TDA 3 Encoding Already Compliant Footage..WHY???

[barneystorm]

Been a TDA user for many years now...I'm now on TDA3 and while it's got some nice new bells and whistles, it's in danger of becoming an over complicated piece of software.

My latest issue is this- lets say I've making a PAL DVD and I have three pieces of video to add- a 720 x 576 piece, a 704 x 576 piece and a 352x576 piece. In previous
versions, all I had to do was to put each in it's own track and there was no
problem. In TDA 3, if I try to do the same again, it will automatically
re-render the other two pieces even though they are already DVD compliant!!

I'm sure there HAS to be a way around this in the settings somewhere, but
I've looked and can't find it. Long shot I know, but anyone else here come
across this and got a work around??

[aedipuss]

individually dvd compliant but not allowed in one titleset by the dvd spec. if you design your dvd with multiple titlesets you should be able to do it without the re-encode.

[Baldrick]

aedipuss: multiple titlesets = multiple tracks in tda.

[aedipuss]

ok. that's what i get for only using dvd-lab. i should check out the others once and a while.

[barneystorm]

Thanks guys..I'm sure there must be some way around this even the old 'Header change' trick doesn't seem to work with TDA now. Back to the previous version it is then

[guns1inger]

Check your manual. I suspect there will be a check box somewhere to tell TDA not to re-encode compliant tracks. You just have to find it.

[rickydavao]

What did you do your original encoding with. Depending on the application, it may have encoded your video with more GOP's than TDA 3 recognizes as compliant. With pulldown applied (not sure what your framerate is), I believe that the GOP cannot exceed 18 for DVD compliancy, but most players will play DVD's with up to a 24 or so GOP without too much trouble. When you add a track in TDA3, there is an option to check a box that tells TDA that your clip will be imported as XDVD compliant - basically, more than 18 GOP (although in the case of actual XDVD, a LOT more). Try checking this box to see if it helps, as this was the same problem I had when encoding avi's to dvd-compliant mpg's using either DIKO or FAVC and HCEncoder. This fixed my problem, so please let me know if it helps.

[TBoneit]

I kept TDA1.5 when I bought TDA3 simply because the header patch trick works in TDA1.5. I like the features of TDA3 but sometimes you need the older one too.

I suggest keeping both. The Q&D AVI/WMV/Non Std Mpg./flv/DVD to DVD or .divx is handy sometimes.

I say that since I did get Philips Ultra Divx players.

[barneystorm]

What did you do your original encoding with. Depending on the application, it may have encoded your video with more GOP's than TDA 3 recognizes as compliant. With pulldown applied (not sure what your framerate is), I believe that the GOP cannot exceed 18 for DVD compliancy, but most players will play DVD's with up to a 24 or so GOP without too much trouble. When you add a track in TDA3, there is an option to check a box that tells TDA that your clip will be imported as XDVD compliant - basically, more than 18 GOP (although in the case of actual XDVD, a LOT more). Try checking this box to see if it helps, as this was the same problem I had when encoding avi's to dvd-compliant mpg's using either DIKO or FAVC and HCEncoder. This fixed my problem, so please let me know if it helps.

Nope..same problem- it seems to just check the resolution of the first title and any subsequent titles that don't match that, it re-encodes... I've tried it with three completely DVD compliant files (Both with the correct GOP sizes).

The files I'm using by the way are direct DVB captures that have been GOP checked (I know not all DVD is DVD GOP compliant).

The only button I can see is one that says 'do not change the size of this file' but that seems to do nothing.

[nTekka]

You might want to double check your MPEG2 file, TMPG doesn't work very well with alot of DVB capture system cause of non-conforming MPEG2 files they create. If you see a red 'FR' logo next to your clip then it will be re-encoded no matter what you do. From my own experience TDA3 will use the first imported clip as a reference setting for all the following clips in one track so you can not mix resolution without having it re-encode. Best way to avoid this is to create new tracks for each clip that varies in resolution, ie. 1 track for 720x576, another for 704x576 and one for 352x576 then all 3 of your MPEG2 will be considered 'SR' and won't be fully re-encoded, assuming they really are DVD compliant.