Movie editing and Authoring using Pinnacle and TMPGE

[sseligson]

Please bear with me as I am really new at this.

I have an ati all in wonder 7500. I have no problems capturing movies with my analog video camera.

I have a movie that I captured and I wanted to dress it up with transations and the like using Pinnacle Studio 7.0.

I did all of my editing and tried to make a movie and I had several problems. Mostly during the rendering stage.

In order to rectify the problem I tried editing the movie and I was going to render it with TMPGE but TMPGE did not recognine the pinnacle file.

Now I am stuck I don't know how to edit a movie and then use tmpge to render it.
Please help!

[kitty]

Try to render the file as an AVI, highest quality encoder you can get (Indeo 4 or 5 highest quality if you can't get anything else). Then run this AVI through TMPGenc and you should have your MPEG.

[Feuerwehr]

I have edited with Studio 7, and encoded with TMPGenc for over a year and never once have had a problem. Just render your edited video to AVI. TMPGEnc has no problem encodeing the default "DV Video Encoder."

[sseligson]

Thanks for you reply but I still don't really understand. Remember I am a newbie.

So. I capture the movie I want to create. Then do my edits. Then go into the make movie section and render the movie as an AVI. Once I do that I have to use tmpgen to encode the movie?

I thought that Rendering and Encoding were the same thing?

[donpedro]

In Studio go to "Make Movie" and choose AVI. In settings select "DV Video Encoder" (Some users use different). This way only transitions and titles will get re-encoded and rest is just plain copy from original AVI. Now create AVI file.

In TMPGEnc go to "Option" / "Environmental setting" / "VFAPI Plug-in" and make sure that "DirectShow Multimedia File Reader" have highest priority. You can change priority there if it is not your case.

Now.... You should be ready to encode....

[donpedro]

So. I capture the movie I want to create. Then do my edits. Then go into the make movie section and render the movie as an AVI. Once I do that I have to use tmpgen to encode the movie?

I thought that Rendering and Encoding were the same thing?

No you don't have to use TMPGEnc. You can encode with Pinnacle.

This is my understanding of terms...

Rendering : This is done in format that you use in editing tool and it is used when you use transitions or titles or slow motion and so on.... Original video need to be joined with new information (title or new video - in case of transition).

Encoding : Transfering from one format to different. For example AVI to MPEG. MPEG is compressed format so you need to change data based on some rules (encode). It is not video specific.

[Sartori]

Donpedro is correct that Studio will encode your avi to mpeg , and this is the easiest way to do it and I agree with him 100% on this . When you gain the experience , step up from this method to tmpgenc as this is a frightening program to learn to try to make compliant videos .
Personally I don`t encode with Pinnacle , as I found the quality to be absolutely shockingly awful (BUT I`ve never tried digital input) , compared to TMPGenc (there are other topics which discuss the merits of them both) . I capture with VirtualDub using Huffy for short (3-5mins) captures or MJpeg for longer ones (experiment for correct settings against resolution) . Virtualdub can do fades (with a filter) and edit - which is mostly how I do mine . This is then frameserved to TMPGEnc . BUT this is a newbie question so forget this last bit .

Donpedro has best answer with (to stop reduction of quality)

In Studio go to "Make Movie" and choose AVI. In settings select "DV Video Encoder" (Some users use different). This way only transitions and titles will get re-encoded and rest is just plain copy from original AVI. Now create AVI file.

In TMPGEnc go to "Option" / "Environmental setting" / "VFAPI Plug-in" and make sure that "DirectShow Multimedia File Reader" have highest priority. You can change priority there if it is not your case.

which now I know it stops Studio recoding I`ll try it that way , extra step but easier than setting up VDub to do it . Thanks also Donpedro [/quote]

[abeelandig]

...I capture with VirtualDub using Huffy for short (3-5mins) captures or MJpeg for longer ones (experiment for correct settings against resolution) ...This is then frameserved to TMPGEnc...

Sartori (or anyone else)
Hi,
I am new to using VirtualDub and TMPGEnc. I am capturing with virtualDub and converting to MPEG1 with TMPGEnc. Can you, or anyone else please explain what frameserving is and how it can be useful to me? I have tried reading guides but didn't get too much out of them.
Thanks in advance for any advice/help.

[sseligson]

Thank you so much for your help. Here lies my initial problem. I get throgh about 7 frames of rendering. Then it just stops!!! I have a PII 500. Is that that the problen?

[sseligson]

I have been trying again and again. It seems to hang up on frame 7. I tried to delete 7 and it moved on and then hanged up again aronud frame 12.

THIS IS DRIVING ME UP A WALL CRAZY!!!! HELP!!!!

Or.... Is it that this frame will just take hours to render?

or

Shoudl I try other codecs? If yes which ones?

Or should I through my computer in the garbage?

[Sartori]

Sslegison , "7 frames of rendering" - in P.Studio or TMPGenc ? I used to do a lot on my PII 450 (overclocked 350) and that had no problems . Do you have plenty of disk space spare ? At least 256mb of memory ?





Abeelandig -
VIRTUAL DUB BITS
1.run the auxsetup program in the vdub folder .
2.click on "Install Handler" in the window that opens , these are for the handler .
3.open vdub and do your stuff with the video file and then
4.instead of save/as , about an inch lower on the file menu is "Start Frame Server "
5.this brings up a window , which tells you a bit of tech stuff and a button labelled "Start" - press it
6.another window comes up "Save .VDR signpost for avi handler" , enter a file name for a dummy file (for TMPGenc to load) NOTE enter it and end it with the extension ".avi" or it doesn`t work .eg Madonna-Vogue.avi - ALL of it NOT just the filename ( some people have the suffix ".vdr" mentioned in their tutorials , don`t know why - it wouldn`t load into TMPGencfor me .)
7.this then brings up the serving window - just leave it alone , it sorts itself out

TMPGenc Bits
1.now start TMPGenc
2.browse to where you saved the dummy file in this example "Madonna-Vogue.avi and load it , this will then "load" into TMPGenc
3.setup your TMPGenc settings and press start.
4.if you have forgotten something , press stop (the frameserving will also stop) , change what you forgot and then start again , and the frameserving will REstart from the start again - "grooovy"
5.if you wish to alter settings in VDub , press Stop in TMPGenc and then press "Stop Serving" in the VDub mini window , adjust your setting and proceed from step 4 in Vdub Bits etc etc

[bmiller]

Make sure the directshow settings in Tmpgenc are set to 3 or 4.I had a problem where the second pass of the vbr would stop at different pints of the encoding process.I had directshow selected to 1 and everything else to 0.When i changed it to 4,no more problems.
Pinnacle does a lousy job of rendering mpegs.I use Tmpgenc to encode xvcd's 720x480 16:9 videos from my digital camera through pinnacle.

[sseligson]

The rendering freezes in pinnacle make movie section.

I would try and use tmpgenc except the file I hvae is a pinnacle edited file. I tried TMGENC and it said that it can not encode this file type. So the file needs to somehow be converted to an AVI before I sue tmgenc right?

[donpedro]

Pinnacle file is AVI. Read this....

Pinnacle Studio 8 and DV home video editing

And rendering isuue ??? Maybe you have a lot of dropped frames. I was reading somewhere that this is problem for encoder and you can identify them (not tested by me) if you go to edit mode and move 1 frame up or down and picture doesn't change.

[sseligson]

no dropped frames!

By the way I am capturing analog video from a video camera.

[donpedro]

What is exact version of your Studio 7 ?

Latest on their web is Studio 7 version 7.15.1 Patch

[sseligson]

I have the updated patch

[donpedro]

Well... Create AVI (DV codec) and try TMPGEnc and post result.

[Sartori]

To give you some more ideas (some are grasping at straws - BUT if you are pulling your hair out , I`ll mention them ) . Bear in mind although they look like they won`t work , they are being suggested because they have worked on occasion for me - eg. if there is a registry fault , the deinstallation and subsequent reinstallation could/should correct this . I know its a pain in the arse doing it , but it can work .
1.Try uninstalling TMPGenc and reinstalling it , I had problems with a corrupted file once which just stopped it working ok or if you installed P.Studio after TMPGenc like I did , some of my codecs disappeared .
2. try reinstalling your codecs is the other thing that it could be .
3.Or try uninstalling P.Studio and then reinstalling it .

Have you checked the Directshow settings as Donpedro and bmiller suggested ?

Or before you do the above :

You could try capturing with Vdub or VirtualVCR (great program) and see if they produce output that is acceptable to TMPGenc - try controlled experiments like this to check if things are working without P.Studio being involved , try it with no compression codec (just a 20second clip) then capture with different codecs (obviously saved with the codec name ) and see what TMPGenc will accept .

Good luck