Solution for TMPG "can not open, or unsupported format&

[MrNatural]

Although this is my 1st post, I certainly am no stranger to this site. DVDRHelp has been my main teacher for learning how to work with movies and the various problems that come along with this endeaver. I would like to thank all those that make this site possible. I have burned over 500 movies now, mostly VCD, but a lot of DIVX, as I got smart and bought a divx player about 5 months ago. There's a lot of stuff I don't know, but would like to learn, as I love this pasttime. In the last couple of months, I've learned how to do subtitles and have burned about 20 of them using a couple of different methods. So far, I've pretty much been able to figure out how to fix the problems I've encountered - except one, and that's the dreaded "can not open, or unsupported format" error message that TMPGenc sometimes will give you when you first try to enter your .vdr file, when frameserving from VirtualDub. I've got a folder of about 1/2-dozen foreign movies I can't see because of this. These particular ones just wouldn't take. Seeing that little error notice just after pressing "open," is one thing that is guaranteed to illicit a couple of choice swear words yelled out towards my computer. I know this problem is fairly common, as I've seen a lot of posts about it when searching for an answer. There are some various stabs at it, but unnfortunately, I don't think there's a good answer on this site (and, please, excuse me if I've missed something). The answer I've seen 2 or 3 times of "changing the TMPG environmental settings under the VFAPI plug-in tab" may work for some, but certainly didn't work for me, as I've had mine configured like that from the start. Well anyway, I believe that I have stumbled upon the solution for this malady once and for all, so I felt it was my duty to report my findings. It just worked on 3 films in a row that I couldn't get to work before - one of them I have 2 different versions of the movie and about a half-dozen different subtitle files and have tried about 4 different combinations. Another one is part of The Apu Trilogy. I've got all 3, and tried and tried, but disapointingly couldn't get any of them past that frickin' message - but no more sucker - I got you now!
What causes this problem? It's long file names - and possibly your files in a folder too far down the file structure (which would also make for long file names), such as C/Programs/Movies/Subtitled/Ready for Encoding/TitleofMovie.avi. I got the cue for this as I had just added some folders in an attempt to organize a little bit (with end result not much different than the above example). Also, I remembered, somewhere in the myriad of posts and guides I've read here, someone saying that "TMPG doesn't like long file names," although I don't recall anything more said about what was meant by that statement.
As an example of what I did: One of the film filenames I had was "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring, etc.,etc." (no wonder this one wouldn't work, even though I had used a one-word name with .vdr file). All the parts for these, such as different subtitle files, CD1, CD2, etc., I stick in a folder anyway so I can readily find them, but just before I'm ready to start the subtitling/encoding process, I drag that folder into my "C" (main hard drive) folder, so that the file names will just start with "C/Movie Folder Name." Then I rename all the parts that I will be using to a like one-word name.whatever - like "Spring.avi" or "Spring.srt" or "spring.idx" and "spring.sub" so that the resulting file names in TMPG will be short. That may be overkill, but I just discovered this, so I don't know exactly what is too long or which ones make a difference. I just know this worked and was happy as a pig in sh. ., whoops, feces, when I learned that I could finally watch these movies. I hope my luck at stumbling across this makes someone else happy as well. I know it sure would have me if I had found this answer before.

[bazwaldo]

YO!! MrNatural you are the man!!
Your simple solution to the "can't open .vdr file, not supported" has just done the trick for me!
Thank you very much indeed!!
Like you I searched for all previous posts for a solution to this problem and tried switching on/off proxy files and altering the environmental level settings within Tmpgenc all to no avail.
I read your post and drastically shortened the folder address and name for my frameserved mpeg in VirtualDub and Bingo! Voila! Success!
It's all thanks to you and your first post! that my problem has been solved too.
Now I can frameserve that pesky mpeg and correct the audio sync and resize all in one efficient and space saving operation.
Your answer to so many people who had problems with this deserves to be at the top of the helpful answers and successful solutions forum.
MrNatural you are the man! and I will always be grateful to you for sorting this out for me.

[MrNatural]

Thank you bazwaldo for your nice reply. I had written this quite a while ago and was kind of surprised that there wasn't any other replies. I had the same enthusiastic response when first solving this, after spending so much time previously trying to figure out what was causing this. I guess maybe it is kind of an obscure problem that doesn't affect many (although it would seem that if you are doing movie subtitling with this method, that eventually you would, quite probably, run into this malady), or maybe 'cuz it was my first post, I couldn't know what I was talking about, or, looking at it now, maybe it was a little confusing and the answer maybe not readily discernable. If it is the last one, let me reiterate: the problem lies in the file titling. 1). Make sure all the filename parts used in the process leading up to making the final .vdr file (like .ssa or .sub,.idx, and .avi files) are exactly the same, except for the filename extension. Copying and pasting one name to the others and then changing the extension will help ensure this. 2). Keep the filename down to just a few words at most. Would suggest just a one-word name and extension. You can always change it before burning. Also, moving the parts to the top of the file folder heirarchy (such as the "C" folder), rather than somewhere down the line, will shorten the filename too. Also, if using more than one word, make sure there isn't more than one space between any two words. I like the process of using a period instead of a blank space for all my filenames. Thanks again bazwaldo and am glad that this solution helped at least one person.