Step By Step Guide

1) The first step, before anything else, is to define the project size (either for a 4.7GB DVD-R/+R or a 8.5GB DVD+R DL disc). Launch TMPG Enc Author and click on the ‘OPTIONS’ box in the top-right hand corner. Select ‘ENVIRONMENTAL SETTINGS’ from the pull down menu:

2) In the window that comes up select the relevant project size: either 4.7GB or 8.5GB and then click ‘OK’:

3) The ‘Capacity Bar’ that runs along the bottom of the screen will change to the show the current project capacity. Your now ready to start your new DVD compilation. Click on the 'CREATE NEW PROJECT' box:

4) You should appear on the Source Setup Page now. Put your first DVD-RAM (or DVD-RW) disk in the drive and click ‘ADD DVD VIDEO’:

5) On the window that appears goto your DVD-RAM drive and select the folder ‘DVD-RTAV’ on the disk. Click ‘OK’.

6) A window will now display showing you the contents of the DVD-RAM disk:

In my example two separate recordings are found on the disk. Highlight the recording you want to copy to DVD-R (or the one you want to be first title) and click ‘NEXT’.

7) The final page of the Add DVD-Video wizard will now appear:

Check the box marked ‘COPY CLIP VIDEO DATA TO HDD’ and specify a suitable location using ‘BROWSE’. Then click ‘OK’.

8) The recording will now copy across to your system. The time it takes will depending upon the read speed of your DVD-RAM drive, your HDD and your system in general:

9) Once the Programme has finished copying the data to the HDD the following screen will appear:

If you wish to add chapters (or conduct more editting) click on ‘CHAPTER CUT EDIT’. If not click on ‘OK’ and skip to point 11 of this guide.

10) If you clicked on "Chapter Cut Edit" you will be taken to this screen:

To insert a chapter marker simply navigate to your chosen point using the navigation buttons, home down to the precise frame and click ‘ADD FRAME TO CHAPTER’. Once you click this a chapter mark will be added:

11) If you wish to edit (although you shouldn't need to as you have equally good facilities on your DVD recorder!) then you can use the ‘SET AS START FRAME’ and ‘SET AS END FRAME’ to mark the start/end points you wish to edit and use the ‘CUT’ button to remove the unwanted segment. Once your done adding chapters/editting click ‘OK’.

12) You'll now appear back at the Source Setup screen. You can either add more tracks or proceed on to create the menu. If you want to proceed and create the menu skip to point 14 of this guide (on the next page), otherwise read point 13.

13) To add a second track as a seperate title click on the ‘ADD NEW TRACK’:

This will bring up a new Programme box like this:

...and you can add your next recording by repeating the process described in points 3-9.

Important Note:
I should point out that if you do not click on the "Add New Track" option BEFORE importing your second clip it will be added onto the end of the first track meaning the two will play seamlessly when the DVD is finished. This can actually be a neat trick for merging video files but isn’t what you want if your adding seperate episodes of a TV series.

14) Now you have finished importing all your recordings you need to check the Capacity Bar along the bottom of the screen:

This shows how much of a DVD-Rs capacity you have used. Needless to say you need to ensure it is below the 4438MB limit. If your planning to archive onto a DVD+R you must not exceed the 4430MB limit. DVD+R DL users need to be below 8026MB.

15) Click on the ‘CREATE MENU’ button at the top, centre of the screen:

I'm not going to go into Menu Designing in too much detail in this Guide – that is something for you to discover and experiment with. I will go through the basics though.

On the left hand side of the screen there is a pull down menu (circled in the picture above) and visible pulled down below:

Select the template that suits you best or go for "New Theme" and design your own (as you will see I have a few custom designs in the list). To alter a theme (move buttons, thumbnails or titles/labels) you can click on the ‘EDIT MENU THEME’ button:

The menu editor is easy to get to grips with – but as it’s non-essential to the process we are trying to achieve I’m not covering it in this Guide. Just experiment with it once your happy with the rest of the process.

If you want your thumbnails to be animated, or you only want to show the Track and/or Title menus or only want to display some chapter points click on ‘MENU DISPLAY SETTINGS’ button:

Once again this is a design issue and not essential to the process so experiment yourself. The options are all self-explanatory.

At anytime during you menu creation you can switch between the Title menu and chapter menus by either clicking on ‘NEXT PAGE’ or by selecting the specific page on the list on the left hand side of the screen:

You can change the background image of any menu by double clicking on a blank area and selecting the file you wish to use as the background (JPEG images or MPEG movies can be used):

You can double click on any title/label and rename it (or remove all text) as well as change the font/colour and size:

…and that’s all I’m covering on menus. Experiment at your leisure on how to get the effects you want from the Programme. I've gone through more than enough to get you started!

13) One your happy with your menu(s) click on 'OUTPUT' at the top of the screen:

The screen will change to this: