Can I name chapters or do I need menus or ???

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  • Merlin
    Member
    Member
    • Jul 2006
    • 62

    Can I name chapters or do I need menus or ???

    Maybe its a dumb question but being new to dvd authoring, and trying out TMPGenc DVD author 2, I start with an airshow program I have on vhs of 1 hours duration transferred to my PC's HDD from a Panny EH50 dvd recorder.

    I wish to have the ability after the dvd is written to see a list of contents of it and jump to the part of the airshow where e.g. a harrier is flying, then to the swordfish, and so on, by clicking on a contents list featuring aircraft names.

    I am creating chapters at the start of each of the different aircrafts performance, assuming this is what I need, as they are but minutes long each, but can I give these meaningful names, they have just numbers hh:mm:ss:ff at present which is meaningless to me. Perhaps I need a tracklist, as it appears looking on the net that tracks can be named, but I get the feeling a track is an individual recording, so the entire program is track#1 ?? I sure need some guidance ! Do I need to cut up my program into many bits to get the ability to give them names using track naming ?...so as to name each aircrafts appearance ?

    Tutorials on DVD authoring dont cover such an occasion, simply talking of track name and chapters within, not mentioning how a chapter works, how to name it, why have auto chapters where they exist say every 15 seconds, surely a chapter should be the start of something,...meaningless to me !

    Please advise, I have many progs like this, not just airshows, where I want to be able to click on a named button to jump to e.g. spitfire within a documentary.

    Perhaps I need menus or titles, dunno...please help !

    Tried Ulead MF4 and now 5, but its scene selection is too quick and too fiddly, TMPGenc and the frame method it uses is more to my liking as I use Premiere and such is so obvious for sped of use. Also Ulead keeps locking up !
    Cheers
    Merlin
  • LT. Columbo
    Demigod of Digital Video
    • Nov 2004
    • 10671

    #2
    Hi merlin

    the way to get what you want is to load your clip in TMPGEnc , select start/end points as a seperate track and name it. do the same on each "chapter" or clip you wish to make. this will work. remember each time for each "clip" or chapter, select "add new track" and reload the same video. select the next start/end points, save etc. kind of tricky but works wonders i assure you!
    "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
    Columbo moments...
    "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
    "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
    (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


    Comment

    • Merlin
      Member
      Member
      • Jul 2006
      • 62

      #3
      Thanks Lt Columbo,
      That sound interesting, just wondering if it would solve my next need more than this one !
      I found that at the next phase of the program, after clicking add chapter every time I saw a change in subject, that the chapters were called Chapter 1 and so on, d/clicking them enabled naming and fonts, colours etc so that was me happy

      However I also want to take extracts from my videos, arrange in a sensible order perhaps and write another dvd when I have enough of these 'extracts'. I am wondering just how to do this. Your talk of 'add new track'...I wonder if I could use that to save the 'extract' as a video in its own right, naming it.
      Second thoughts it would be very laborious keep playing through the video.

      I had hoped to open the original video taken off DVD-RAM (ifo bup and vor files), open the video into Adobe premiere, play it and when I see a segment I want to copy out, highlight the segment and copy it to a new video file. In audio editing I can highlight a portion of the audio, go export selection as wav file, and thats it !....but here I need to do that for a video file.

      Then open a new project in premiere and bring all these extracts in of one subject matter and knit them all together.

      If you know of the best way do tell !

      Cheers
      Merlin

      Comment

      • LT. Columbo
        Demigod of Digital Video
        • Nov 2004
        • 10671

        #4
        i still stand by suggestion. it's the easiest. from what i understand you want to take various segments out of the file and join them without any pause or gap. i just did a test with a file of mine and it works beautiful. IMO, why use other tools when dvd author can do it all?

        remember, click "add file" go to "chapter cut edit", select start/end frames. click "edit menu" and select "cut all but currently selected range". agree to the message that pops up, click ok and NOW click "add file" AGAIN. do the same with the next section of the clip. keep doing this each time. it works
        "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
        Columbo moments...
        "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
        "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
        (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


        Comment

        • Merlin
          Member
          Member
          • Jul 2006
          • 62

          #5
          Hi Lt Columbo (thread staying here !)

          You may have the solution here for me

          let me explain my requirement a little better.
          I have captured vhs recordings to Panasonic EH50 thence to DVD-RAM and onto PC HDD as vro ifo and bup files.
          I need to write as many recordings (tracks) of a similar general subject (airshows, wildlife etc) as poss to dvd, e.g. two aircraft documentaries onto one dvd yesterday. Using TMPGenc to author such and chaptering where I feel necessary.

          I then also need to do the following...as I first envisaged it:
          1) Play first track and look for occurrences of subject_A, subject B , subject C etc, turn each occurrence into files, I end up say with A-1, A-2, B-1, B-2, C-1, D-1 as files, usually of short duration, some a few secs long at most..on my HD.
          2) Play second track and repeat this subject spotting and export. I get A-3, D-2...not much from that track !....and so on.
          3) Now I need to bring together all of subject A, so start a new project in the program of my choice and import A-1, A-2 and A-3,
          3) assemble them into a sensible order, e.g. aircraft detail shots first then flying shots. Then write dvd of this and call its volume name subject A.
          4) repeat for subject B and so on.

          I have just tried your suggestion.
          For me, as I have folders of file types mentioned above, I do the following:-

          This may be of use to others so hence I list the sequence here.

          1) For me , I use the add file wizard as this then recognises vro files.
          2) Go chapterCutEdit and scrub (slide cursor up/down) to the start of the first subject required, select the frame and click 'start frame' then scrub to end frame (I love the individual frames showing...makes this so very easy...cant fnd this in premiere but that may be me). and mark it also.
          3) click EditMenu..
          My version 2 sees edit menu instead say :
          Cut Edit current selection
          Cut Edit current unselected range

          Choosing the latter one sees all footage vanish except the subject footage. 4) Ok the warning window about ' cut includes chapter',
          5) OK the main window and it appears as a track.

          6) Now what is nice is I can rename this using right click, keeping source track name.
          7) I can also move it up and down the stack using buttons at right.

          8) I go Options>save project as> and name it Subject Assembly.

          When you think you have enough of e.g. subject A to fill a dvd, for safety go Options>save project as and call it subject A assembly.
          Delete all subject tracks leaving just tracks of subject A, arrange order if need be and see at base of screen how much it fills a dvd.

          Even if it doesnt, one could save this as Subject_A batch1, then import it in to add to a later assembly Subject_A batch2, however that requires turning the batch 1 project into a video file so as to import it, then it gets turned into one yet again, double the compression I guess and a loss of quality,,,,am I right ??
          There is no ability to bring in tracks from another project which is a shame.

          I could thus end up with my master subject assembly project with hundreds of tracks. Not sure what the limit is on that ?

          Another quibble...wish I could copy to clipboard the timecode of where I last left my cursor, then paste that into timecode and hit enter to go right back there upon returning to the recording having opened it yet again.
          Shame one cannot go export area between start and end frame markers to project 'Subject Assembly'.

          The advantage of this system is instant access to all subject tracks with thumbnails unlike a hard drive full of file names needing them all opening into a prog like premiere.

          Now I have many recordings on one Hard drive caddy, and more on another caddy, and of course cannot run both at once. How will I stand regards being able to open the project file if it then refers to files on two separate HD's ?
          I can but think that as I do a few programs, which I must erase anyway to create HD space as I am still transferring files onto it from DVD-RAM, I go Output>start DVD video building and put a copy of the files required into the TMPGenc Output folder.

          I trust that I can then open the subject assembly project and carry on with a different HD in the caddy slot. Is this so ?

          Alll in all this seems to have mileage !

          many thanks for the idea. Premiere has one stumbling block, its avi orientated and efforts to open vro file by renaming as mpg, or vbo files, renaming many for one program as mpg, sees stuttering playback and unclean sound ! Perhaps purchase a prog to turn vro into avi would alleviate such, but avi files are HUGE and thats not a good move at all.

          Any feedback on my few queries here welcome,
          Hope others wanting to at long last assemble the meaty footage that interests them on one dvd, find this useful or can explain a better way.
          Cheers
          Merlin

          Comment

          • LT. Columbo
            Demigod of Digital Video
            • Nov 2004
            • 10671

            #6
            i don't think TMPGEnc dvd author is going to meet your needs at this point...perhaps DVDlabpro?
            "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
            Columbo moments...
            "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
            "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
            (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


            Comment

            • rhymeminded
              Junior Member
              Junior Member
              • Aug 2006
              • 14

              #7
              Hi again, Columbo I stumbled on to this post looking for info and seen the outline u gave Merlin in regards to breaking a movie file into chapters. Im in the process of doing that now and noted its got an eta of over 16 hours. Is that the norm? Also, when complete and rdy to burn to disc, will I have the option to skip threw chapters like on a traditional dvd?

              Comment

              • LT. Columbo
                Demigod of Digital Video
                • Nov 2004
                • 10671

                #8
                Q1, no that is bloody insane. first, what are your pc specs and do you have DMA enabled on your HD?

                Q2. re: chapter navigation, yes.
                "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
                Columbo moments...
                "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
                "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
                (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


                Comment

                • rhymeminded
                  Junior Member
                  Junior Member
                  • Aug 2006
                  • 14

                  #9
                  Its an Emachine, AMD Athlon(tm)XP 1600+, 1.39 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM, and Im not familiar with what your referring to when you ask "is DMA set up on my HD"

                  Comment

                  • LT. Columbo
                    Demigod of Digital Video
                    • Nov 2004
                    • 10671

                    #10
                    "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
                    Columbo moments...
                    "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
                    "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
                    (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


                    Comment

                    • rhymeminded
                      Junior Member
                      Junior Member
                      • Aug 2006
                      • 14

                      #11
                      ya its enabled, to clearify its the encoding in TMPGEnc thats taking (says 19 now) hours to complete, not the actual burning of the video to disk
                      Last edited by rhymeminded; 6 Aug 2006, 03:10 PM.

                      Comment

                      • LT. Columbo
                        Demigod of Digital Video
                        • Nov 2004
                        • 10671

                        #12
                        any multitasking going on?
                        "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
                        Columbo moments...
                        "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
                        "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
                        (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


                        Comment

                        • rhymeminded
                          Junior Member
                          Junior Member
                          • Aug 2006
                          • 14

                          #13
                          ya was d/l something on Leecher, but thats complete now, other then that the only way I know to tell what my PC is doing is by either looking at the icons in the bottom righthand corner next to the time ( 7 showing at the moment) or hittin ctrl, alt, delete to see whats going on in task manager ( 4apps running, long list of processes show but only 4 have cpu numbers fluxing, under the performance tab it states CPU useage at 100 and PF usage at 512-514MB.) Does that answer your question of am I multitasking?

                          Comment

                          • LT. Columbo
                            Demigod of Digital Video
                            • Nov 2004
                            • 10671

                            #14
                            CPU is always 100%?
                            "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
                            Columbo moments...
                            "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
                            "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
                            (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


                            Comment

                            • rhymeminded
                              Junior Member
                              Junior Member
                              • Aug 2006
                              • 14

                              #15
                              I just canceled the encoden and closed newsleecher now its around 5-15 pct, seems to jump when i use my mouse

                              Comment

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