TMPGEnc XPress v4 and DVD Author v2

TMPGEnc XPress v4
TMPGEnc DVDAuthor v2

Just bought the latest bundle. It's a huge improvement over the earlier versions. Subtitle support, higher quality filters and output..etc. More of everything really. Been testing a few clips to DVD using XPress.

Only niggles I've found so far:

-need to be connected for damn license verification crap.

-Still only 2 channel ac3, no 5.1. You can import 5.1, but it will be downsampled to 2 channel.

-mkv and ogm work by drag-drop only as they're not officially supported. They work fine though, but if the default audio language is not the one you want to output then XPress won't help you. To get around this I used mkvtoolnix to remove the tracks I didn't want and remux. This works but it would have been nice to to be able to set the audio language in XPress.

-not cheap.

Other than that everything works fine. The resulting output is fantastic, definitely a lot better than v3 particularly with the new video noise removal + smart sharpen filters. Haven't found anything it won't open yet either.

&


Stopped me from looking further.

I dont support any companies that produce application software that treats me as if I'm a criminal.

I don't mind license verification if it works properly. It has not got in my way, nor is it doing anything else so I can't complain too much. The freeware route for some media conversion can be a pain imho. This just works with none of the bit where you're left using 5 different quirky programs to get the result you want. The 2 channel limit sux bigtime though.

I can agree about the freeware route though, especially when messing around with retarded formats like WMV that think they're better then everyone else.....

I mainly do small stuff that I want to plop onto my PSP via means of a couple prgorams (VirtualDub & PSPVideo9), but yeah, limitations can really slow things down, especially with regards to batch processes...

Something like a free version of XPress there would rule, but I cant justify paying that much for a program that I can do myself via a lengthier, but free, route.

Yeah the price is expensive. I had to think about it for a while beforehand. Thing is I've been doing a lot of re-encoding for the last 12 months, mainly to dvd or divx6, so it works out being worth it just to free up a bit of my time for doing some other stuff, like programming:) 'cause that's what I'd rather be doing than juggling a bunch of codecs through a heap of cludges. I think the price is high because of the software they licensed for XPress. I notice it's got a few other trademarks like Dolby.

If they licensed anything it should have been 5.1 channel support. That was a big let down from previous versions when they dropped that.

I wasn't aware that earlier versions of XPress supported 5.1.

Anyway, I've worked out how to keep any 5.1 channel tracks. I encode just the video stream with XPress, then use BeLight to re-encode the audio to 5.1 .ac3. Then use DVD Author to combine both streams, create the vobs and burn the dvd. Works fine, no loss of sync and BeLight is quick and easy to use (much easier than BeSweet). Not the ideal solution, but at least I get the best of both vid and audio encoding now, and it's only 1 extra step. I'm fairly certain I can get DTS encoding going in a similar way too.

I did look at 5.1 dvd encoding but the prices start at around $300US for anything even half decent. WinAVI Video Converter supports 5.1 and is fairly cheap, but I found it falls over on a lot of files, plus there's not even rudimentary editing/filtering options. I think you'd find that if XPress supported 5.1 output then the price would be at least double what I paid. Seems the moment you mention Dolby 5.1 dvd encoding, the price escalates considerably.

The thing I like about XPress is that it doesn't choke on ANY input format, even the wierd ones. If it plays on Media Player, XPress will import it. I also get none of the a/v de-sync crap which happens with a lot of other conversion tools. I have yet to see it crash, the batch encoding is great, filters are excellent and the final video output quality is as good as any commercial dvd I've seen. The 300 page manual covers everything to the finest detail too. No guesswork needed for undocumented options. I'm pretty happy now I've got the 5.1 happening.

TMPGEnc version prioer to 3 had 5.1 support... I think the first XPress version was 3 =]