I'm using TMPGE to encode standard def video as MPEG-2, no higher 4,000 constant bitrate, Multiplexed. When I imported it into Encore CS5 it re-encodes it.

Is it re-encoding because of a setting in Encore or TMPGE? I've included links to screen caps to show you what I'm seeing.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a317/pcofran/Screencaps/TMPGE.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a317/pcofran/Screencaps/encore.jpg

I use elementary settings, Encore never re-encodes.

thx I'll give "Elementary" setting a try.

Hi Pete,

Good advice from Ann. To expand on that, use "Elementary (Video+Audio)" specifically. This should result in an .m2v video clip and .wav audio file (uncompressed).

What you are doing right now is "multiplexing" the audio and video together into a single mpeg clip, and if you notice the audio settings in your panel, you are highly compressing the audio as MPEG-1 at 128Kbps.

While most DVD players can handle the MPEG audio, they are not required to by DVD spec - they only need support PCM (wav) and Dolby (which is the default encode setting in Encore, at 192Kbps.)

So what is happening when you bring the muliplexed file into Encore is that it first must DeMux, or separate, the video and audio, thereby forcing a re-encode of both. In Encore, you can use "Import > As Timeline" and just grab both clips and they will come in together. Or you can manually import each as Assets and drag to timeline, your choice. Then when you Build the project, the video should NOT get transcoded, and just the audio will be (quickly) transcoded to Dolby Digital. This is high-quality, coming straight from the uncompressed wav and not being compressed twice.

Note that the .m2v and .wav files combined might seem too big to fit the DVD, but Dolby compresses the audio much smaller. While 2 hours of .wav might be over 1GB, the Dolby file is maybe 200mb.

How long is your video? The 3000 setting is a very low quality, suitable for almost 3 hours of video! If your program is really that long, you will benefit from 2-Pass VBR encoding. A good rule of thumb is 560/minutes=data rate. For instance 560/120=4.66 and I just round down a bit to allow for overhead of menus and such, so 4.5 is a good choice. In any event, don't exceed 8000.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

I didn't come up with a definitive answer. Encore in some instances will accept a multiplex mpg2 without transcoding and sometimes its wants to transcode it. In TMPGe the "DVD Mpeg2" preset worked with more success even though the "Generic Mpeg2" preset seemed to use the same setting (both used system multiplex). I'd imagine Elementary would also have a great chance of Encore not transcoding it. Funny thing is today I was exporting a movie from Premiere as mpeg 2 and Encore wanted to transcode that. Point being, its a big waste of time and degrades the quality when Encore re-encodes a long movie.

As far as the bit rate is concerned this is depo work where there in little no motion going on. A person is being interviewed in front of neutral background. Under these conditions a low bit rate still yields acceptable results.

Perhaps in this instance, Tmpgenc changes the Matrix settings to suit for such a low bitrate.
And perhaps, Encore is being picky..

Just a guess.
But yeah, always elementary streams.