Frequently Asked Questions Q. I have many encodes to do all from Final Cut Pro, is there a quicker way to do them rather then encoding them one at a time? A:  Yes, but you'll need to use our main UI rather then using QT plugin to batch encode them.  Simply save all your edits from FCP as separate QT reference movies.  To do this, in FCP, go to File->Export->QuickTime Movie and save each edit use "current settings" to prevent from changing the codec that is used, and also make sure to de-select "save movie self contained".  After you have created all the reference movies go into our main encoder (Applications folder, MPEG Power Professional Folder, MPEG Pro app) and create a separate task for each reference movie, start the batch as normal.   Q. I am having problems exporting using the HEURIS QT plugin, any suggestions? A:  In the latest update to the Apple OS, FCP, and QT, we have been seeing odd behavior in the QT plug-in.  The easiest workaround is to create a QT reference file and use this as the source within the main encoder.  For more details see the earlier question regarding "I have many encodes to do all from Final Cut Pro, is there a quicker way to do them rather then encoding them one at a time?"  At the time of this writing the problems seem to be mostly within 10.3.3 and later versions of the OS, version 10.2.8 seems to function properly.   Q. Can I concatenate several HD transport streams and play them back without problems? A:  The answer to this one is maybe.  Many people are doing this to simplify the encoding process on long projects so that parts of an encode are done and verified before moving on to the next part.  This also creates a possible way to create large files and or spread a large encoding project across multiple systems, speeding up the entire encode project.  From a MPEG specification view point, you can concatenate TS streams but its up to the decoder as to how it treats these types of files.  Our experience is that video generally survives without glitching but often you may get a minor audio hiccup.   Another way that is reported to work is to concatenate the video elementary files before they are multiplexed.  The process becomes:  encode many video clips (not mux'd), strip off the last 4 bytes of each video file except the last video file, concatenate all the video files into a single video file, and then mux the concatenated video file with its audio file (AC3) into the finished transport multiplex file.   Q. The software is crashing when I run the main encoder UI. A:  The most common problem is that if you are running the "d" build of the encoder, it is limited to creating files at most 2 gig in size, the encoder will stop at 2 gig possibly with a crash type message.  Other common problems that may be related is that the encoder does not recognize your source, check the MPEG Power Professional log file (open your project, project->view log file) for details. If you suspect a source conflict, try changing the media selector in "edit->preferences," setting the media selector to "prefer QuickTime over DirectX" seems to solve most problems. One way to determine if the source is a problem is to check if MPEG Power Professional can read your source in the crop editor.  To check the crop editor, start from the encode definitions window, and click the button edit settings found in the encode settings box.  From the video1 tab at the bottom of the window is a display frame button, if you push this and see video, MPEG Power Professional can read your source, if you get a message "no source video found" MPEG Power Professional can not read your source, you should then check the media selector settings (discussed above), or try using source created with some other codec.   Q. I have 24P content, and wish to encode for DVD, how do I? A:  DVD encoding of 24P content requires a mode of DVD encoding known as "repeat 1st field."  The DVD spec only allows field encoded content to be encoded, but all Hollywood movies are 24P which created a need in the specification to simply handle this situation.  "Repeat 1st field" is a mode of embedding flags into the video which tell the decoder how to emulate field encoded content, without actually encoding field content.  MPEG Power Professional can produce the same type of "Hollywood" DVD MPEG encoding, to do so:  choose your 24P source, select a DVD template, choose video only encode, in edit settings video 2 tab, make sure to set "if fields not detected... assume fields are interlaced", and also make sure to select "non-progressive encode."  When you encode the content, you can confirm proper encoding by looking for the words "Setting DVD Telecine flags in pictures." in the project log file (open the project, project->view log file).   Q. I'm getting an error message when running the offline registration utility which looks like this  "File error saving license; check disk and retry" what should I do? A:  We've seen this error most commonly on systems that are OSX 10.3.4.  A possible work around is to set the permissions of the entire "MPEG Pro.app" application to be the user that is running the software rather then the one that the package was set to upon installation.  Use the shell command "chmod" or the standard mac utilities to change the permissions.  Make sure you open the package contents and change all the permissions on all files in the package. Another directory to make sure permission are set is /Library/CFMSupport/MPEG Power Professional/*.   Q. Can I use MPEG Power Professional to do simple MPEG1 encodings? A:  Yes!  1x, 2x, Cdi, and Video CD templates are all MPEG1 templates, use these as your preferred template. Q. I have MPEG Power Professional for the PC "revision E" and see serious artifacting in lower portion of the image, what's wrong? A:  There is a bug in the PC "E" build which occurs only with multiprocessor or hyperthreaded (single processor or multiprocessor) systems.  We have a patch if you are having this problem, contact support directly to get the patch.  Another workaround is to disable multiprocessor support within the boot.ini file by adding the option /numproc=1 after the option /fastdetect, this could change the performance of your machine.  HEURIS also has unconfirmed evidence that hyperthreaded machines run slower on MPEG encoding, and setting this option in the boot.ini file may actually increase your throughput, for more research, you may wish to check out the search sites on the keywords "hyperthreading and computationally complex algorithms."   Q. If I have MPP2 does it mean that I have MPEG 2 encoding capabilities? A:  Not necessarily.  MPP2 means MPEG Power Professional version 2.   There are several different MPP2 packages, each having different functionality.   The package names and functionality are listed below: MPEG Power Professional-1 (MPRO-1) - MPEG 1 encoding only MPEG Power Professional-2 (MPRO-2) - MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 constant bitrate encoding. MPEG Power Professional-DVD (MPRO-DVD) - MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 constant bitrate encoding, plus MPEG 2 variable bitrate encoding.  MPEG Power Professional also includes other DVD specific features, such as closed GOP encoding, and AC3 muxing. MPEG Power Professional-DTVSD (MPRO-DTVSD) - MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 CBR encoding, MPEG 2 VBR encoding, plus transport multiplexing for playback on DTV servers. MPEG Power Professional-DTVHD (MPRO-DTVHD) - MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 CBR encoding, MPEG 2 VBR encoding, plus transport multiplexing for playback on DTV servers.  This package also supports MP@HL MPEG 2 resolutions and framerates, and video datarates up to 38.8 mb/s.   Q. How do I register my software? A.  MPEG Power Professional version 2.5 will prompt you to register upon your initial use of the software.  The Registration Wizard will ask you for your registration number, and all the information that our marketing department cannot live without.  Registration by the Registration Wizard requires your machine to have an open connection to the internet.  If you are not at a machine that is connected to the internet you can use the offline registration process.  To begin this process, run an application called "MPREG2".  This application is installed in the MPEG Power Professional 2.5 program folder.  You will notice here that you are required to enter your registration number and a License Code.  To obtain your license code, you will need the Installation Number listed at the bottom of MPREG2.   Go to any machine that is connected to the internet, and go to our Registration page.   Fill out the form and click "Submit" to obtain your License Code.   Q.  MPEG Power Professional will not encode my QuickTime file on a MAC.   What is going wrong? A.  First, check the file size of the QuickTime file.  On the MAC platform, MPEG Power Professional can only read up to 2GB directly.  There are several workarounds for this issue, however.  The easiest workaround is to export a reference file from your editing system, or create a reference file in QuickTime Pro.  This will create a file that contains no media and is usually under 100 KB.  This file will only contain "pointers" to the original media.  Since this file is significantly smaller than 2 GB, MPEG Power Professional can encode the media without running into the file size limitation. Another workaround is to use the QuickTime export component from QuickTime Player Pro or from your editing application.  MPEG Power Professional's export plug in will be available as an export option from QuickTime Pro, Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects (4.0 or higher), Cleaner 4 Pro, Cleaner 5 Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Media 100i.   This component allows you to export directly from any of these applications, alleviating the need to create a mediary file, for instance a QuickTime .mov file, so there is no concern for a file size limitation at all.   Q.  All my straight lines look jagged when I encode from DV source.   Why? A.  All DV material is recorded bottom field first.  If you do not have the "Set bottom field first flag" option selected, MPEG Power Professional will not tell the player to display the encoded material bottom field first, causing the fields to be displayed incorrectly.  This usually causes a jagged effect on straight lines, and in areas of motion. To set this option, go to Edit Settings/Video 2 from the Encode Definitions window.   On the right hand side, at the bottom, you will see where you can turn this feature on or off.   When working with DV source material, turn this option on (unless you are doing a Progressive scan encode).   Q.  I can't play back my high definition MPEG 2 files that were encoded with MPEG Power Professional.  What could be wrong? A.  The most common cause for this anomaly is the inclusion of MPEG 1 audio.   MPEG Power Professional only encodes MPEG 1 audio.  Most high definition MPEG 2 playback devices require AC3 audio.  To correct this issue, you will first need an AC3 encoder.  There are several options including Minnetonka Audio's Surcode (PC) and Apple's APACK (MAC).  To create a stream that will play on your HD server, you will need to encode the video by itself in MPEG Power Professional by selecting "Video Encode" in the Encode Definitions screen.  Next, encode the audio using your third party AC3 encoder.  Once you have the video and audio as separate files on your computer, you can multiplex them into one MPEG 2 transport stream using MPEG Power Professional.  To do so, just select the AC3 file, and the video only MPEG 2 file as your sources in MPEG Power Professional.  Select a "Multiplexed encode".   When you begin your encoding task, MPEG Power Professional will recognize that both files are already encoded, and will mux the two together into one file that will play on your HD server.     Q.  How does MPP2.5 work with the Avid system? A.  MPEG Power Professional will encode OMFI files directly on both MAC and PC platforms.  This means you can encode Avid's native OMFI files with out any additional hardware or software installed on your computer, not even the Avid software.   MPEG Power Professional has patented OMFI transcoders built in that allow it to decode OMFI files on it's own. As mentioned earlier in this FAQ MPEG Power Professional also comes with a QuickTime export component.  Through this component, you can export directly from your Avid timeline to MPEG.  Go to "Export to QuickTime movie..." in your Avid file menu.  An option for HEURIS MPEG Pro 2.5 will be available in your list of QuickTime export options.  Select this option,  then click "Options" to choose a template to use for encoding.   Q.  My DVD authoring package won't accept the files I encoded with MPEG Power Professional.  Can you tell me what's going on? A.  This is a common question, and the general reason for this issue is that user's are attempting to import multiplexed files.  When creating DVDs, it is necessary to bring in the audio and video assets seperately.  DVDs are multiplexed differently than MPEG 2 program streams.  Because of this, you do not want to bring in a program encoded MPEG 2 stream.  Most DVD authoring packages won't allow it. Encoding audio and video separately is easy.  In the Encode Definitions window, select "Video encode" for video only, and "Audio encode" for audio only, instead of the default setting of "Multiplexed encode".   Q.  I have been told that I can use your software to multiplex files encoded with Sonic Solutions' hardware.  Is this true? A.  Why, yes, it is.  In fact, you can use MPEG Power Professional to mulitplex any MPEG elementary streams.  To do so select both the video and the audio file created with Sonic Solutions as your source files in MPEG Power Professional.   Select "Multiplexed encode".  Choose an approriate template (If you've encoded MPEG 2 with Sonic, choose an MEPG 2 template.  If MEPG 1, choose an MPEG 1 template).  Start encoding.  MPEG Power Professional will recognize the files as being encoded files, and just multiplex them together into a single MPEG stream.   Q.  Does MPEG Power Professional work from Cleaner? A.  Yes it does!  When MPEG Power Professional is installed, a QuickTime export component is also installed that allows you to export straight to MPEG from several third party apps.  Cleaner happens to be one of the apps that supports this plug in.   To use HEURIS' plug in within Cleaner, just click the button in Cleaner that says "Output".  You will see an option called "HEURIS MPEG Pro".   Select this option to make use of HEURIS' superior encoding quality from Cleaner!   Q.  When I encode files from FCP using the HEURIS QT plug-in audio sounds like garbage, whats' wrong? A.  Make sure that your FCP sequence settings "audio settings rate" match the HEURIS encoding template.  For example if within FCP you are using 48khz audio, make sure your template is set to use 48khz audio, if it is set to 44.1khz, audio will be encoded incorrectly.