Its all gone pear shaped.

[tdallison]

For a number of months I've been using TMPGEnc Plus to encode downloaded XVID avi's into mpg2's. I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 to author and burn them onto DVD.

I learned the little I know from the excellent guides on this site and in general I'm happy with my results. I even managed to chop out a couple of bad frames that caused audio sync problems on one file and felt pretty pleased with myself. I also discovered that a lot of the newbie problems I first experienced were down to hard disk fragmentation.

I have a problem now though which I'm struggling to get my head round ... the last five attempts at the process have failed. TMPGEnc go's through the motions but the resulting mpg2 files aren't recognised by anything. Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 reports that the "File contains no video". This happens with different source avi's and I've tried to open or view the mpg2 with numerous applications. The original XVID avi's play fine in Media Player and are all about 700mb in size.

I've rebooted, defragged my hard drive and reinstalled the Nimo codec pack. I've scanned the various input files with VirtualDub but its not reported anything wrong. To my knowledge nothing has changed on my system.

Interestingly enough, if I split the films into (roughly) two parts at the encoding stage with TMPGEnc and author them separately as per normal, they work fine.

Am I missing something obvious here ?

Cheers,
Tony
UK

[Richard_G]

For a number of months I've been using TMPGEnc Plus to encode downloaded XVID avi's into mpg2's.

Am I missing something obvious here ?

The main thing you are missing is the forum rules. You won't get a reply to a problem with downloaded files.

[bugster]

The main thing you are missing is the forum rules. You won't get a reply to a problem with downloaded files.

I disagree. Just because we are discussing downloaded video doesn't immediatley mean it is warez. No file names or movie titles have been mentioned that prove it is illegal copies. So innocent until proven guilty.

@tdallison, all I can think of is you have managed to click on a setting in the TmpGenc window or a dialog somewhere that has caused this. Doubl/triple check every setting and dialog in Tmpgenc you can find. Especially check the radio buttons on the bottom RH corner of the main window when TmpGenc is encoding.

you say

TMPGEnc go's through the motions but the resulting mpg2 files aren't recognised by anything.

Can you play the mpegs in WMP or a software DVD player?

[tdallison]

For a number of months I've been using TMPGEnc Plus to encode downloaded XVID avi's into mpg2's.

Am I missing something obvious here ?

The main thing you are missing is the forum rules. You won't get a reply to a problem with downloaded files.

You have made the assumption that the files are illegal. You must be judging me by your own standards.

[tdallison]

The main thing you are missing is the forum rules. You won't get a reply to a problem with downloaded files.

I disagree. Just because we are discussing downloaded video doesn't immediatley mean it is warez. No file names or movie titles have been mentioned that prove it is illegal copies. So innocent until proven guilty.

@tdallison, all I can think of is you have managed to click on a setting in the TmpGenc window or a dialog somewhere that has caused this. Doubl/triple check every setting and dialog in Tmpgenc you can find. Especially check the radio buttons on the bottom RH corner of the main window when TmpGenc is encoding.

you say

TMPGEnc go's through the motions but the resulting mpg2 files aren't recognised by anything.

Can you play the mpegs in WMP or a software DVD player?

The encoded mpg2's don't play in WMP nor are they recognised by DVD Movie Factory 2 or DVD Workshop .. I'm just trying another encode and I'll try the sw player when its done.

I guess next will be to uninstall TMPGEnc and reinstall because, as you say, I may well have changed something without realising it.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[zak_swan]

I used to use Tmpgenc to encoded but use Main Concept now it's 3 times quicker
I also used to use Movie Factory 2 to author but it has some problems the last one that springs to mind is messing up with chapters that had started out at 23fps before encoding. I now use tmpgenc DVD author to... err author.

Anyway ive no idea why if u split files into 2 parts before encoding they work. Im sure someone will work it out from that.
Lack of space on hard drive?

i dont know but change from Tmpgenc to Main Concept and be a happy chappy

[tdallison]

Ok, i tried to play the resulting mpg2's in a sw player but they didn't work.

So, using the same source avi files, I went through the encoding process on a different pc and it worked fine .. this confirmed the problem was specific to my pc as I suspected. I uninstalled TMPGEnc and reinstalled it.

Using the same source avi files, I went through the encoding process and loaded the resulting mpg2 into Ulead Movie Factory2. This time, after a delay of a minute or so (whats that all about?), it recognised the file and successfully burned it to DVD.

But .. upon closer inspection the length of the mpg2 was 20 minutes shorter than the source avi. Now, I could understand it if the mpg2 was too big to fit on a disk but this isn't the case ... the mpg2 is short despite no source range being set in TMPGEnc.

Anyway, I've queued up another encode to see if it does it on other inputs too.

I'll check out Main Concept ... but i've got this TMPGEnc problem between my teeth and can't let it go til its fixed )

[Roderz]

I've rebooted, defragged my hard drive and reinstalled the Nimo codec pack

No NO NO NO In my experiance this can cause all sorts of probs
Better of just installing individual codec's as needed ie divx3,4,5, xvid etc..

[tdallison]

I've rebooted, defragged my hard drive and reinstalled the Nimo codec pack

No NO NO NO In my experiance this can cause all sorts of probs
Better of just installing individual codec's as needed ie divx3,4,5, xvid etc..

I hear you ... thing is though that for my needs, the Nimo pack does the job. I don't think this problem is codec related as it just started to happen. More likely that I checked a box I shouldn't have.

I think if/when I come to reinstall everything I'll just install the codec's I need as I've heard loads of people say not to use it.

[mujahid7ia]

are you on NTFS or FAT32? hte fact that 2 separate mpeg2s work and one doesnt... maybe its too big.

FAT32 has a 4GB file limit.

[tdallison]

I'm on Xp Pro, NTFS with a 120gb storage disk (seperate system partition). I still have about 40gb free space.