I tell you what...for as highly touted as the new MPEG encoder is, you'd think there'd be more than cursory one-paragraph "warning" about its use. There's hundreds of variables to pour over...and no mention of how to use them.
Do we just stick to the templates and hope for the best?
I'm gonna guess that there is no mention of how to use them because:
There ARE so many variables, and messing with the wrong combinations, of which there are even more variables, will lead to difficulty.
Different kinds of media require different approaches.
The templates are fairly complete and laid out to standards that have been tested at length.
Because they may only want to provide template-based tech support. Check out www.mpeg.org to get an idea of how BIG your question and the answer might really be.
'Course, I'm just guessing.
As a handful of other posts indicate, the basic NTSC DVD template does not seem to work with at least two major DVD-authoring programs, including DVDit in my case. That seems odd.
To provide abundant controls without providing abundant help is nothing new. But it's a little vexing.
Interesting- we tested with DVDit before ship and files from the Vegas 3 DVD template worked, no prob. I watched this process personally from start to finish, so this isn't second hand info.
MainConcept engineering will be looking at the MPEG threads starting today. I can't promise a direct response from them but we'll be monitoring all MPEG issues closely.
The default templates are very good, but if you are creating your own MPEG encoding templates, you can view context-sensitive help for the controls in the MPEG plug-in by clicking the ? in the top-right corner of the Custom Settings dialog and then clicking a control.
We are looking into the possibility of enhanced documentation for the encoder.
However, it's designed so that most of the controls will never need to be used by most people -- they are just there for specialized professional applications that might require certain parameters.
The best approach is to choose one of the presets, then only change parameters that need to be changed for a specific reason. For example, you might find that a lower quality setting increases rendering speed but still doesn't have a visible effect on quality on most material. Many people won't need to change anything at all -- the templates are designed to provide the best results for most people.
I would imagine that power users will soon start sharing optimal settings that they have come up with.
Some DVD authoring tools want separate a/v streams (REELDVD, MAC DVD, some others). You can achieve this right now by demuxing the .MPG after the fact (with TMPEG or a number of other web freebies) or you can render audio and video separately, in two passes (no 3rd party tools required).
We'll be making separate stream rendering a single operation in the first update, so hopefully you can live with this minor inconvenience for a few weeks.
DVD template produces files that work just fine as is in DVDitPE and MyDVDit.
SonicEPM wrote: "DVD template produces files that work just fine as is in DVDitPE and MyDVDit."
I can now confirm that is correct. My original problem cleared up after closing all the programs involved and restarting them. Since then, I have happily, joyfully and easily rendered and burned to DVD several videos.
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you can view context-sensitive help for the controls in the MPEG plug-in by clicking the ? in the top-right corner of the Custom Settings dialog and then clicking a control.
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