No Encore CC at DVinfo.net

Andy Wilkinson · June 18th, 2013, 04:13 PM

I just read on the official Adobe forum that CC does NOT have Encore, or indeed anyway of authoring DVD or BluRay optical media.

That disappointing change came in under (at least my) radar...Seems the Creative Suite 6 version previously available on disc is as far as Adobe will take it.

Adobe Community: Never leave CS6. CC pricing sucks, but this is even worse...

Pete Bauer · June 18th, 2013, 05:57 PM

Major rant, but I mean every word of it and for Adobe management to read it:

I did not know this and am shocked that Adobe continues to employ product managers foolish enough to repeat a major mistake so soon!

Recall that the Audition team didn't bother to put Redbook CD burning into Audition when it made its comeback to Create Suite 5.x. They got brutally pummeled for that omission (rightly so) and it was returned in CS6 merely a year ago. To forget such a clear lesson so soon and not support DVD and BR creation in this next major release is beyond belief.

I'd love for those physical media to become historical artifacts, too. But DISCS ARE NOT YET DEAD! The REALITY is that they are still in regular use. I need to produce DVDs and BRs on a regular basis, and even some Redbook CDs.

Work-arounds with legacy software don't cut it. Losing dynamic link for disc creation doesn't cut it (DL worked well for me, even if not others, and it was important to my workflow). The way I look at this unannounced abandonment of Encore development, Adobe shows up dressed to the nines with this beautiful new edition of CC on its arm...and proceeds to drop a turd into the punch bowl as the crowd gasps.

If Adobe makes content distribution more difficult for the legions of paying customers, they do so at their own risk. However, I know they do listen if the sound is loud enough. The more feedback, the more Adobe managers will heed what they're being told. I'll be contacting every Adobe employee I know and pointing them to this thread (even though I know they will see it anyway). If you don't tell Adobe your opinion, they'll assume all is well:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform...&promoid=EWQQL

Craig Seeman · June 18th, 2013, 06:26 PM

I think there's a reality in the economies of scale. Adobe probably killed Encore for the same reason Apple killed DVD Studio Pro. It makes little sense for developers to through R&D, programming and QA testing for a program whose user base is shrinking rapidly rather than growing the customer base.

While it may still be possible to burn a simple screener disc, the demand for a fully authored disc is small these day. You can see this in the commercial services. Disc rental stores have been replaced by Netflix, iTunes, Hulu Plus. Even Netflix have been trying to push to streaming over by mail disc rentals. People can send 1080 HD files to their AppleTV or Roku boxes. I've gone into business meetings with 1080 video on my iPad and hooked that straight to an HDTV with dock to HDMI cable. People distribute files on sites like Vimeo that allow download or otherwise use services like Dropbox. If someone has slow internet speed you can ship someone a file on a thumb-drive... and there's no issue of your burned disc having problems in some players.

... And if a disc is an easy way to distribute you can certainly burn an high quality H.264 .mp4 to the optical disc of choice and the recipient can copy the file to whatever. It's authoring that's dying and with the economic motive to continue development of such programs.

Pete Bauer · June 18th, 2013, 06:46 PM

Craig, your perspective is much different than mine so I suppose we'll just have to disagree and leave it at that.

I honestly don't like discs; they're a pain and I'll be glad when the time comes that I don't need to burn them anymore. However, the retail purchasers that small production environments cater to, which by numbers would be the lion's share of Adobe CC customers, still mostly want discs. Throwing free clips on YouTube is much easier, but for the small guys the options are fewer and the difficulty much greater to sustainably monetize HD video online.

And then there's still, "No way, my grandparents can barely work their DVD player, let alone a computer!" Check the WEVA forum...they talk about this regularly and disc is still the standard. If Adobe thumbs their noses -- like they did with Redbook CDs -- at customers wanting to do no more than maintain the disc creation capability of the previous software, they're in for a rude surprise.

Craig Seeman · June 18th, 2013, 06:51 PM

Adobe's official word.

FAQ | Adobe Encore CS6

Is the Encore CS6 version the final release of this product?
Yes. The trend in the video and broadcast industry is moving away from physical media distribution. The
future is in cloud and streaming content. Therefore we are focusing more on products that deliver to
streaming services. For example, Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Premiere Pro CC include a new
feature allowing users to create iPad-ready video with QuickTime chapter markers. The Encore CS6
version will be the final release of this product.

Eric Stemen · June 18th, 2013, 07:00 PM

Not really a surprise seeing that they did away with their boxed software on a disc.

Craig Seeman · June 18th, 2013, 07:01 PM

Peter while you can point to exceptions but the reality of economics for big developers is real.

I've had a few clients ask for DVD and my response was ask your marketing and distribution channel really wants. The clients invariably come back and apologize and report their channels want a distributable file.

Actually monetizing file distribution for small companies have become much easier than you may be aware of. There's scores of services that provide pay per view and pay per download support.

See this on Vimeo for example. There are many other similar services.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/genre/ins.../format:detail

See DaCast as another example with a variety of monetization options.
http://www.dacast.com/online-video-monetization.html

Pete Bauer · June 18th, 2013, 07:08 PM

Well, I've been looking for an economical and easily-implemented solution for a while. Not sure what you were trying to show in Vimeo but it didn't point to anything of interest. The other link...hadn't heard of it but didn't take long to see it would not be suitable or economical for my purposes. I've been keeping an eye on / considering Smugmug since it does both still and video downloads (not just streaming) but at present it seems to have its own set of limitations and issues.

You're obviously in a different situation than am I or the many folks who frequent the WEVA forum. Case in point and unfortunately true: the majority of the older members of my own family would never see my content if I couldn't burn discs!

If Adobe makes enough from the Big Guys that they feel free to ignore the many small guys out there, so be it. But they did try it with CDs just two years ago (return of Audition) and had to admit they were wrong to have prematurely announced the death of the CD. I just don't accept that it is too high a hill for Adobe to climb to simply to increment Encore even in a feature-neutral manner. IMO, the Premiere team manager is simply repeating the mistake of the Audition team manager.

If almost nobody agrees with me, it won't matter because we few won't make enough noise to get Adobe management's attention. But if there has been another premature obituary for optical discs, the portion of the customer base who still needs to create them shouldn't be shy about giving Adobe feedback.

Craig Seeman · June 18th, 2013, 07:30 PM

Although I think Redbook CD standard is a slightly different story. I doubt it takes much in the way of development and QA resources to maintain. Adobe is still distributing Encore. They've just announced that development has ceased.

Apple had a few maintenance updates to DVD Studio Pro too before it finally disappeared as well although they were certainly a few years earlier. Apple theoretically had motive to push file delivery though since Podcasts can be distributed through iTunes.

Adobe may have some file delivery motive as well. They may, for example, push for their HTML5 authoring tools which has interactivity. They do mention iPad files with chapter markers which is very easy to do.

I can't speak for WEVA but i have an anecdotal "grandma" story as well. My mother in law, nearing 80 is absolutely computer phobic... but you can't pry her iPad from her hands. Proud "grandma" has family photos and video clips ready to go with the tap of her finger. She can't work her DVD player either, which apparently doesn't get used much these days.

Peter Manojlovic · June 18th, 2013, 07:33 PM

Personally....DVD and BluRay authoring was/is a huge part of what many people do.
Unfortunately, Encore was flaky from the get go, and was never designed from the ground up. It's a shame.

Nonetheless, i don't understand Craigs whole R&D and economics angle. At this point, It's a product that doesn't need code written from scratch. It just needs some maintenance and GUI improvements.

As far as Apple dropping DVD Studio pro, i hope Adobe doesn't go down the same business path...

Craig Seeman · June 18th, 2013, 07:44 PM

Peter, maybe you didn't see my post yet when you posted. Adobe is still distributing Encore. They've just stopped development. Yes, it's flaky and it does take resources to fix those things and they may not want to spend that money. It'll probably have negligible impact on new subscriptions. I don't think people will make their CC subscription decision based on Encore and I suspect Adobe feels the same way. They might issue minor fixes as they have promised for other parts of CS6.

That it was a viable business model doesn't make it so presently. As I noted there are easy ways to deliver files and even monetize that delivery for the smallest business and individual.

Gabe Strong · June 19th, 2013, 02:34 AM

I wish my clients would STOP asking for disks. I offer a online link and make the original file available
for download to them as well (digital copy) and they ALWAYS, ALWAYS ask for a physical disk.
About 75% want a DVD, about 15% want a Blu Ray and about 10% want both DVD and Blu Ray.
Most want a digital copy in addition too, but not in place of physical media. No matter that the digital
copy is in HD and just as high quality as the Blu Ray if not better, they want to physically have the
physical media. Personally, I don't like it, it costs me money to order DVD's and packaging, it costs
me shipping to ship them to them, and it costs me time to go through an additional bunch of work authoring disks.
I wish to high heaven that what Craig says is true for him, was true for me. But it is about as opposite an experience
as you can get. I have had not ONE single client go for the digital copy.....and I've been offering that for about 4 years.
Every one without fail wants a physical disk. So Adobe and Apple can preach all they want about the 'wave of the future'.
But until actual clients get onboard with that, it, like most 'marketing talk', is a long way from the truth of things. Of course
personally, it's not a big deal, as I'm not down with software 'rental' so Adobe can do whatever they want. I don't care if
'Encore CC' would author the disk automatically using my brainwaves, I'm still not signing up if it's a
monthly payment scheme.

Mike Beckett · June 19th, 2013, 02:46 AM

I'm presuming that Encore will remain in the Creative Cloud downloads for the forseeable future... There's no other practical way for me to make DVDs or Blu-rays, and unfortunately my target audience is barely online, let alone happy to ditch discs!

Is there other software that is affordable and will offer the same features as Encore? Anything else I've found that is affordable (i.e $100s, not $1000s) doesn't allow anywhere near the same level of facilities for creating menus with the same level of control as Encore.

Brian Drysdale · June 19th, 2013, 03:35 AM

You could check out Sony Architect as an option. It comes as a bundle with Sony Vegas. It allows menus etc, but I haven't compared it with Encore and it is PC.

CD Architect 5.2 Overview

Nigel Barker · June 19th, 2013, 03:38 AM

This isn't quite as black as reported. As a Creative Cloud subscriber you can still download & install Premiere Pro CS6 which installs Encore CS6 (then remove PP if you want) Using Encore CS6 with PremierePro CC DAV's TechTable

I don't believe that Encore CS6 is any different to Encore CS5.5 or maybe even earlier so in terms of authoring functionality then I am happy to use the CS6 version but the downside is the Dynamic Linking from PP CC does not work for Encore CS6. This is a great feature if it works but has been so buggy that many/most people do not use it. I have been using it for the last couple of projects that I authored & it worked great so I was hoping that they would have fixed the bugs in a CC version but it's not to be evidently.

June 18th, 2013, 04:13 PM	#1
Andy Wilkinson Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge UK Posts: 2,853	Re: It's not Creative Suite anymore... news from Adobe I just read on the official Adobe forum that CC does NOT have Encore, or indeed anyway of authoring DVD or BluRay optical media. That disappointing change came in under (at least my) radar...Seems the Creative Suite 6 version previously available on disc is as far as Adobe will take it. Adobe Community: Never leave CS6. CC pricing sucks, but this is even worse... __________________ Andy K Wilkinson - https://www.shootingimage.co.uk Cambridge (UK) Corporate Video Production

June 18th, 2013, 05:57 PM	#2
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	Re: No Encore CC Major rant, but I mean every word of it and for Adobe management to read it: I did not know this and am shocked that Adobe continues to employ product managers foolish enough to repeat a major mistake so soon! Recall that the Audition team didn't bother to put Redbook CD burning into Audition when it made its comeback to Create Suite 5.x. They got brutally pummeled for that omission (rightly so) and it was returned in CS6 merely a year ago. To forget such a clear lesson so soon and not support DVD and BR creation in this next major release is beyond belief. I'd love for those physical media to become historical artifacts, too. But DISCS ARE NOT YET DEAD! The REALITY is that they are still in regular use. I need to produce DVDs and BRs on a regular basis, and even some Redbook CDs. Work-arounds with legacy software don't cut it. Losing dynamic link for disc creation doesn't cut it (DL worked well for me, even if not others, and it was important to my workflow). The way I look at this unannounced abandonment of Encore development, Adobe shows up dressed to the nines with this beautiful new edition of CC on its arm...and proceeds to drop a turd into the punch bowl as the crowd gasps. If Adobe makes content distribution more difficult for the legions of paying customers, they do so at their own risk. However, I know they do listen if the sound is loud enough. The more feedback, the more Adobe managers will heed what they're being told. I'll be contacting every Adobe employee I know and pointing them to this thread (even though I know they will see it anyway). If you don't tell Adobe your opinion, they'll assume all is well: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform...&promoid=EWQQL __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

June 18th, 2013, 06:26 PM	#3
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: No Encore CC I think there's a reality in the economies of scale. Adobe probably killed Encore for the same reason Apple killed DVD Studio Pro. It makes little sense for developers to through R&D, programming and QA testing for a program whose user base is shrinking rapidly rather than growing the customer base. While it may still be possible to burn a simple screener disc, the demand for a fully authored disc is small these day. You can see this in the commercial services. Disc rental stores have been replaced by Netflix, iTunes, Hulu Plus. Even Netflix have been trying to push to streaming over by mail disc rentals. People can send 1080 HD files to their AppleTV or Roku boxes. I've gone into business meetings with 1080 video on my iPad and hooked that straight to an HDTV with dock to HDMI cable. People distribute files on sites like Vimeo that allow download or otherwise use services like Dropbox. If someone has slow internet speed you can ship someone a file on a thumb-drive... and there's no issue of your burned disc having problems in some players. ... And if a disc is an easy way to distribute you can certainly burn an high quality H.264 .mp4 to the optical disc of choice and the recipient can copy the file to whatever. It's authoring that's dying and with the economic motive to continue development of such programs.

June 18th, 2013, 06:46 PM	#4
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	Re: No Encore CC Craig, your perspective is much different than mine so I suppose we'll just have to disagree and leave it at that. I honestly don't like discs; they're a pain and I'll be glad when the time comes that I don't need to burn them anymore. However, the retail purchasers that small production environments cater to, which by numbers would be the lion's share of Adobe CC customers, still mostly want discs. Throwing free clips on YouTube is much easier, but for the small guys the options are fewer and the difficulty much greater to sustainably monetize HD video online. And then there's still, "No way, my grandparents can barely work their DVD player, let alone a computer!" Check the WEVA forum...they talk about this regularly and disc is still the standard. If Adobe thumbs their noses -- like they did with Redbook CDs -- at customers wanting to do no more than maintain the disc creation capability of the previous software, they're in for a rude surprise. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

June 18th, 2013, 06:51 PM	#5
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: No Encore CC Adobe's official word. FAQ \| Adobe Encore CS6 Is the Encore CS6 version the final release of this product? Yes. The trend in the video and broadcast industry is moving away from physical media distribution. The future is in cloud and streaming content. Therefore we are focusing more on products that deliver to streaming services. For example, Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Premiere Pro CC include a new feature allowing users to create iPad-ready video with QuickTime chapter markers. The Encore CS6 version will be the final release of this product.

June 18th, 2013, 07:00 PM	#6
Eric Stemen Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Louisville, KY Posts: 378	Re: No Encore CC Not really a surprise seeing that they did away with their boxed software on a disc.

June 18th, 2013, 07:01 PM	#7
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: No Encore CC Peter while you can point to exceptions but the reality of economics for big developers is real. I've had a few clients ask for DVD and my response was ask your marketing and distribution channel really wants. The clients invariably come back and apologize and report their channels want a distributable file. Actually monetizing file distribution for small companies have become much easier than you may be aware of. There's scores of services that provide pay per view and pay per download support. See this on Vimeo for example. There are many other similar services. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/genre/ins.../format:detail See DaCast as another example with a variety of monetization options. http://www.dacast.com/online-video-monetization.html

June 18th, 2013, 07:08 PM	#8
Pete Bauer Wrangler Join Date: May 2003 Location: Eagle River, AK Posts: 4,100	Re: No Encore CC Well, I've been looking for an economical and easily-implemented solution for a while. Not sure what you were trying to show in Vimeo but it didn't point to anything of interest. The other link...hadn't heard of it but didn't take long to see it would not be suitable or economical for my purposes. I've been keeping an eye on / considering Smugmug since it does both still and video downloads (not just streaming) but at present it seems to have its own set of limitations and issues. You're obviously in a different situation than am I or the many folks who frequent the WEVA forum. Case in point and unfortunately true: the majority of the older members of my own family would never see my content if I couldn't burn discs! If Adobe makes enough from the Big Guys that they feel free to ignore the many small guys out there, so be it. But they did try it with CDs just two years ago (return of Audition) and had to admit they were wrong to have prematurely announced the death of the CD. I just don't accept that it is too high a hill for Adobe to climb to simply to increment Encore even in a feature-neutral manner. IMO, the Premiere team manager is simply repeating the mistake of the Audition team manager. If almost nobody agrees with me, it won't matter because we few won't make enough noise to get Adobe management's attention. But if there has been another premature obituary for optical discs, the portion of the customer base who still needs to create them shouldn't be shy about giving Adobe feedback. __________________ Pete Bauer The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Trying to solve a DV mystery? You may find the answer behind the SEARCH function ... or be able to join a discussion already in progress!

June 18th, 2013, 07:30 PM	#9
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: No Encore CC Although I think Redbook CD standard is a slightly different story. I doubt it takes much in the way of development and QA resources to maintain. Adobe is still distributing Encore. They've just announced that development has ceased. Apple had a few maintenance updates to DVD Studio Pro too before it finally disappeared as well although they were certainly a few years earlier. Apple theoretically had motive to push file delivery though since Podcasts can be distributed through iTunes. Adobe may have some file delivery motive as well. They may, for example, push for their HTML5 authoring tools which has interactivity. They do mention iPad files with chapter markers which is very easy to do. I can't speak for WEVA but i have an anecdotal "grandma" story as well. My mother in law, nearing 80 is absolutely computer phobic... but you can't pry her iPad from her hands. Proud "grandma" has family photos and video clips ready to go with the tap of her finger. She can't work her DVD player either, which apparently doesn't get used much these days.

June 18th, 2013, 07:33 PM	#10
Peter Manojlovic Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Hamilton Ontario Posts: 769	Re: No Encore CC Personally....DVD and BluRay authoring was/is a huge part of what many people do. Unfortunately, Encore was flaky from the get go, and was never designed from the ground up. It's a shame. Nonetheless, i don't understand Craigs whole R&D and economics angle. At this point, It's a product that doesn't need code written from scratch. It just needs some maintenance and GUI improvements. As far as Apple dropping DVD Studio pro, i hope Adobe doesn't go down the same business path...

June 18th, 2013, 07:44 PM	#11
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Re: No Encore CC Peter, maybe you didn't see my post yet when you posted. Adobe is still distributing Encore. They've just stopped development. Yes, it's flaky and it does take resources to fix those things and they may not want to spend that money. It'll probably have negligible impact on new subscriptions. I don't think people will make their CC subscription decision based on Encore and I suspect Adobe feels the same way. They might issue minor fixes as they have promised for other parts of CS6. That it was a viable business model doesn't make it so presently. As I noted there are easy ways to deliver files and even monetize that delivery for the smallest business and individual.

June 19th, 2013, 02:34 AM	#12
Gabe Strong Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Juneau, AK Posts: 814	Re: No Encore CC I wish my clients would STOP asking for disks. I offer a online link and make the original file available for download to them as well (digital copy) and they ALWAYS, ALWAYS ask for a physical disk. About 75% want a DVD, about 15% want a Blu Ray and about 10% want both DVD and Blu Ray. Most want a digital copy in addition too, but not in place of physical media. No matter that the digital copy is in HD and just as high quality as the Blu Ray if not better, they want to physically have the physical media. Personally, I don't like it, it costs me money to order DVD's and packaging, it costs me shipping to ship them to them, and it costs me time to go through an additional bunch of work authoring disks. I wish to high heaven that what Craig says is true for him, was true for me. But it is about as opposite an experience as you can get. I have had not ONE single client go for the digital copy.....and I've been offering that for about 4 years. Every one without fail wants a physical disk. So Adobe and Apple can preach all they want about the 'wave of the future'. But until actual clients get onboard with that, it, like most 'marketing talk', is a long way from the truth of things. Of course personally, it's not a big deal, as I'm not down with software 'rental' so Adobe can do whatever they want. I don't care if 'Encore CC' would author the disk automatically using my brainwaves, I'm still not signing up if it's a monthly payment scheme.

June 19th, 2013, 02:46 AM	#13
Mike Beckett Trustee Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Antrim, Northern Ireland Posts: 1,569	Re: No Encore CC I'm presuming that Encore will remain in the Creative Cloud downloads for the forseeable future... There's no other practical way for me to make DVDs or Blu-rays, and unfortunately my target audience is barely online, let alone happy to ditch discs! Is there other software that is affordable and will offer the same features as Encore? Anything else I've found that is affordable (i.e $100s, not $1000s) doesn't allow anywhere near the same level of facilities for creating menus with the same level of control as Encore. __________________ Irish Railway Videos on Youtube

June 19th, 2013, 03:35 AM	#14
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,152	Re: No Encore CC You could check out Sony Architect as an option. It comes as a bundle with Sony Vegas. It allows menus etc, but I haven't compared it with Encore and it is PC. CD Architect 5.2 Overview

June 19th, 2013, 03:38 AM	#15
Nigel Barker Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Norwich, Norfolk, UK Posts: 3,531	Re: No Encore CC This isn't quite as black as reported. As a Creative Cloud subscriber you can still download & install Premiere Pro CS6 which installs Encore CS6 (then remove PP if you want) Using Encore CS6 with PremierePro CC DAV's TechTable I don't believe that Encore CS6 is any different to Encore CS5.5 or maybe even earlier so in terms of authoring functionality then I am happy to use the CS6 version but the downside is the Dynamic Linking from PP CC does not work for Encore CS6. This is a great feature if it works but has been so buggy that many/most people do not use it. I have been using it for the last couple of projects that I authored & it worked great so I was hoping that they would have fixed the bugs in a CC version but it's not to be evidently.