problems. Are you using "--bluray-compat" in the x264 settings?

[maxrnb]

I've had no such problems. Are you using "--bluray-compat" in the x264 settings?

Yes, "--bluray-compat" is included in all of the x264 configurations I've tried.

I've been testing 10 minute clips, and with TMPGEnc Mastering Works 5 transcodes, TAW5 (using smart rendering)
processes the 10 minute clip with simple menus in less than 2 minutes.

The same clip transcoded with MeGUI/RipBpt/StaxBot x264 using as many of TAW5's x264 settings as I can duplicate
takes about 25 minutes. Smart Rendering does not activate.

I'll keep trying. :thanks:

[Faramith]

Yes, "--bluray-compat" is included in all of the x264 configurations I've tried.

I've been testing 10 minute clips, and with TMPGEnc Mastering Works 5 transcodes, TAW5 (using smart rendering)
processes the 10 minute clip with simple menus in less than 2 minutes.

The same clip transcoded with MeGUI/RipBpt/StaxBot x264 using as many of TAW5's x264 settings as I can duplicate
takes about 25 minutes. Smart Rendering does not activate.

I'll keep trying. :thanks:

HI, any luck getting TAW 5 to smart render?

peace!