TMPGEnc DVD Author 2.0 Review

DVD authoring package with a mix of easy to use tools and some powerful features

By Guy Wright

DVD Author 2.0 main screen (click picture for larger image)

TMPGEnc DVD Author 2.0 from TMPG Inc. and Pegasys Inc. ($89.95) is an easy to use DVD authoring program for Win 2000/XP users. It features MPEG frame accurate editing, automated slideshow creation, DVD menu creation, and DVD burning tools. Designed to be a simple to use, wizard-driven tool for beginners and intermediate users DVD Author 2.0 also includes some fairly advanced features for creating more elaborate projects. I had the chance to put the program through its paces to see how well it performed and found a mixed bag of very powerful and relatively easy to use features combined with some frustrations, bugs and puzzlements.

DVD Author 2.0 is available either in a boxed version or downloadable version. Installing the program was a snap and within minutes I was up and running. Just as quickly I ran into the first bug ? the help files aren?t linked to the program. Clicking on the help icon or even trying to launch help from the program?s menus did nothing. Theoretically you should be able to use the program without a lot of help and I did manage to stumble through a few projects just by using the wizards before discovering that the help files are indeed there, they just aren?t linked to the program. I had to launch the help files manually in order to see them. Of course, that led to the second set of problems.

The help files contain tutorials, the user guide, FAQs, and other information. Unfortunately the ?tutorials? are basically 14 text screens containing generalizations about what features are available without actually telling you how to use those features. The screens read more like a sales brochure rather than tutorials. The user?s manual is much more comprehensive and buried within are quite a few critical pieces of information you?ll need that the wizards aren?t going to provide. I would recommend reading through the entire manual before jumping into the program and that can be a frustrating task since there are dozens of typos, misspellings, and just plain bad English. In fact, the typos and poor English extend beyond the manual into the program itself and even throughout the company?s Web site. For the most part these mistakes are just annoying but there are cases where critical information is garbled. The manual also tends to jump around quite a bit and sometimes mixes beginner-level material with advanced information that can also be confusing. Once you do manage to wade through the manual you?ll find that there are a lot of things possible with the program.
 

To use DVD Author you import clips into tracks, edit and arrange those clips, create your DVD menus, simulate the disc, and finally burn the project either to your hard disk drive or to a blank DVD disc. I?ll briefly touch on each of these steps to give you an idea what?s possible with the program.

When you first click on the ?Source? button from the main screen you can import clips in four ways ? ?Add a File? lets you browse for suitable MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files stored on your hard disk; ?Add a Slideshow? lets you import multiple still picture files such as .bmp, .jpg, .png, and .psd formats; ?Source Wizard? which can import MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files (same as ?Add a File?), import a DVD video file or DVD-VR file from a disc, or import a Windows Media Center file (DVR-MS); finally you can add a clip to be used as a Firstplay track that will automatically play when the disc is first inserted. As soon as you add a clip you are presented with a screen giving information about the clip. If you import a Windows Media Center clip the program must re-multiplex the file before you can move onto the next steps. This process can take a few minutes. A 30 minute clip takes about three minutes to re-multiplex. One nice thing about the wizard is that if you specify Windows Media Center files it automatically searches your hard drive for the files so you don?t have to go looking for them.

DVD Author 2.0 main screen (click picture for larger image)

From the clip information window you can launch the ?Cut-edit and Chaptering? window. From here you can do basic cut edits, add chapter marks (or have them automatically inserted for you), and apply basic audio filtering effects. The program allows you to make frame accurate edits anywhere in the stream without having to worry about MPEG?s GOP structure (it will automatically re-render frames if it has to). When you are finished editing the clip and click Okay you are returned to the source screen where a thumbnail of the clip and information is displayed. You can continue to add other clips to the same track or create new tracks with other clips. Each time a clip or new track is added it will be displayed on this screen. Clicking on the ?Track Settings? button will bring up another window where you can adjust things like aspect ratio, bitrate control (VBR or CBR), encoding quality, and audio settings such as sampling frequency, quantization, bitrate, and format (MPEG-1 Audio Layer II, Dolby Digital, or Linear PCM).

Oddly enough the program defaults to MPEG-1 Audio Layer II which is not a valid NTSC DVD option (although the program won?t tell you this until you get all the way to the simulation step later on). So for every track you create you have to click Track Settings, click the Audio tab, change the output settings from ?Automatic? to ?Re-encode as below?, then select Dolby Digital or PCM in order to force it to create a valid audio stream. You have to repeat these steps every time you add a new track, which can be annoying.

If you import still images for a Slideshow you can resize and rotate individual pictures, add chapter marks, and adjust things like duration and transitions. Note: if you don?t add chapter marks you won?t be able to step through the pictures using your DVD player?s next and previous buttons. I managed to crash the program using the Import Folder option in the import wizard when it encountered a picture file in an unsupported format. A simple ?unrecognized file type? message would have been much better.

As tracks are added they appear in the Source window (click picture for larger image)

Once you have all your clips imported and tracks created you can move on to the Menu Creation step. When you first click the Menu button from the main screen the menu wizard is launched and you are presented with three options: create a menu from templates, create a custom menu, or don?t create a menu at all. If you select templates you are presented with a variety of pre-built menu styles with themes such as Holidays, Birthdays, Vacations, etc. (you can also go online to download more themes). If you elect to create a custom menu you are presented with multiple top and track menu options, navigation button styles, thumbnail frame styles, and backgrounds. Another quirk of the program is that it won?t let you import your own graphics from within the wizard (you can do it later). Once you?ve selected your template or custom items the wizard asks you if you want top menu only, track menu only, top and track menus, or let the program figure it out for you. You then tell it what actions to take when the disc is first inserted (display the track 1 menu, play all tracks, or play the header track only) and what to do when tracks finish playing (return to the menus, play the next track, or loop through all the tracks).